Marco Andretti will drive the No. 48 car for Big Machine Racing in this weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series event at the Charlotte ROVAL, as announced a few months ago in early August.
Andretti, 35, is a part of the famous racing family with Michael Andretti as his father while Mario Andretti is his grandfather. The 35-year-old has been racing professionally since he joined the NTT IndyCar Series in 2006.
Now, Andretti will make his NASCAR debut in Saturday afternoon’s Xfinity Series race in equipment that has won an event this season with Tyler Reddick at Texas Motor Speedway.
Marco Andretti’s past as he enters NASCAR at the Charlotte ROVAL
Andretti joined the NTT IndyCar Series for his first full-time season in 2006 after winning three of his six Indy Light Series events during the 2005 season. The rookie season ended up being one of his most notable.
Almost half of his finishes outside of the top-10 spots were due to issues with the car or accidents. Andretti ran well and earned his first career victory in the series at Sonoma Raceway in the second-to-last race of the season.
It would be one of two IndyCar victories that Andretti would earn over his 15 full-time seasons. The other victory came at Iowa Speedway in 2011 at the age of 24 years old. The next nine seasons would be winless for him.
The 35-year-old’s best season overall came in 2013 when he finished a career-high of fifth in the point standings with a career-best average finish. He also led the second-most laps of his career that season.
Andretti has only finished on the podium 20 times in his 250 starts. However, he did have other success outside of IndyCar with Tony Stewart’s Camping World SRX Series in 2021 and 2022.
Andretti won for the first time in the series at Slinger Speedway and finished fourth in the point standings in 2021. The more notable season concluded on July 23 of this year.
The former full-time IndyCar driver did not win a single heat or feature race; however, he barely won the 2022 SRX Series championship over former NASCAR driver Ryan Newman by two points.
It was an incredible final race of the season that unfortunately saw Andretti break his wrist near the end. The 35-year-old kept pushing forward and beat out many former NASCAR and IndyCar drivers.
Now, speaking of NASCAR drivers, driving against an Andretti is notable in itself. It does not matter who it is because the name is one of the biggest in the world of motorsports.
However, reasonable expectations should be set for Andretti this weekend as he makes his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut. A top-15 or top-20 finish would be a great start as he becomes the fifth member of his family to compete in NASCAR.