Race Recap: With the SRX season finale Saturday night at Sharon Speedway and a championship on the line, Marco Andretti was able to battle back from an early race incident to secure the 2022 SRX Series Championship and Chase Elliott held off a late-charging Tony Stewart for the race win. Matt Kenseth finished third followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay and Bobby Labonte to round out the top five.
Elliott is now two for two in SRX competition adding the win at Sharon Speedway to his 2021 win at the Nashville Fairgrounds.
Ryan Newman finished second in the point standings, two points behind Andretti and Labonte retook third followed by Stewart in fourth. The top four in points were separated by only seven points at the conclusion to the 2022 season.
Post-Race Quotes:
Marco Andretti (Champion): “The cool thing about this is you get damage, you can still play and stay on the lead lap. I broke my wrist in that last incident, got my thumb caught in the wheel, so painful last couple of laps, but I just wanted to cover and finish right where I needed to finish, and we were able to do that. This thing was pretty robust tonight.”
Chase Elliott (Race Winner): “To sit there and race on dirt with one of my heroes in Tony Stewart and throw a couple of sliders with him, obviously this is a little different than the open wheel stuff, but knowing how good he is at this stuff and being able to dice it up and race with him. I actually thought he was better than me the run before and then I was able to watch him on the top and finally get a couple of things going there. Congrats to Marco (Andretti). Great crowd. Thanks everybody for coming out tonight. And thanks to the Blaney’s for having me up here.”
Tony Stewart (Finished 2nd in the Main Event): “I wasn’t very good in the heat races and I tried everything I’ve learned my entire life on dirt and pavement and a combination of both and couldn’t get going and couldn’t get enough points to get a good starting spot. Started ninth and worked out way up to fifth and then they had a little calamity on one of the restarts that got us to third and then we were in position to race for this thing and the win. Gave Chase (Elliott) a slide job in one and two and got the lead and got going, but the longer I ran the more my forward drive gave up and Chase was really good. He did a really good job at managing tires and making sure he didn’t make his rear tires mad, he did a better job than I did. I had to use mine up to get to the front and he just did a really good job of managing tires all night. Exciting race in general, extremely exciting race for the point championship having four of us in the running, well five of us mathematically, but literally four of us with a really good shot to win it. To have a champion sitting there with a brace on his wrist because he’s broke his wrist shows how hard and how much these guys want to win races and win championships with SRX. Just eternally grateful to Camping World and Marcus Lemonis and all of his staff. Good Sam was on my car all year. Just grateful we had great partners, we had TMS, VP Fuels, had a ton of great partners that came on board. An extremely talented group of guys to race with which made this year fun. It’s cool to see Ryan Blaney get to race with his dad tonight, got to do that with Chase and Bill Elliott last year. It was really fun at the end of this race tonight to run with Chase like that. Chase has been running midgets and ran a Sprint Car race on dirt, which makes my heart happy because that’s where my heart is, is dirt track racing, so to see him get a chance to come back and do that and see that he wants to learn that and get good at that is something that makes me proud. Super excited about the season. I think probably the biggest thing is I am so proud of our staff. We were very understaffed this year compared to last year and they did every bit of the same amount of the work if not more than last year with damage we had and gave us great race cars to drive each week. It’s probably, to those guys and girls who were here for six weeks working, it’s probably the longest six weeks of their life every year, but it makes all of us drivers extremely happy to know that when we come to the track we have great race cars to drive, so very grateful for that.”
Matt Kenseth (Finished 3rd in the Main Event): “This race was really fun. I really liked the race track. Last week I really struggled a lot, different style of dirt track and plus we got wrecked out. Here we got wrecked out in the heat and the guys did a good job fixing it. It was fun, just had to be real patient. I just kind of stayed on the bottom and looked for as much moisture as I could there. I never really ventured up top and tried to figure that out very good. The track was so slick that it seemed to work for me.”
On Racing SRX this Season:
“It was fun. It was a good experience. I learned a lot. I think all three weeks, I got wrecked out two of the three, and thankfully they were able to fix it for this one and we finished last week but with half car, so I would like a little less hitting and little less wrecking. Other than that, it was really fun. I had a great time at Nashville, Pevely was a great track and I had a good time here and it ended up ok.”
Ryan Newman (Finished 2nd in the Championship Point Standings): “Thanks for SRX and Camping World and everybody involved. It’s been an honor to be a part of this. Obviously, the outcome is not what we wanted, but to be second in the championship with some of the greatest drivers in the world is still pretty special. It wasn’t the end result that we wanted, but we did get an amazing result in Stafford and to have my daughters there in victory lane was so special for me and something that I will always remember. Happy to be a part of it and excited to hopefully get a chance to do it again.”
Bobby Labonte (Finished 3rd in the Championship Point Standings): “The race tonight, I thought we had a good start. We started sixth in the first heat and finished fourth. And then started at the back and finished third, so a good average and started third in the feature and was just steady, steady as it goes. Really the only thing I screwed up was on a restart I spun the right rear tire and lost two spots and then was done after that. I couldn’t get back around anybody.”
On Racing SRX this Season:
“As for the season, highlight was Nashville starting up front, leading and winning there was awesome, but we had a good run at South Boston, a decent run at Stafford, a good run at Pensacola and then we go to Pevely and didn’t have a good finish and then had a decent finish here and finished third in the points. Can’t thank everybody enough. It was always a lot of fun. My wife and I have been road tripping on this whole thing, and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way. We call it our summer fun and we enjoyed it. Can’t thank everybody enough for doing it and it’s hard to race against these guys because they are so good, but we were able to have a good one.”
Main Event Results at Sharon Speedway:
| Finishing Position | Driver | Car Number |
| 1 | Chase Elliott | 9 |
| 2 | Tony Stewart | 14 |
| 3 | Matt Kenseth | 5 |
| 4 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1 |
| 5 | Bobby Labonte | 18 |
| 6 | Greg Biffle | 69 |
| 7 | Ryan Blaney | 12 |
| 8 | Ryan Newman | 39 |
| 9 | Marco Andretti | 98 |
| 10 | Paul Tracy | 3 |
| 11 | Tony Kanaan | 6 |
| 12 | Dave Blaney | 10 |
| 13 | Michael Waltrip | 15 |
Heat 2 Results at Sharon Speedway:
| Finishing Position | Driver | Car Number |
| 1 | Chase Elliott | 9 |
| 2 | Tony Kanaan | 6 |
| 3 | Bobby Labonte | 18 |
| 4 | Ryan Newman | 39 |
| 5 | Dave Blaney | 10 |
| 6 | Marco Andretti | 98 |
| 7 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1 |
| 8 | Paul Tracy | 3 |
| 9 | Tony Stewart | 14 |
| 10 | Michael Waltrip | 15 |
| 11 | Greg Biffle | 69 |
| – | Matt Kenseth | 5 |
| – | Ryan Blaney | 12 |
Heat 1 Results at Sharon Speedway:
| Finishing Position | Driver | Car Number |
| 1 | Ryan Newman | 39 |
| 2 | Michael Waltrip | 15 |
| 3 | Marco Andretti | 98 |
| 4 | Bobby Labonte | 18 |
| 5 | Tony Kanaan | 6 |
| 6 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1 |
| 7 | Chase Elliott | 9 |
| 8 | Tony Stewart | 14 |
| 9 | Greg Biffle | 69 |
| 10 | Dave Blaney | 10 |
| 11 | Paul Tracy | 3 |
| 12 | Matt Kenseth | 5 |
| 13 | Ryan Blaney | 12 |
SRX PR
