Marco Andretti entered the season as the defending series champion and returned to run full-time in the SRX Series in 2023.[1]Ryan Newman won the series championship by 45 points over Andretti and Brad Keselowski after winning one race during the season at Stafford II.[2]
2003 Barber Formula Dodge Eastern class champion 2004 Barber Formula Dodge National class and Southern class champion 2 IndyCar Series wins 2022 SRX Champion
Paul Tracy was scheduled to run full-time but was suspended after the race at Pulaski County and did not return to the SRX for the rest of the year.
Schedule
The 2023 schedule was announced on December 21, 2022. All races were held on Thursday nights instead of Saturday nights. The 2023 season also started in July and ended in August for the first time. The first two seasons started in June and ended in July. [24]
The 2023 SRX schedule featured a return to Stafford Motor Speedway for the third straight year (making it the only track on the SRX schedule in all three years of the series) and series co-founder Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway dirt track for the first time since 2021. The other three tracks, two of which are paved and one (Lucas Oil Speedway) of which is a dirt track, were new to the SRX.[24] The original schedule included the paved quarter-mile Thunder Road International SpeedBowl in Barre, Vermont as the second event of the season, but due to extensive flood damage in the area the event was moved to Stafford (making it the only track so far in SRX history to host back to back races), with Thunder Road being granted a guaranteed date in 2024.[25]
The schedule was designed based on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule in order to attract drivers from that series to race in the SRX race on the Thursday before the weekend's Cup Series race. Each race except for the season finale at Lucas Oil Speedway was held at a track in the same area of the country as the track that the Cup Series raced at that weekend.[26]
All six races were broadcast live on TV in the United States on ESPN, replacing CBS and Paramount+.[24]
On April 25, 2023, the lineup of commentators for the SRX in 2023 was announced. Lap-by-Lap Allen Bestwick and pit reporter Matt Yocum moved over from CBS and returned in 2023. Bestwick previously worked for ESPN on their NASCAR coverage from 2007 to 2014 (first as a pit reporter, then as a studio host and then as a play-by-play) and IndyCar Coverage from 2014 to 2018. There were three rotating guest color commentators in the booth: Joey Logano at Stafford I, Berlin and Eldora, Conor Daly at Pulaski County Motorsports Park and Lucas Oil Speedway, and Darrell Waltrip at Stafford II.[27]
Lindsay Czarniak, who was the host role for the SRX on CBS in 2021 and 2022, did not return for this season. She previously worked for ESPN in the same role on their IndyCar coverage. On July 6, ESPN revealed that Nicole Briscoe, who was the studio host for NASCAR on ESPN from 2011 to 2014, would be the host on the SRX TV broadcasts in 2023, replacing Czarniak.[28] There was no roving reporter this season, a role previously filled by Brad Daugherty in 2021 and Willy T. Ribbs in 2022, resulting in each broadcast only having four commentators (down from five).
^ abPaul Tracy was originally designated as a full-time driver, but was suspended with immediate effect on July 28, 2023 after intentionally wrecking Josef Newgarden at Pulaski County Motorsports Park and collecting several other drivers. It was announced on August 2, 2023 that Paul Tracy will not return for the rest of the 2023 SRX Season.[7][8]
^In Heat Race #1 at Eldora Speedway, Austin Dillon was running in 7th place when a lower radiator hose burst sending him into the outside wall into turn three as well as dumping fluid onto the track which would ultimately end up collecting all of the drivers running in the 8th-12th positions. These drivers include: Hailie Deegan, Marco Andretti, Chase Briscoe, Tony Kanaan, and Matt Kenseth. Because of this, Hailie Deegan and Marco Andretti, the two series regulars who were involved ended up going to a back up car for the rest of the night, while Tony Kanaan and Austin Dillon were unable to participate in Heat Race #2 as well as the Feature because there was no backup car for them to use, and their cars had sustained too much damage for them to continue. Chase Briscoe was unable to participate in Heat Race #2, but was able to rejoin the field on Lap 47 of 75 of the Feature and eventually was able to drive to a 7th place finish after being placed on the lead lap by SRX race control. Matt Kenseth sustained minimal damage in the wreck and was able to continue in the same car for the remainder of the night.[29][30]
^"(Twitter post)". Donald Hawk. July 12, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2023. Aaron - yes that's precisely what happened there and we wish him all the best @IndyCar and hope to have him back to @SRXracing someday soon.
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