IndyCar & NASCAR Double Header at Phoenix
Over this last weekend, Saturday and Sunday, at Phoenix Raceway, which is located in Maricopa County, Arizona. The track had a busy weekend while hosting not only NASCAR, but also the other series that are part of NASCAR, the O’Reilly Auto Parts series, as well as the main series of NASCAR, the Cup Series (Cup Cars), (Next-Gen-Cars), and they also hosted the IndyCars that week as well.
The series that went first on the track at Phoenix Raceway was the NASCAR Cup Cars for qualifying for pole position on Sunday for the race. After they finished their qualifying session, the IndyCar series was on the track the race started at 3:00 P.M ET.
Unlike the NASCAR series, the IndyCar series does not have stages in the race; they go all the way to the end of the race with no stages involved. The race was 250 laps with a few cautions due to incidents (crashes or debris).
The way the point system works for IndyCar is completely different from NASCAR’s point system for all three series of NASCAR, since there are no stages in IndyCar, the stage points are worth much more points than just 10 through 1.
The way it works is that it awards 50 points to the race winner, with a descending scale (40 for 2nd, 35 for 3rd, 32 for 4th, 30 for 5th) down to 5 points for positions 25th through 33rd. Bonus points include 1 point for pole, 1 point for leading a lap, and 2 points for most laps led.
The race results of the top 10 for the IndyCar race were: 1st was #2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske), 51 points, 2nd was #27 Kyle Kirkwood (Team Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian), 41 points, 3rd was #12 David Malukas (Team Penske), 39 points, 4th was #5 Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren), 33 points, 5th was #66 Marcus Armstrong (Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian), 31 points, 6th was #20 Alexander Rossi (Team ECR), 28 points, 7th was #9 Scott Dixon (Team Chip Ganassi Racing), 27 points, 8th was #3 Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske), 9th was #15 Graham Rahal (Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), 22 points, 10th was #8 Kyffin Simpson (Team Chip Ganassi Racing), 20 points. The race winner was #2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske).
The next day (Sunday), the Cup Cars raced at Phoenix. The Top 10 for Stage 1 were: 1st was #12 Ryan Blaney (Ford), 10 points, 2nd was #20 Christopher Bell (Toyota), 9 points, 3rd was #22 Joey Logano (Ford), 8 points, 4th was #45 Tyler Reddick (Toyota), 7 points, 5th was #11 Denny Hamlin (Toyota), 6 points, 6th was #2 Austin Cindric (Ford), 5 points, 7th was #7 Daniel Suarez (Chevy), 4 points, 8th was #54 Ty Gibbs (Toyota), 3 points, 9th was #24 William Byron (Chevy), 2 points, 10th was #1 Ross Chastain (Chevy), 1 point.
Stage 2’s Top 10 were: 1st was #20 Christopher Bell (Toyota), 10 points, 2nd was #11 Denny Hamlin (Toyota), 9 points, 3rd was #22 Joey Logano (Ford), 8 points, 4th was #17 Chris Buescher (Ford), 7 points, 5th was #23 Bubba Wallace (Toyota), 6 points, 6th was #2 Austin Cindric (Ford), 5 points, 7th was #77 Carson Hocevar (Chevy), 4 points, 8th was #45 Tyler Reddick (Toyota), 3 points, 9th was #5 Kyle Larson (Chevy), 2 points, 10th was #34 Todd Gilliland (Ford), 1 point.
Stage 3, the Final Stage of the race, determines the overall race winner. The Top 10 for the Final Stage were: Race winner 1st was #12 Ryan Blaney (Ford), 10 points, 2nd was #20 Christopher Bell (Toyota), 9 points, 3rd was #5 Kyle Larson (Chevy), 8 points, 4th was #54 Ty Gibbs (Toyota), 7 points, 5th was #11 Denny Hamlin (Toyota), 6 points, 6th was #23 Bubba Wallace (Toyota), 5 points, 7th was #24 William Byron (Chevy), 4 points, 8th was #45 Tyler Reddick (Toyota), 3 points, 9th was #71 Michael McDowell (Chevy), 2 points, 10th was #43 Erik Jones (Toyota), 1 point. The overall race winner was #12 Ryan Blaney (Ford). The next race on the NASCAR schedule is the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, scheduled for Sunday, March 15th.
