Jeremy Marsh admitted this is his favorite week on the NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule. The 1993 Warsaw Community High School graduate, a full-time employee of ML Motorsports, also admitted he has mixed feelings about Saturday’s race in Indianapolis. “I kind of have mixed feelings,” said Marsh. “I’m excited about racing at the big track, but at the same time, I’m gonna miss racing at the short track. Either way, this is the only race we have in our homestate, so that in itself is exciting.” After racing at Lucas Oil Raceway Park (fomerly known as Indianapolis Raceway Park and O’Reilly Raceway Park) each year since 1982, the series will make its first appearance at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Teams were scheduled to begin practice at noon today. Qualifying for the Indy 250 is slated for 12:30 p.m. Saturday and can be seen on Speed. The race will air live on ESPN at 4 p.m. This is the only stop the Nationwide Series makes in Indiana, making this a special weekend for the Warsaw-based team. ML Motorsports, Indiana’s only NASCAR team, will have plenty of support at the track this weekend. The team is hosting 200 soldiers, again partnering with Indianapolis-based veterans organization Wish For Our Heroes. Santos Cortez, an Indianapolis Police Department officer who is now in a wheelchair after being hit by a drunk driver, will also be a guest of the team. Likewise, the team is expecting a number of fans from Kosciusko County. “We’re super excited about this weekend,” said ML Motorsports Marketing Director Billy Hutchinson. “We’re racing in our homestate, and that’s special to us. We’re gonna have Officer Cortez there with us, and we hope we can brighten his day some. We’re also teamming up again with Wish For Our Heroes. We’re gonna have 200 soldiers sitting behind our pit cheering for us. It’s going to be a very exciting weekend.” Running a partial schedule with 20-year-old Pensacola, Fla., native Johanna Long behind the wheel of the Mary Louise Miller-owned Chevy, the team has competed in 12 Nationwide Series races this season. Long has an average starting position of 21st and an average finish of 22nd. Her best qualifying effort of the season was 11th earlier this month at Daytona, where she also posted her best finish of 12th. “Johanna is coming off her best finish of the season just a couple weeks ago at Daytona,” said Hutchinson. “She’s a rookie, she’s only run 12 Nationwide races. She’s getting better every race, and we’re happy about the progress she’s making and the progress we’re making as a team.” Like the majority of the drivers that will be in Saturday’s 43-car field, however, Long’s first lap around the famed 2.5-mile oval will be today in practice. “Words can’t express how excited I am to get the opportunity to race at the Brickyard this weekend,” Long said in a press release. “As a little girl growing up in racing, I had a couple tracks that I dreamt about competing at, and the Brickyard is definitely on that list of tracks.” Previously, a trip to Indianapolis for the Nationwide Series meant short-track fireworks at the .686-mile track. It was one of the most popular races on the schedule. Now it means a trip to one of the most famous tracks in the world, one totally different than the series has ever been to. “It’s not a short track, it’s not a mile-and-a-half track, it’s not like any of the other superspeedways,” said ML Motorsports crew chief Mark Gutekunst. “It’s very different than any track we’ve been to. We’re excited about the challenge.” Gutekunst compared it to a track like Pocono, a track that also has long, flat straightaways. “NASCAR is giving us almost five hours of practice time Thursday, so we’ll be able to turn some laps and figure some things out,” said Gutekunst. One Nationwide Series driver in particular that has logged plenty of laps at the Brickyard is fan favorite Danica Patrick. Patrick has competed in the Indianpolis 500 seven times, with an average finish of ninth. She finished third in the Memorial Day classic in 2009 and fourth in 2005 as a rookie. While the car she’ll drive Saturday for Dale Earnhard Jr.-owned JR Motorsports will be totally different than the open wheel cars she steered around Indy, Patrick will definitely be a storyline and attraction. Long and her team would love nothing more than to continue to gain popularity and remind fans there is more than one talented female on the track. “Our hats off to Danica, she’s great for the sport,” said Hutchinson. “She brings a lot of attention to the sport, to the series. “We know that Johanna is a talented driver too. We’re blessed to have her at ML Motorsports, and we’re excited about going to Indy with her this weekend.” In 43 career Nationwide Series starts, Patrick has an average starting position of 19th and an average finish of 22nd. Stats that are comparable to those of Long. And Long has a fourth of the experience in the series, and not nearly the amount of resources Patrick has at JR Motorsports. In the 12 races that Patrick and Long have competed in together, Long has beat her five times.
