Bobby Labonte led all 75 laps Saturday night on the way to winning the Superstar Racing Experience event at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
The 2000 NASCAR Cup series champion held on in a 10-lap sprint around the short track to win his first SRX race.
Labonte beat Marco Andretti and first-time SRX participant Matt Kenseth to get the win.
“I didn’t run good in practice and I told Tony (Stewart) ‘I think I’m just running the wrong line,” Labonte told CBS. “I usually try to fire off and go fast when I feel like I’ve got plenty of confidence. I didn’t. I will say I just followed Josef (Newgarden) there early and couple of those other guys, they’re tough.
“These guys on this SRX group, these men and women, you won’t believe how hard they work to get these cars to the race track week in and week out … I can’t believe I won one.”
Labonte is the current series point leader after four races. Saturday night’s race was his first at the short track since he ran in and won a NASCAR Busch Series race at facility in 1996. That was Labonte’s only prior start there.
“I see Matt Kenseth coming and I’ve seen this story before,” Labonte said. “I’m like, ‘oh my god, here he comes.’ So, it’s just so hard. It’s not easy. Maybe I made it look a little easy tonight, but it wasn’t easy.”
For Andretti, it was his second consecutive runner-up finish, after he placed second to Ryan Newman at Stafford Motor Speedway.
“(Labonte) shot out of a cannon right from the start of the feature, so I knew he was a force to be reckoned with there” Andretti said. “I think the fastest car won for sure. … If I can get the power down a little bit better, I think I would have gotten closer at the end. Those Cup guys know just how far to pull away at the end so you can’t get to their bumper.”
After running between sixth and eighth most of the night, Kenseth made a charge to third over the last 10 laps.
“I felt like I really flopped around in the heat races,” Kenseth said. “My car got real loose, I burned the rear tires up. I felt like I didn’t have any clue what I was doing. In the feature, the car was better once I put tires on and fixed the stagger and everything, but just kind of puttered around for 50 laps or so. I was trying to figure out how much time I needed to get to the front. I quickly passed two or three of them. … I felt like I had the best tires at the end, I just kind of ran myself out of time.”
Paul Tracy was fourth and Helio Castroneves compelted the top five.
Labonte started the main event in second and quickly took the lead from pole-sitter Andretti.
Tracy, who finished third at Stafford Motor Speedway last weekend, roughed up Andretti a little bit when he got by him for second around Lap 14.
Tracy reeled Labonte in over the next 10 laps to get within a car length. However, Labonte was able to inch away over following 10 laps.
The first competition caution waved on Lap 40 of 75. On the ensuing Lap 44 restart, Labonte got the lead out of Turn 2 and Tracy bounced off the outside wall. The next time by, Andretti got underneath Tracy for second.
On Lap 49, IndyCar champion and Tennessee native Josef Newgarden got loose entering Turn 1 and backed into the outside wall, bringing out the caution.
Newgarden: “I just got loose, man.” @SRXracing #campingworldSRX pic.twitter.com/gc2Yr1bCpw
— Tom Bowles (@NASCARBowles) July 10, 2022
The race restarted with 17 laps to go as Labonte and Andretti briefly fought for the lead, making contact going into Turn 3 and Labonte pulling ahead.
The second caution for an incident came with 10 laps to go after Tony Kanaan and Newgarden, battling for second, made contact and wrecked. The back of Kanaan’s car was destroyed.
Despite his accidents, Newgarden was able to finish seventh in his first SRX start.
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Newgarden led every lap of the first heat race and local racer Cole Williams, who finished 12th in the main event, did the same in the second one.
Andretti gained 11 spots in both heats and started first in the main event as a result.
With almost one minute left in the second heat race, Castroneves completely lost his right-front fender when he ran into the back of Hunter-Reay.
Attempts were made to repair the car, but Castroneves returned for the main event without his fender still missing.