Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) is set for round four of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season this weekend as the team heads to the scenic Barber Motorsports Park for the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix (May 4, 1:00pm ET, FOX, SiriusXM channel 218).

Coming off of Indianapolis 500 oval testing at IMS last week, MSR is back with its two full-season entries – Marcus Armstrong in the No. 66 SiriusXM / Root Insurance Honda and Felix Rosenqvist in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda.

Rosenqvist will make his seventh INDYCAR start at Barber, having qualified in the top ten on four occasions and scoring a best finish of sixth in 2021. Known for his ability to extract speed on technical circuits, the Swede is aiming to convert qualifying strength into a strong race-day result for MSR.

Armstrong will make his third career start at Barber Motorsports Park after making his debut at the circuit in 2023. The New Zealander showed promising pace in that outing, gaining six positions to finish 11th. With a strong road course background and continued progress from MSR, Armstrong is targeting another step forward on the 2.3-mile, 17-turn circuit.

Meyer Shank Racing made its debut at Barber in 2019 and has steadily built its program at the picturesque venue. MSR’s 2024 outing at Barber saw Rosenqvist finish fourth and just shy of a podium finish. The result was the team’s best finish to date at the Birmingham circuit.

The Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix weekend kicks off with practice on Friday, May 2, followed by qualifying on Saturday at 2:30pm ET on FS2. Sunday’s 90-lap race will be broadcast live on FOX and SiriusXM (channel 218) beginning at 1:00pm ET.

Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:

Felix Rosenqvist: “We have some good momentum going into the start of the season, and we are looking forward to keeping that going through Barber. We got to test there a while back, but the temperatures I don’t think were very representative of what we will see next week. Barber is another track that will be a lot different for us now with the hybrid, so we will see how everything goes.”

Marcus Armstrong: “Barber is one of my favorite circuits on the calendar. It’s high speed and flowing, kind of what I used to race on in Europe. We tested there a little bit ago and we got some good data from that which will hopefully help us get through the weekend. I’m really looking forward to heading there this weekend.”

MSR PR

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

Austin Cindric earned a big victory Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway and that is enough of a flex to put him in these power rankings.

Albeit he’s in 10th, but he’s there.

Here are rankings following Talladega as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Texas this weekend: 

Dropped out: 10. Chase Briscoe (LW: 10)

On the verge: Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, Ty Gibbs, Joey Logano, Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace

10. Austin Cindric (Last Week: NR)

Cindric earned his first win of the year and the third of his career. It was his first top-5 of the season. But he has three top-10s in the 10 races.

Austin Cindric breaks down EMOTIONAL win at Talladega w/ Kevin Harvick: ‘The pressure is on now!’

9. Ross Chastain (LW: 6)

Chastain finished 20th at Talladega, a disappointing result for him. But he’s 10th in the standings and the next two tracks will be more telling of whether the Trackhouse driver will be more of a contender this year.

8. Tyler Reddick (LW: 9)

The defending winner of the Talladega spring race finished 14th this time at the track. But he did better than some on this list, so he moved up a spot.

7. Alex Bowman (LW: 8)

Bowman was seventh at Talladega for his sixth top-10 of the season. The Hendrick driver didn’t get any stage points in the race, so the top-10 finish was key as he still seeks his first win of the year.

6. Ryan Blaney (LW: 4)

Blaney got caught up in the wreck when Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski appeared to have contact as they entered pit road for a green-flag stop in the first stage. He has four races this year in which he has not finished.

5. Chase Elliott (LW: 7)

Elliott finished fifth at Talladega, another solid finish even if he wasn’t a huge factor for much of the day. He’s grinding out more-than-respectable finishes.

4. Christopher Bell (LW: 3)

Bell got turned (accidentally) by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin near the end of the first stage and his Talladega ended early. Good thing he has three victories this year.

William Byron’s post-race interview from Talladega Superspeedway

3. Denny Hamlin (LW: 1)

Hamiln thought he had the strategy that would prove fruitful with the Toyotas pushing the pace and pitting early. Chastain foiled that plan and Hamlin wound up 21st.

2. William Byron (LW: 5)

Byron led for 10 laps but lost the lead with seven laps remaining and settled for third in the race. He’ll still take that at Talladega as he leads the Cup standings by 31 points ahead of his teammate Kyle Larson.

1. Kyle Larson (LW: 2)

Larson finished second (third on the track before Ryan Preece disqualification) and to him, that is nearly as good as a win as he had only one top-5 finish at Talladega — which came in his previous start. With a first and a second in his last two Cup races (and four top-5s in his last five races), he’s back atop the list. 

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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TALLADEGA, Ala. — The final laps of the Jack Links 500 turned into an all-out Ford-vs.-Chevy battle, and when the checkered flag flew, Ford’s Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece held off Chevy’s Kyle Larson and William Byron in a photo finish. Cindric, who snapped a 30-race winless streak, won by about a yard — or 0.022 seconds on the clock — just holding off Preece as the pack approached lapped traffic.

“That bright yellow car looks great up front. I’m thankful for everyone’s support,” Cindric said after the race. “Having a photo finish at Talladega, to be able to do it, get in the playoffs in front of this amazing crowd on a beautiful day in Alabama.”

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UPDATE: The cars of Preece and Joey Logano were both disqualified after post-race inspections. Logano had finished fifth. The cars will now be scored in 38th and 39th place, respectively.

There’s an unspoken subtext to every Talladega race: The Big One. The massive, high-banked superspeedway provides perfect conditions for enormous, field-swallowing wrecks. They’re the kind of wrecks that both horrify and entice viewers, even if nobody really wants to admit it. This time around, while there were 67 lead changes and 23 leaders over the course of the race, the Big One didn’t happen, setting up a final sprint to the finish. There were only four cautions the entire race, two of which were for stage endings, a remarkably “clean” Talladega outing.

For the first two stages, the only wrecks were relatively minor errors of judgment and execution. On lap 43, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney got tangled up during an attempted move onto pit road:

Nine laps later, Christopher Bell hit the wall hard following a push from Denny Hamlin:

“Denny didn’t do anything wrong,” Bell said after getting out of the car. “You have to push, you have to push to be successful. It’s a product of the cars we race with this rules package.”

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The opening stages were as routine as Talladega gets; although the field ran as much as four-wide, the mistakes were few. Larson ended up winning the first stage, and Bubba Wallace the second.

Aside from the early collisions that took out some of the race favorites, the only fireworks came from Joey Logano’s microphone. Incensed that Cindric, his teammate, didn’t push him to a stage win, he lit up his radio:

“Way to go Austin, way to go, you dumb [expletive]! Way to [expletive]ing go,” Logano bellowed. “What a stupid [expletive]. You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go. What a [expletive].”

“That was all I could do not to wreck Joey,” Cindric protested, perhaps thinking of the Hamlin push that sent Bell into the wall. “I was obviously trying to stay there, I was trying not to wreck everybody.”

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Logano, Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe were among the lap leaders; Anthony Alfredo, driving for Beard Motorsports, even managed a few laps at the front of the pack.

As the laps wound down, a Chevy brigade of Byron, Larson and Alex Bowman challenged Ford’s Cindric for the lead. Cindric held the low line while Byron led the high line. Preece, a fellow Ford driver, slid high alongside Cindric for the final few laps, setting up the furious finish.

The Chevy contingent opted not to make a move into a third lane to catch Cindric and Preece, in part because of the lapped traffic right in front of the pack. That left Cindric and Preece free to duel one another for the victory, and Cindric came out on top.

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“I don’t think there was anything I could have done on the final lap,” Larson said. “I needed something else to kind of happen, maybe them blocking each other or something.”

Byron still leads the season standings with 388 points; Larson moved past Denny Hamlin into second place. Cindric moved into 15th place, up seven spots, thanks to his victory.

After the race, Preece’s car was found to fail Rule 14.5.8.F, having three shims instead of the required two, while Logano’s car violated Rules 14.5.8.E and 14.1.P as it was missing a spoiler bolt.

Team Penske indicated it will not appeal the disqualifications. “The No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang was disqualified following post-race inspection at Talladega today. One of the 18 bolts on the surface of the spoiler that connect to the base was found to be loose, and NASCAR penalized the team as a result. This was not intentional and happened throughout the course of the race event. Team Penske accepts the disqualification.”

The concept of a promoter’s caution in this year’s All-Star Race has been met with skepticism and even ridicule by some in the NASCAR garage. Now, the annual exhibition race has always been seen as a bit of a testing ground for new and out there ideas, so we shouldn’t be entirely surprised. It’s also embraced far more questionable gimmicks than this in the past, but it’s still something that is raising eyebrows.

The rule goes like this: The promoter of the event, which is Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith, has the power to throw a caution whenever he chooses before Lap 220 of the 250-lap All-Star Race. He can only use this power once and if a natural yellow occurs after Lap 200, he loses the ability to do it. Speedway Motorsports owns North Wilkesboro Speedway, which is hosting the All-Star Race for the third consecutive year after the historic track was resurrected. 

It’s a bit strange, but the All-Star Race has done weirder things before. Even still, two-time NASCAR Cup Series Kyle Busch made his thoughts on the new rule clearly known during an appearance on the Door Bumper Clear podcast this week.

“What are we doing?” questioned Busch, who won the All-Star Race in 2017. “If we’re Bailey and Barnum (the circus), then let’s just freaking call it Bailey and Barnum. I mean, they went out of business.”

He and show co-host Freddie Kraft, who works as the spotter for Bubba Wallace, then joked about just letting a drunk fan decide. Kraft even wondered if the reset will change anything, which is a fair point based on recent history. Passing at short tracks with the current generation of car is notoriously difficult, even with restarts. Joey Logano won last year’s All-Star Race from pole position, leading 199 of 200 laps. The year prior, Daniel Suarez led from pole position until Kyle Larson passed him 55 laps into the race and never looked back. The format for this year’s race will place a competition caution at around Lap 100 as well, serving as a break. 

Chase Elliott has taken home two checkered flags at Talladega in his career – this past weekend he came up just short. 

However, he has had a lot of success there. In fact, in his very first race there, he finished in fifth, and in 18 races since then, he has eight top-10 finishes at the Alabama racetrack.

“I look forward to going down there. Talladega’s always kind of been a little bit of a home race. It’s just really close to where we live, so that’s always super nice,” Elliott, the Dawsonville, Georgia, native said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. “A race you can drive to easily, the fans have always been really good to me over there, which makes it fun and kind of feel like home.”

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Chase Elliott looks on during driver introductions before the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

Talladega is one of the premier NASCAR spots, understandably so.

“The craziness and chaos that is the infield is extremely well known for sure, just the party and the destination that it is,” Elliott said. “I don’t really think people necessarily care if the race is good or bad – I think people are just more there for the environment.”

“A lot of people do care about what the race is, but I think people go for the experience a lot of times and stick around for hopefully a good race on Sunday too. And fortunately, that really hasn’t been an issue at Talladega. A lot of times, the race on Sunday delivers and everybody comes in for an entertaining weekend with their friends, and a cherry on top is a good finish on Sunday afternoon. It’s a good place to get a little bit of both.”

A fifth-place finish is hardly something to ignore – it was his third top-five this season, and he also has six top-10s.

Chase Elliott greets fans during driver introductions before the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 19, 2023 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File)

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However, he also has two 15th-place finishes and a 20th place on the record this year and is still without a win this year. So, despite being in fourth place in the Cup Series standings right now, Elliott thinks his season has been just “OK.”

“There’s been some high spots, good finishes on weeks we didn’t deserve them, and bad finishes on weeks where we probably deserved to have better. There’s been flat out bad weeks, and flat out good weeks, too. Unfortunately, not good enough to win, but there have been a couple scenarios where we were in the mix,” Elliott said.

“We’ve been all over the board, certainly not the level of consistency I’d like to see. But a lot of room for improvement. That first stretch was a warmup, and now we go straight all the way to the championship in November. A lot of races ahead, a lot of time to get it together or not. It depends on how we execute the next few months.”

Elliott won the Cup Series title, his lone championship, in 2020 – his best finish since then is fourth, which he had both in 2021 and 2022 before following up with a 17th-place finish in 2023, and then seventh last year.

Of course, it’s not easy to come out on top every year, but in order to do it, “we need to find some consistency.”

Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 26, 2022 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

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“We had a legitimate shot to win the race in Martinsville, go to Bristol and very much not in the mix,” Elliott said (he finished fourth and 15th in those races, respectively). “Just trying to be more consistent across the board and have that type of performance when we are capable of winning more often and do it at different racetrack types and sizes and venues and just get the momentum going in the right direction. It’s been a little spotty, so we got to get it going here. I think we can, just gotta keep trucking.”

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