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The Indycars return to Madison, Illinois, 1 mile from the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch, to run the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on the 1.25-mile oval at Gateway Motorsports Park.
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The Gateway Arch is visible to all those sitting on the top row of the Westside grandstands but actually the racing for the IndyCars will not be in its shadow, as this will be a night race. This is the 2nd race for the Indycars at Gateway, following their very successful 2017 return to the track after an absence of 14 years.
The track is a capsule-shaped oval, and much like Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, the North end of the oval is considerably larger than the South end:
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The guys at Gateway are going to make sure this is a great experience for area fans by including some exhibitions and three support races, along with the IndyCar race. Those support races will be a NASCAR K&N Pro Series race on Friday, and a Pro Mazda race and an Indy Lights race on Saturday, just prior to the IndyCar race.
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Let’s take a look at that support racing:
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K&N Pro Series - This is a regional oval-track stock car series sanctioned by NASCAR. The cars are older Cup or Xfinity cars with composite or steel bodies - the team’s choice - and the engines are either team-built or spec engines - again, the team’s choice. This is a training ground for NASCAR and some of the biggest names in the sport got their start here, but no IndyCar guys are here, so we will wish them safe and happy racing and concentrate on the open-wheel stuff, instead.
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K&N cars in action
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continued…
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