Photo: Chris Owens
The Indy Nxt paddock prepared for their season finale at Nashville Superspeedway by testing on the oval on Thursday (August 8) this week.
In total there were 2481 laps set, and the fastest came from Andretti Global’s Louis Foster. He set his personal best of 25.9029s (with an average speed of 184.844mph) halfway through his run plan and it made him fastest by just 0.0411 seconds over team-mate Jamie Chadwick.
HMD Motorsport’s Caio Collet was third fastest, 0.1286s slower than Foster. His other title rivals Callum Hedge (HMD), Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) and Reece Gold (HMD) were down in seventh, eighth and 14th, with the first two just 0.2905s and 0.3024s slower than the pacesetter but more than 2mph off his pace.
The top 19 were covered by 0.8128s around the high-speed venue, which equated to a speed difference of 5.6mph.
Outside of that 19 were Davey Hamilton Jr and Taylor Ferns (Abel Motorsports). Hamilton was testing with HMD as he evaluated a potential return to Indy Nxt, which the 27-year-old last raced in back in 2018. He is better known for racing midgets and sprint cars. Ferns was slowest despite doing more laps than anyone else.
There has only been one oval race so far this season in Indy Nxt, at Iowa Speedway, but three of the four remaining races will be on them and drivers need experience of this year’s tyre compound on a superspeedway before racing on one of them. The race at Nashville takes place on September 15.
Test results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Speed | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Louis Foster | Andretti Global | 184.844mph | 25.9029s | 131 | |
| 2 | Jamie Chadwick | Andretti Global | 184.551mph | 25.9440s | +0.0411s | 124 |
| 3 | Caio Collet | HMD Motorsports | 183.931mph | 26.0315s | +0.1286s | 107 |
| 4 | Salvador de Alba | Andretti Cape | 183.676mph | 26.0676s | +0.1647s | 140 |
| 5 | James Roe Jr | Andretti Global | 183.635mph | 26.0734s | +0.1705s | 139 |
| 6 | Myles Rowe | HMD Motorsports | 183.081mph | 26.1524s | +0.2495s | 142 |
| 7 | Callum Hedge | HMD Motorsports | 182.794mph | 26.1934s | +0.2905s | 112 |
| 8 | Jacob Abel | Abel Motorsports | 182.711mph | 26.2053s | +0.3024s | 68 |
| 9 | Josh Pierson | HMD Motorsports | 182.423mph | 26.2467s | +0.3438s | 148 |
| 10 | Yuven Sundaramoorthy | Abel Motorsports | 182.231mph | 26.2744s | +0.3715s | 121 |
| 11 | Michael d’Orlando | Andretti Cape | 182.167mph | 26.2836s | +0.3807s | 121 |
| 12 | Bryce Aron | Andretti Global | 182.150mph | 26.2861s | +0.3832s | 141 |
| 13 | Christian Brooks | HMD Motorsports | 181.842mph | 26.3306s | +0.4277s | 125 |
| 14 | Reece Gold | HMD Motorsports | 181.615mph | 26.3634s | +0.4605s | 122 |
| 15 | Christian Bogle | HMD Motorsports | 181.529mph | 26.3759s | +0.4730s | 75 |
| 16 | Ricardo Escotto | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 181.491mph | 26.3815s | +0.4786s | 117 |
| 17 | Jordan Missig | Abel Motorsports | 180.535mph | 26.5211s | +0.6182s | 138 |
| 18 | Jonathan Browne | HMD Motorsports | 179.669mph | 26.6490s | +0.7461s | 43 |
| 19 | Jack William Miller | Miller Vinatieri Racing | 179.220mph | 26.7157s | +0.8128s | 94 |
| 20 | Davey Hamilton Jr | HMD Motorsports | 176.275mph | 27.1621s | +1.2592s | 110 |
| 21 | Taylor Ferns | Abel Motorsports | 173.525mph | 27.5925s | +1.6896s | 163 |