Just one month after NASCAR made its long-awaited return to Nashville, the new Camping World SRX Series will be racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Saturday, June 17, with legendary drivers like Tony Stewart, Bill Elliott and his son, 2020 NASCAR Cup champion Chase Elliott behind the wheel.

Saturday’s Rackley Roofing Master of the Pros 150 will be the final race of the six race series where a champion will be crowned. There will be two rounds of qualifying, first at 2:15 p.m. and then at 5 p.m., with the race beginning at 7 p.m. on the 5/8ths mile track which is famous for exciting short-track racing.

The series was co-founded by Stewart who has been known as one of the most versatile drivers in NASCAR history, as he’s raced so many different forms of motorsports. The group will be racing late model cars designed specifically for this series.

“I’m obviously excited about it,” says Stewart. “You don’t start a six-race season worrying about point standings by any means, but last week was the first week I started paying attention to it.”

Stewart currently has two wins in the series and finished third last week at Slinger, Wisconsin behind winner and IndyCar driver Marco Andretti, grandson of legendary driver Mario Andretti. If Stewart wins the Nashville race, he will be crowned SRX champion, adding to his long list of accolades and championships.

For an extra treat, Chase Elliott was named a driver for the Fairgrounds race last week and will race, head-to-head against his father and 1988 NASCAR champion Bill Elliott for only the second time ever. Chase, who won a Super Late Model race back in 2013 at the Fairgrounds speedway, won’t be entering the track completely blind.

“I’ve never raced these cars before, but I’m just excited getting back to Nashville,” shares Chase. “There were really two pieces of the puzzle for me that made me want to do it and really made it a no-brainer. One, you don’t have an opportunity to race with your dad all the time, much less on a platform like this and in a series like this. Number two, to support the Fairgrounds, that’s been a major topic of conversation in the NASCAR community over the last couple of years and I feel like this is a time where if someone has an opportunity to support that race track, support the cause, and show the folks of the area what we can bring as a racing community to Nashville, I feel like we have to take that opportunity.”

Along with Stewart, both Elliotts, and Andretti, the race will feature superstar drivers Tony Kanaan, Willy T. Ribbs, Paul Tracy, Bobby Labonte, Ernie Francis Jr., Michael Waltrip and four-time Indy500 winner Hélio Castroneves. Truck series driver Hailie Deegan will also be joining the field of drivers after racing at the Knoxville Raceway where she finished second.

“We’re growing the racing community and the racing community to me is one as a whole,” says Chase. “Racing is racing and I think the more we can bring these type of discipline drivers together, the better off we are. SRX has done a great job at offering opportunities to guys from completely different backgrounds to come together as one.”

Fans can still pickup tickets for the race online for lower-level seating.

IndyCar drivers and teams are on break for the next four weeks leading up to the Aug. 8 inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in the heart of Downtown Nashville. Fans will experience something Nashville has never seen before with a street-course running through downtown, over the Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge, and around Nissan Stadium.

For those not familiar with IndyCar, they may not know what to expect from this Grand Prix. The Indy 500 is one of the most popular sporting events in the world, going so far as to be labeled “the greatest spectacular in racing.” Still, IndyCar can be overseen and many times gets confused with Formula 1, which is the most popular motorsports in the world. Unlike NASCAR which is the most popular motorsport in America and has some of the most passionate fans in all of sports, IndyCar has seen a decline in the past years due to internal disputes and an eventual split before returning to the NTT IndyCar Series that we know now.

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix will be very different than most dirt track and NASCAR fans will expect. With that in mind, let’s refresh our memories of what IndyCar is and how it’s different than Formula 1 and other motorsports.

IndyCar has one of the longest and richest histories of any motorsport or professional sport in America. Some of the greatest drivers in history have come to America to race in IndyCar and the Indy 500. Originally raced in 1911, the Indy 500 has continued to be one of the biggest sporting events in the world featuring drivers like Mario Andretti, Bobby Unser, Al Unser, A.J. Foyt, and Helio Castroneves. The Indy 500 race a 500 mile, 200 lap race on an oval track similar to the tracks mostly raced on in NASCAR. However, IndyCar races on a multitude of different tracks, including ovals, road courses, and street courses like the 2.17 mile one set for Nashville.

This type of racing will be nothing new to the average IndyCar fan, but it will be a magnificent sight for those NASCAR fans and others. IndyCars are some of the fastest racing cars in the world and being able to watch them race past Nissan Stadium will be an unreal experience for fans all around. The Grand Prix will be the first of the final six races of the season. IndyCar runs 16-17 races per year as opposed to NASCAR’s 30 plus races. IndyCar features 33 drivers and 13 teams, some of whom race solely in road courses and others solely ovals.

IndyCars are open-wheel, singled-seat, open cockpit race cars that feature a 2.2-liter, twin turbocharged, direct-injected V-6 engine optimized to run at 12,000 RPM with an estimated 500-700 horsepower depending on the turbocharger boost setting. The consumer-relevant engines, which are supplied by Chevrolet and Honda, utilize Speedway E85R fuel. At super speedways like Indianapolis, these IndyCars can reach 240 mph and tend to adopt more down stop, meaning that they are faster around corners compared to other race cars. Additionally, IndyCars are one of the most environmentally friendly cars and were the first motorsport to embrace ethanol, which burns cleaner and results in less pollution released into the environment.

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix will feature some of the biggest names in IndyCar like Castroneves who recently won his fourth Indy 500 this season; six-time IndyCar Champion Scott Dixon; four-time Indy 500 winner, Nashville local, and two-time IndyCar Champion Josef Newgarden; and French driver Romain Grosjean who came from Formula 1 and was featured in the Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive.

For fans interested in what an IndyCar street course looks like, they can check out some of the highlights below from this season’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg which is held in the business district of downtown St. Petersburg.

Cece Winans. Photo: Marissa Roberts Photography.

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix has added 12x Grammy-award winner CeCe Winans to the inaugural weekend as she offers a non-denominational worship service at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 8 before the highly anticipated IndyCar race.

Winans, the best-selling and most-awarded female gospel artist of all time, will be joined on Sunday by the Nashville Life Church choir, and joins an already long list of musical talent for the three-day weekend of racing and music.

Drew Green will kick things off on Friday, Aug. 6 as he performs on the main stage. Meanwhile, Brooks & Dunn are set to headline the Wesley Financial Group Freedom Friday concert with special guests Jamey Johnson, Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil, Tyler Farr, and more. As recently announced, Saturday night’s show will be headlined by award-winning singer Jon Pardi with Tim Dugger as support. Finally, Sunday’s post-race show will feature legendary country-singer and racing fan Alan Jackson with performances from Justin Moore, Riley Green, Danielle Bradbery and Callista Clark.

The grand prix will kick off the second half of the 2021 NTT IndyCar season. The buildout of the 2.17-mile track layout in downtown Nashville will begin Sunday, July 11. The crews will work from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. for 18 consecutive days to complete the build, which includes installing 2,000 barriers and fence panels in 12-foot sections along the course. Street closures will not begin until 10 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 5.

Jon Pardi. Photo: Courtesy of Red Light Management

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix has announced that CMA and ACM-award winning recording artist Jon Pardi will headline Saturday night’s concert. Set for Aug. 7, the show will take place the night before the highly anticipated IndyCar race.

Pardi’s critically-acclaimed album Heartache Medication debuted atop the Billboard Country Albums chart and his hit song of the same name reached No. 1 on MusicRow‘s Country Breakout Charts in October 2020. The “Ain’t Always The Cowboy” singer is set to take the stage with his high energy show on the festival’s main stage at 8:30 p.m. CST with fireworks immediately following the show.

Pardi joins an already stacked lineup of artists including Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Tyler Farr, Vince Neil, Danielle Bradbery, Justin Moore, Callista Clark, Riley Green, Jamey Johnson, and Tim Dugger with further additions to the lineup expected.

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix is slated for Aug. 6-8. It will be staged on a temporary 2.17-mile grand prix circuit throughout Nashville and around the Nissan Stadium campus. The course will also cross the Cumberland River via the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge, making the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix the only current event in motorsports to cross over a major body of water. With a variety of three-day packages and single-day tickets now on sale, fans can choose to attend the Saturday show or the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix by clicking here.