The Verizon IndyCar Series Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway has been rescheduled for August 27 following a string of weather delays plus damage to the SAFER barrier following a hard crash involving Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly.
The race was originally set for a Saturday evening green flag, but due to heavy afternoon rain, the start time was pushed back until the decision was made to wave the green flag Sunday afternoon at 2:15 p.m.
On lap 42 of the 248-lap event, Daly and Newgarden got together exiting turn four, with Newgarden’s car impacting the wall hard and flipping onto its side. Newgarden then hit the frontstretch wall again, this time, helmet-first. While Daly emerged from his car unharmed, Newgarden collapsed upon exiting his vehicle before being airlifted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where he was diagnosed with a broken right shoulder and broken right hand.
IndyCar later gave an update on Twitter:
#INDYCAR MEDICAL UPDATE RE: @josefnewgarden pic.twitter.com/Cylj90OJRD
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) June 12, 2016
Also, Newgarden posted this on his Instagram feed:
The roll hoop on Newgarden’s car dug a hole into the SAFER barrier, which had to be repaired. Meanwhile, more rain arrived, ultimately bringing a stoppage to the event after 71 laps. The decision was then made to move the event to August 27 as a night race.
IndyCar President of Competition and Operations Jay Frye said of the delay, “We certainly want to come back and have a full race for the fans here in Texas. The people at TMS do a great job, so what we will do, per our rulebook, is start the race from where we stopped. So we will come back and start the race from that point. This is unique. It hasn’t happened for a little while, but there are a lot of unique things here and we’ll look forward to coming back Aug. 27.”
James Hinchcliffe was leading the race when the rains came and will lead the field to the green flag when the series returns on August 27.
Meanwhile, the series will make it’s next stop at Road America on June 26. It will be the first time since 2007 that the series stopped at the Wisconsin road course.
