QUALIFYING NOTES – PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway

TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY QUALIFYING NOTES

18th: ED CARPENTER 218.375 mph
25th: CONOR DALY 217.457 mph
26th: RINUS VEEKAY 216.880 mph
TRACK: Texas Motor Speedway
LOCATION: Fort Worth, Texas, USA
TRACK LAYOUT: 1.5-Mile Oval
RACE LENGTH: 250 Laps/375 Miles
BROADCAST: Sunday – 11:15 a.m. CT (NBC, 11 a.m. CT)

CONOR DALY, NO. 20 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

CONOR DALY, No. 20 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Qualified 25th: “We really have to dive deep and see what happened. This morning in practice, we could easily do 219.9 by ourselves. We didn’t change a lot, so we shouldn’t have lost such an absurd amount of miles an hour. The car was handling fine, so this is a huge shame for us. I thought the BITNILE.COM car was good enough to potentially qualify up front. We’ll work on it this afternoon and see what happens tomorrow.”

TEXAS STATS

BEST START: 16th (2022)

BEST FINISH: 6th (2020)

NUMBER OF STARTS: 7

CAREER STATS

SEASON: 10th

STARTS: 98

POLES: 1

BEST FINISH: 2nd, Detroit 2016

OF NOTE:

  • With a practice both before and after today’s qualifying, Conor Daly was able to turn a total of 101 laps. In the qualification session, Daly’s two-lap average will have him starting 25th. 
  • Second-generation racer Daly climbed into a kart for the first time at the age of 10; within five years, he was competing in both United States and international open-wheel ladder systems. He found success in each before concentrating solely on American motorsports in 2015. Born and raised in nearby Noblesville, Ind., Daly has grown to be a hometown favorite in the Indianapolis 500. The 2021 edition saw him lead the most laps of all drivers; in 2022, he finished a career-best 6th.
  • Daly has competed in seven NTT INDYCAR SERIES races at Texas Motor Speedway, earning a best finish of 6th in 2020. 

RINUS VEEKAY, NO. 21 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

RINUS VEEKAY, No. 21 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Qualified 26th: “Just really not how I thought qualifying was going to go today. I expected more and it is disappointing to be starting so far back. It is a long race tomorrow so hopefully we will have plenty of time to move forward!’

TEXAS STATS

BEST START: 8th (2021, 2022)

BEST FINISH: 9th (2021)

NUMBER OF STARTS: 4

CAREER STATS

SEASON: 4th

STARTS: 47

WINS: 1

POLES: 2

OF NOTE:

  • Rinus VeeKay was early in the qualifying line as the 8th car to make his two-lap run. He will start 26th, right next to Daly. He turned 150 laps in the two practice sessions.
  • Raised in Hoofddorp, Netherlands, VeeKay began karting in 2009 at the age of 8. Just four years into his career in the United States, he not only reached the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, but earned 2020 Rookie of the Year honors. He became an NTT INDYCAR SERIES race winner in May of 2021 with a victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and earned his most recent pole position at Barber this past season. 
  • Texas Motor Speedway is the home of VeeKay’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES debut, which took place in June of 2020. He has competed at Texas four times and earned his second Top 10 finish at the 1.5-mile oval last year. In 2022, VeeKay matched his best starting position of 8th, led five laps and finished 10th.

ED CARPENTER, NO. 33 BITNILE.COM CHEVROLET

ED CARPENTER, No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, Qualified 18th: “It is really hard to enterally have to qualify first on a partial schedule. We are going to need a good practice here in the second session to make sure we have good cars since we will be coming from the back. I have been pretty happy with the balance of the No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet, the speed just wasn’t quite there. We had a little bit of an issue on our second lap that hurt us, but even without that we just weren’t quick enough today.”

TEXAS STATS

BEST START: 5th (2011, 2014)

BEST FINISH: 1st (2014)

NUMBER OF STARTS: 22

CAREER STATS

SEASON: 21st

STARTS: 196

WINS: 3

POLES: 4

OF NOTE:

  • With Texas Motor Speedway being Ed Carpenter’s first race of the year, he does not yet have any entrant points. As the qualifying order is determined by the reverse order of entrant points, he was the first of 28 cars to qualify. His two-lap average will have him starting 18th tomorrow. 
  • Over the course of the two practice sessions, Carpenter turned 124 laps. It was the first time he had been behind the wheel of the No. 33 BITNILE.COM Chevrolet since August of 2022.
  • With the exception of 2010, Carpenter has competed in every NTT INDYCAR SERIES race at Texas Motor Speedway since the fall of 2003. Sunday’s PPG 375 will add to his tally of 22 starts at the 1.5-mile oval. Carpenter is also the 2014 Texas race winner, taking the victory after leading 66 of the final 67 laps.