(Pevely, Mo)—A rare opportunity for Missourians to see Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 winners race each other comes up July 16 in Pevely, a small town south of St. Louis on I-55.

Winners of five Daytona 500s and two Indianapolis 500s will be racing in Tony Stewart’s SRX series at the Federated Auto Parts Raceway in Pevely. The field includes winners of five NASCAR championships and winners of four open-wheel championships for Indianapolis-type cars.

The Superstar Racing Experience, created by former NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart and championship crew chief Ray Evernham matches drivers from NASCAR and INDYCAR for a six-race summer series on paved and dirt oval tracks in identically-prepared cars.

Each race also includes a champion driver from the featured local track.

Scheduled to run at Pevely on July 16:

Matt Kenseth  2003 NASCAR Champion; 2009, 2012 Daytona 500 winner

Hallie Deegan, who drives in the NASCAR Truck Series

Tony Kanaan  2013 Indianapolis 500 winner; 2004 Indycar champion

Ken Schrader (guest)  1988 Talladega 500 winner; Started on pole for Daytona 500 three straight years.

Tony Stewart  2002, 2005, 2011 NASCAR champion; 1997 Indycar champion; 2005, 2007 Brickyard 400 winner;

Ryan Newman  2008 Daytona 500 winner; 2013 Brickyard 400 winner

Marco Andretti 2006 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year; 2020 Indianapolos 500 pole winner; four top-3 finishes

Bobby Labonte  2000 NASCAR champion; 2000 Brickyard 400 winner

Paul Tracy  2003 CART champion

Michael Waltrip  2001, 2003 Daytona 500 winner

Ryan Hunter-Reay  2010 Indycar Champion; 2012 Indianapolis 500 winner

Greg Biffle 2000 NASCAR truck series champion; 2002 NASCAR Busch Series champion; 2005, 2006 Southern 500 winner

Schrader, who owns the Pevely track, helped develop the cars used in the series. He raced in NASCAR’s top series for 29 years and still competes at age 67 in the ARCA series and also on local tracks throughout the country.

The SRX races are televised on Saturday nights by CBS.  This year’s first race, run at steaming hot Five Flags Raceway in Sarasota, Florida, was won by four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who had not been scheduled to compete until sponsorship for his car came through on Friday.

.Castroneves won the second of two heat races and finished ahead of local driver Bubba Pollard—who won the first heat race—with NASCAR’s Ryan Newman taking the remaining podium spot.

The second race of the series is next Saturday night at South Boston Speedway in Virginia.

The first four races of the season will be on paved speedways.  The last two races, beginning at Pevely, will be on dirt. The track at Pevely is one-third of a mile oval with nineteen-degree banked corners that usually features various classes of stock car racing.  The absolute lap record on the track was set by current NASCAR champion Kyle Larson in 2020 with a lap of 9.995 seconds (119.94 mph) in a winged sprint car.

(NASCAR.INDYCAR)—Neither of the big series was in action last weekend.  NASCAR is at Nashville next weekend. INDYCAR returns July 3 at the Mid-Ohio Road Course.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen held off Carlos Sainz in the Grand Prix of Canada, run in Montreal, to pick up his sixth win of the year and build his championship lead to an impressive 175 points.  Sainz, who could close on Verstappen but not get past him, finished less than one-second back.  Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who has endured a year of struggle and pain, was third after his car—and other F1 manufacturers—got some modifications designed to reduce bounding, or “porpoising” on high-speed runs.

Photo Credits:  SRX Racing; Bob Priddy (Castoneves at indianapolis 2022)