Will Buxton adores Pato O’Ward, but he might not agree with the No. 5 Chevrolet for Arrow McLaren driver.
O’Ward opposed the idea of doubleheader weekends — events that hold both INDYCAR and NASCAR at the same venue, in the same time frame.
“Tired of INDYCAR being treated like a support race,” O’Ward said. “INDYCAR shouldn’t become a sideshow.”
That’s often what happens when there are doubleheaders at places like St. Petersburg, which hosted the INDYCAR season opener on Sunday morning and a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on Saturday. Plus, there’s this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, with INDYCAR’s Good Ranchers 250 on Saturday (3 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app) and NASCAR’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app).
However, Buxton, the FOX Sports INDYCAR play-by-play announcer, sees these doubleheaders as an “opportunity.”
“An opportunity for INDYCAR fans to fall in love with NASCAR and for NASCAR fans to fall in love with INDYCAR,” Buxton said on Monday’s episode of “SPEED With Harvick And Buxton.”
“[It’s] for race followers in each camps to realize a brand new understanding and a brand new respect for championships which they could by no means have watched, or all the time believed that they should not. Need folks to recollect you? Play the perfect rattling gig of your life. INDYCAR merely has to do what it does finest, and that is be the quickest racing on earth. That is the way you make followers. And that is how INDYCAR turns into the headliner.”
“Look, I really like Pato,” Buxton added. “I really like that he is trustworthy, and he speaks from the center. And whereas I do know precisely the place he is coming from, I believe there is a greater image to take a look at right here.”
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Double-headers imply extra eyeballs, extra followers, extra probabilities for Tyler Reddick followers to fall in love with Alex Palou and vice versa.
“INDYCAR and NASCAR double headers are an excellent thought, as a result of it should not be about anybody aside from the followers,” Buxton stated. “It needs to be about what’s proper for them, and the way the championship can maximize welcoming new followers to a racing product that all of us adore. And the easiest way to try this is to easily get on with what INDYCAR does the perfect: placing on a present. The quickest racing on earth.”
INDYCAR can have the platform to try this this weekend at Phoenix.
