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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Gentleman, start your engines!\u00a0 The racing season starts in St. Petersburg<\/a> where drivers of all levels are ready to compete!<\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re an up and comer.<\/p>\n “Really looking forward to starting the season off on a strong point,” Jack Beeton, Indy NXT driver, said.<\/p>\n Or a seasoned pro.<\/p>\n “Momentum is a real thing in our sport, so it’s really critical to start this weekend on a positive note and carry it into the next few weeks,” Rahal, a seasoned IndyCar driver, said.<\/p>\n READ MORE: St. Petersburg native Ryan Leach reps his hometown and his dad at St. Pete Grand Prix<\/a><\/p>\n The IndyCar racing series is ready to kick off the 2026 season right in our own backyard.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n \u00a0“Saint Pete’s a beautiful city. I mean we’ve always loved it. I would say my favorite part is just how much my family enjoys it. You know it’s a great little track to race at. They’ve done good things repaving a lot of it so it’s much better for us,” Rahal said.<\/p>\n A place that means a lot to Rahal, an IndyCar veteran, as he won his first race in St. Pete 18 years ago.<\/p>\n “I’ve been obviously coming here a long, long time. \u201808 was my first year. I don’t think I’ve missed a year since. We’re blessed to be here again. It’s a great race, a great environment,” Rahal said. “Obviously everybody always thinks of racing, but just having pure performance also helps. But then tomorrow, we do need to finish well. We need to be up front and that gives the guys a lot of confidence. It gives us confidence knowing that wherever we go from here, you now that we’ve got a shot at it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n But for Beeton, a rising talent at just 18 years old in the Indy NXT league, this is new territory.<\/p>\n “So, first race weekend here in the states in Indy NXT. Really looking forward to starting the season off on a strong point, had practice yesterday, have another practice session this morning and then qualifying this afternoon for the big race tomorrow. Yeah, just trying to start the season strong, get it underway and hopefully bring a bit of silverware home,” Beeton said.<\/p>\n Rest assured, these drivers are ready to make their marks on the track and get their season off to the best start.<\/p>\n “This\u00a0is what we love to do. We love to race. Not everybody gets to do what they enjoy, so we need to be grateful for that,” IndyCar driver Christian Lundgaard said.<\/p>\n “You just have to put your whole life to and, well, there’s only a few people in the world that get to do this professionally, so you need to [do] the best,” Beeton said.<\/p>\n “We’ll have a big crowd tomorrow, but we’re looking forward to that,” Rahal said.<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete<\/a> starts Sunday at noon right here on FOX 13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this article was gathered from interviews with IndyCar drivers as well as information from indycar.com.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg<\/a>Auto Racing<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Gentleman, start your engines!\u00a0 The racing season starts in St. Petersburg where drivers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[48747,47,70139,1157,110,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-173052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-auto-racing","tag-fl","tag-grand-prix","tag-pinellas","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vlcsnap-2026-02-28-14h00m41s878.png\")
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