Happy Thursday Night Thunder race day, everyone! The Camping World SRX Series returns for race No. 2 of the 2023 season, and it will be a second-consecutive week at Stafford Speedway due to unprecedented flooding at Thunder Road Speedbowl, the originally scheduled venue for this week’s race.
While SRX typically fields 12 cars each week, this week’s race will have 13 drivers in the event.
Full-time SRX racers Hailie Deegan, Tony Stewart, Paul Tracy, Ryan Newman, Ken Schrader, Brad Keselowski, Bobby Labonte, and Marco Andretti will be joined this week by Greg Biffle, Daniel Suarez, Ryan Preece, Kenny Wallace, and Tony Kanaan.
Full SRX TV Schedule for Thursday, July 20th
| Time | Series | Event | TV / Streaming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 PM ET | Camping World SRX Series | Race 2: Stafford Speedway | ESPN ESPN App |
Race Format, and Heat Race 1 Starting Lineup
The Camping World SRX Racing events feature two qualifying Heat Races, which determine the starting lineup for the final Main Event. Thursday night’s heat races will be 12-minute-timed heats, which will go for a maximum of 25 laps, while the Main Event will be 80 laps.
The Heat Races, and Main Event each impact the SRX championship battle as Heats and Main Events all award points.
Heat Races are scored on a 12 to 1 point format, meaning the winner of the Heat will score 12 points, second place will score 11 points, and so on.
For the Main Event, the winner of the Main takes home 25 points, while second place is awarded 22 points. Every position behind second place decreases by two points (third place is given 20 points, fourth place 18, etc.)
Here is the starting lineup, which was randomly drawn for Heat Race 1:
| Pos. | No. | Driver |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Hailie Deegan |
| 2 | 14 | Tony Stewart |
| 3 | 3 | Paul Tracy |
| 4 | 39 | Ryan Newman |
| 5 | 69 | Greg Biffle |
| 6 | 52 | Ken Schrader |
| 7 | 6 | Brad Keselowski |
| 8 | 99 | Daniel Suarez |
| 9 | 18 | Bobby Labonte |
| 10 | 1 | Marco Andretti |
| 11 | 41 | Ryan Preece |
| 12 | 36 | Kenny Wallace |
| 13 | 66 | Tony Kanaan |
The starting lineup for Heat 2 will be the inverse of the finishing order from Heat 1, and the Main Event starting lineup will be determined by the combined results in Heat 1 and 2.
Denny Hamlin won the 2023 Camping World SRX Series season-opener last week at Stafford. Hamlin, a full-time competitor in the NASCAR Cup Series, is not competing full-time in SRX, and will not race on Thursday evening.
