July 11, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

The fun factor is alive and well in new SRX Series

SLINGER, Wis.—For Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham, the Superstar Racing Experience is a labor of love—and race fans are loving SRX back.

The side-by-side racing in identically prepared cars. The rising stars and accomplished veterans. The qualifying heats with an inversion in-between. All wrapped up in a tidy two-hour window that observers inside motorsports and out are calling must-see TV.

Perhaps the most compelling angle—particularly from a storyteller’s point of view—has been the Cinderella stories coming out of each stop on the SRX circuit, starting with the series’ inaugural winner, Doug Coby, at Stafford Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Modified champ’s performance caught the eye of GMS Racing’s Mike Beam and resulted in an opportunity to race in the Camping World Truck Series at Bristol Motor Speedway in September.

The following week at Knoxville Raceway, track champion Brian Brown was selected to race with SRX. On Friday night, Brown returned to Knoxville and finished eighth in his NASCAR coming out party.

On Saturday, in front of a full house at Slinger Speedway, homegrown Luke Fenhaus dazzled the crowd in his SRX debut. He won the Slinger Nationals on Tuesday night to earn his spot in the field. The 17-year-old rising senior from Wausau East High School, was two laps away from beating Stewart, the former IndyCar and three-time Cup champion, when Hailie Deegan exacted revenge on series’ foil Paul Tracy.

The late-race caution opened the door for Marco Andretti to execute the perfect restart and leave Fenhaus and Stewart in the dust. Andretti was apologetic to the quieted Slinger audience—many sporting an array of NASCAR T-shirts with plenty of Fenhaus apparel peppered in.

“Thanks for the room,” Andretti told Fenhaus as they joked before climbing onto the podium. “I knew I wasn’t going to get out of here alive if I hit you.”

For Andretti, the fun factor is unmatched with SRX. That’s understandable given the pressure of being a third-generation IndyCar racer whose grandfather and father set the bar not only incredibly high but in another universe.

“I’m smiling ear-to-ear,” Andretti said. “I’m having so much fun. I don’t care where I would have finished in the end. I would have said this is one of the more fun races of my career. To get the win—a couple of wins (Heat 1) tonight makes it that much more special.

“I love short tracks and the anticipation of where somebody is going to end up and trying to be one step ahead of them is so much fun. With the IndyCar stuff, there’s so much grip on entry, the corner is already done. So here, there are so many things you can manipulate with the throttle and the brake. It really puts it into the driver’s hands. I love it.”

And what about having fenders on the car?

“It’s pretty awesome,” Andretti said. “Typically if we (IndyCar) touch, we’re going to be in the grandstands with the fans. So it’s nicer to be able to rub and lean a little bit. But I’m learning the etiquette. I’m learning not to be too dirty about it as well.”

Despite the donuts etched into the side of most cars by feature’s end, the racing was good, clean fun—precisely what Stewart and Evernham had in mind when they created SRX.

“The good thing is there are no politics involved—I won’t say no politics involved but at least no politics at this track,” Stewart said. “It’s just 12 guys that get to come out and have fun and race with a cool, young kid each week that’s a star at the local track and get to spend the day with that kid (Fenhaus) has been the highlight of my day, to be honest. My buddy Marco winning the race and us having another podium finish and gaining more points in the point standings with one race to go is a big deal to me.

“But the first five weeks have been awesome. To go to three totally different race tracks—and the three pavement tracks are completely different from each other—then two totally different dirt tracks, it’s been a lot of fun. After five weeks, we’re starting to see a pattern with certain things going on but all in all just to sit there each weekend and see how much fun everybody is having that’s the payoff for all of this.”

While Stewart brings the perspective of track owner and driver to the mix, Evernham is forever the strategist. With every step of the SRX process, the former team owner and championship crew chief is thinking how he can make streamline the process and make the product more entertaining.

“I know the fans love it,” Evernham said. “Just looking at this group and the comments we’re getting and then you look at social media, but ultimately, TV ratings are going to determine our future, right? So we’ll see where those go. I think we have something that the fans really like. We have something that the drivers are really having fun at—I mean they’re fighting like hell nowadays—but they say they’re having fun.

“I feel like there are certainly things we could do better, but the hardest thing is to try and get the show and make it on time. That’s what has been hard for me. But I feel like our stuff is good. I feel like the cars are putting on a great show.

“The drivers are good. I love bringing in these young, grassroots people. Coby won. Cody Swanson was second (at Indianapolis) and this poor kid tonight, had it not been for a green-white-checker he was going to have a big win.”

And just like Stewart, the “A Star is Born” ability to take a local sensation and put them on a national stage is a huge reward.

“Luke Fenhaus is a name you’re going to hear a lot more of in the future,” Evernham added. “He’s a super young man—super young man. He’s much more mature than his 17 years. You will hear his name a lot more in the future, you really are. There’s just something about his personality. He’s a farmer. He’s got talent and the X-factor—whatever that is.

“Grassroots racing is the DNA of our sport. There could be no big show without that and there are so many blue-collar people here that come week after week after week—and they’ve been coming here for like 74 years here.

“And some of these drivers are good enough to run on the big stage but most people don’t know who they are. They never get a chance. They may never get a chance anyway. But we’re going to show you that there are people that you can go and see on Saturday night that can run with the big guys. They just haven’t had the chance.”