By Patrick Stephan

The INDY NXT by Firestone race got underway at 6:30pm on Saturday evening with the air temperature in the mid 80’s. It’s actually pretty nice out, with the humidity at 52% and an occasional breeze helping a little bit.

This race was originally scheduled for this 10:10am this morning, but the rain pushed NTT INDYCAR Series qualifying back a couple hours, so here we are on Saturday evening.

Pole sitter Jacob Abel would lead just one lap, as Christian Rasmussen would take the lead on Lap 2.

The next lap, we saw contact between Kyffin Simpson and Danial Frost. Looked like Frost may have pushed a little from the second lane, and Simpson, trying to come around the outside had his left rear come over the top of Frost’s right front time.

Frost would put for a right front tire, and Simpson would wind up completing just 3 laps.

By Lap 16, Rasmussen was leading Abel, Siegel, McElrea, and Foster.

Abel would drop to 4th, and then get inside of McElrea on the exit of Turn 4 and then make the pass next time around.

McElrea would go around the top again on Lap 54 to get to fourth. Quite interesting to watch the lap times as Rasmussen turns a 20.8341 on Lap 58. Checking the NTT INDYCAR Series stats, Will Power turned a few laps in the 19.7’s, but would spend more of the race running in the 21 and 22 second bracket.

I am going to follow up later tonight with some details as the comparison between INDY NXT times and the NTT INDYCAR Series laps is crazy.

Then on Lap 60, Nolan Siegel and Hunter McElrea make contact on Turn 2. McElrea was on the inside trying to take second from the point leader when his right front just touched the left rear of Siegel who does a long slide off the corner and down the stretch.

That contact erased an 8.5 second lead for Rasmussen, and will end Siegel’s race with a bent left rear toe link.

Race control sent the lapped down cars through pit road to move them to the tail for the restart on Lap 65.

Rasmussen leads Abel, McElrea, Lindh and Brabham.

Over the final laps, Brabham and Lindh battle, with Lindh getting that spot then moving by McElrea. Over the final few circuits, Brabham would also pass McElrea who may have had some damage due to the contact with Siegel.

On Lap 72, Rasmussen had a 1.361 second lead over Abel and seemed poised to take the victory, but Abel would make it interesting.

On the final lap, Rasmussen did not get through Turn 1 and 2 very clean, and Abel started to close. The gap closed down considerably through Turn 3 and coming off Turn 4 Abel looked low and drove to the line, but Rasmussen held him off for a 0.1227 second victory.

After the race, Rasmussen admitted he may not have won a longer race.

The incident between Siegel and McElrea changes flips the point lead. Rasmussen came in to the race 16 down to Siegel and now has a 22 point lead.

Here are the unofficial results. More details to come later tonight. Note that Lindh started 10th and Brabham 11th.

Pos	Car #	Driver	Laps	Diff	Team
1	6	Christian Rasmussen	75	LAP 75	HMD Motorsports
2	51	Jacob Abel	75	0.1227	Abel Motorsports
3	76	Rasmus Lindh	75	1.3611	Juncos Hollinger Racing
4	75	Matthew Brabham	75	2.509	Juncos Hollinger Racing
5	27	Hunter McElrea	75	5.6279	Andretti Autosport
6	14	Josh Pierson	74	1 LAPS	HMD Motorsports
7	26	Louis Foster	74	1 LAPS	Andretti Autosport
8	99	Ernie Francis Jr.	74	1 LAPS	HMD Motorsports
9	29	James Roe	74	1 LAPS	Andretti Autosport
10	28	Jamie Chadwick	73	2 LAPS	Andretti Autosport
11	98	Jagger Jones	73	2 LAPS	Cape Motorsports
12	10	Reece Gold	73	2 LAPS	HMD Motorsports
13	7	Christian Bogle	72	3 LAPS	HMD Motorsports
14	68	Danial Frost	70	5 LAPS	HMD Motorsports
15	39	Nolan Siegel	63	In Pit	HMD Motorsports
16	21	Kyffin Simpson	3	Contact	HMD Motorsports