Weather will impact Saturday’s racing Stewart-Haas trio at the front after shortened qualifying
Not a single raindrop had fallen on the track at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday afternoon, but a couple of thunderstorms passed by close enough to lead NASCAR officials to cut qualifying short for Sunday’s Monster Energy Cup O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.
That left Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer in the top three starting spots for Sunday’s race. Busch won the pole with a speed of 197.368 miles per hour.
All 37 cars made it through the first of three qualifying rounds, but before the second round could start, lightning passed by the track close enough for NASCAR to call for a 30-minute delay. Twenty minutes into the delay, another storm moved in, leading officials to call off the remainder of qualifying. Rain arrived at the track not long after all the cars had been returned to the garages.
“It was a unique situation with just having the one round,” Busch said. “The thought that weather was out in the area, it hadn’t crossed our minds, but you’ve got to play all three rounds as smart as you can. We went a little bit aggressive that first round and it paid off.”
The qualifying results speak to the impressive start Stewart-Haas is enjoying this season. Thanks to three straight wins by Harvick and one by Bowyer, the organization has won four of the six races this season.
“It’s really neat to have our Fords at Stewart-Haas all in it like this,” Busch said. “When you go to attack the track and really stand on the gas hard, it’s a great feeling to know that it’s gonna stick. StewartHaas Racing has been on fire.”
Does NASCAR need a megastar?
Signs all around Texas Motor Speedway promoted the “New Kids on the Track,” referring to young Cup stars such as Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney and others.
Right next to the posters with caricatures of the young drivers were signs quoting a Twitter post from Harvick last week that noted the average age of the winners of the first six Cup races is 38.5 years.
It has further fueled a recent rivalry between young and old, with the new drivers gaining an abundance of publicity despite having very few victories.
Winning, Harvick says, is the “difference between a superstar and a megastar,” and he believes the sport needs a megastar.
“You gotta win,” Harvick said. “In the past, a superstar wasn’t a megastar because of the fact he didn’t win enough. Chase Elliott is the next guy that can be the megastar, but you gotta win.”
Busch says he’d like to take the day off on Saturday, rather than put his car on the track for a noon practice session when the temperature is expected to be near 40 degrees — 20 degrees cooler than is in the forecast for the start of Sunday’s race.
That much temperature difference means Busch and the other drivers won’t be able to learn much during Saturday’s practice about how their car will react to Sunday’s conditions.
In the same way, the Xfinity Series drivers will have to adjust to colder weather after practicing in nearly 80-degree temps on Friday.
Qualifying for the Xfinity Series My Bariatric Solutions 300 will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday and the race will begin at 2 p.m., televised on KOKH-25.