A Special Guest From Outer Space To Give The Race Command in This Sunday’s NASCAR Race

This Sunday, A special guest from ‘out of this world’ will give the race command to start the engine. NASA Astronaut Doug Hurley will give the race command in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega.

Doug Hurley was the commander of the historic SpaceX Demo-2 (DM-2) spaceflight. And he became part of history as a member of the first crew on board a private space flight. It is the first manned spacecraft from America after July 2011.

NASCAR celebrates this occasion by inviting him to give the command to fire engines for Sunday’s GEICO 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. Additionally, The GEICO 500 will start at 3 PM EST and Doug will join from the ‘International Space Station’.

After that, Fox NASCAR’s Bob Pockrass reveals in a tweet. He writes, “Giving command to start engine Sunday, Astronaut Doug Hurley, who is on board of the International Space Station #nascar @NASCARONFOX“

Notably, Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Martin Truex Jr, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Busch will lead the race. And NASCAR star, Jimmie Johnson will start his last Talladega race in the fourth place.

NASCAR and NASA share a long history

Doug’s appearance in NASCAR will be the first one in recent years. However, the two companies share a long history. In 2010, NASA’s famous ‘From Rockets to Race Cars’ exhibit was part of the NASCAR show. The exhibit primarily focused on all the innovations that are common in racing but have roots in space exploration.

Additionally, In 1994, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin was the Grand Marshal of the Talladega 500. Aldrin is the second man to walk on the moon. In the race, he gave a special twist to the common announcement for the drivers to start their engines. He said, “Gentlemen, energize your ground craft.”

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