Tony Stewart's 'Thursday Night Thunder' racing series returning to ESPN

Season 3 of Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) debuts this Thursday on ESPN — the return of “Thursday Night Thunder” for the network.

The first race of the season will take place at Stafford Motor Speedway, and will feature 12 competitors, including former NASCAR Cup Series champions Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Bobby Labonte. Fittingly, Stewart, the SRX co-founder, won the last “Thursday Night Thunder” event in 2002. ESPN used the branding from the 1980s on for its short-track racing coverage, and elected to bring it back as part of its first-year coverage of SRX.

“That’s one thing that I feel like has been super impressive to watch is how we keep trying to evolve and find ways to make things better,” 2021 SRX champion Stewart said, via Autoweek. “And it’s that way across the entire two-hour program is how do we make this better for the drivers? How do we make it better for the fans, how do we make it better for TV?

“We’re always constantly trying to figure out what we’ve already done and make it better… That’s something that’s really important to us.”

Stewart has been able to put together a noteworthy group of drivers in the series in recent years. Those include 2022 champion Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Paul Tracy from IndyCar. Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Tony Kanaan from IndyCar will join as part-time drivers in 2023. NASCAR will be well-represented as well, with Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Daniel Suárez slated to participate.

Tony Stewart eying two former NASCAR superstars for SRX

Stewart said there’s two more names he hopes to be able to convince to compete in future events.

“I still want to get Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. and Jeff Gordon in cars,” Stewart said. “That’s two guys that are superstars, and that’s what this series is about is about—superstar drivers. Those are two guys that for sure belong in this series. And have earned their right to drive in this series. I know the fans would love to see both of those guys back behind the wheel of race cars again.

“I think they both have pretty full plates is the main reason [they’re not in]. You know, Jeff is obviously very active with Hendrick Motorsports… Dale Jr. has got his plethora of projects that he’s a part of. For those two guys in particular, with all the business interests that they have, it made it a little complicated to get them in for six weeks.”