The NASCAR Nationwide Series will roll into Sparta-Kentucky for a Friday night, 300 mile, race at the Kentucky Speedway. This event is going to be about racing hard, or business as usual, but the Feed The Children 300 is also about helping children all around our nation.
The Kentucky Speedway is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc. This racing corporation owns eight major speedways, all of which currently hosts NASCAR sanctioned events. Each raceway has a chapter of the Speedway Children’s Charities which addresses needs involving children in the communities where the tracks are located. The Speedway Children’s Charities has teamed up with Feed The Children and has reached their goal of filling 27 tractor trailers with food and essentials which will be distributed to needy families with children at various racing communities throughout the country.
There are also, of course, racing stories connected to the Nationwide Series at Kentucky. Chief among them is the stunning Tuesday morning announcement that said Roush Fenway Racing driver Matt Kenseth will be leaving the team at the end of this year and reigning Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr will be promoted to the Sprint Cup next year. It’s already THE big story and Stenhouse will be receiving a lot of media attention at the track on Friday.
Also garnering a lot of attention at Kentucky will be the red hot Joey Logano. After taking a race off from the series, he didn’t participate in last weekend’s Road America, Logano returns to his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to resume a series hot streak that includes five wins in 11 starts. He has won four of the last five Nationwide Series races he has entered. His Nationwide stats at the Kentucky Speedway are also quite strong. He won the first ever series race there, back in 2008, and then won the 2009 and 2010 events. His average finish ratio at this track is a very low 3.3.
Joey Logano is not the only NASCAR Sprint Cup driver who is entered in Friday night’s Nationwide Series race. Also performing double duty will be drivers Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Joe Nemechek.
The series’ championship points standings will also be a point of interest Friday night. Richard Childress Racing drivers Elliott Sadler and Austin Dillon are currently ranked one-two in the standings separated by 11 points. Ricky Stenhouse Jr is third, 23 points from the top.
THE RACE BREAKDOWN
Friday night’s Feed The Children 300 is 200 laps/300 miles around the Kentucky Speedway’s 1.5 mile oval.
The race has 46 entries vying for the 43 starting positions.
16 of those entries are on the go or go home list. These teams are not guaranteed a starting berth in the race because they are currently outside of the top 30 in NASCAR’s owner points. These teams will have to rely on qualifying speeds to make the race. The Lone exception is Jeff Green who has a past champion’s provisional available to him.
The defending race champion is Brad Keselowski.
The Feed The Children 300 will be televised live by the ESPN2 Network beginning at 7 pm eastern time.
