DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — After another successful event as part of the IndyCar weekend in Toronto with the running of the Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto, the NASCAR Pinty’s Series competitors are loading up their haulers and heading west.

The annual western swing for the series gets underway this week with a new twist for the drivers this season.

In the previous three seasons, the competitors would travel to Edmonton International Raceway for an event and then drive to Wyant Group Raceway in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for a race. This season the series will stop in Saskatoon first and will run a doubleheader for the first time in the history of NASCAR's national stock car championship in Canada.

The Velocity Prairie Thunder Twin 100s presented by Bayer will be two separate events with points for each event awarded to the competitors. This will give them three races on the trip west versus the two they’ve ran since 2014.

One driver looking forward to returning to WGR is defending series champion Cayden Lapcevich. The NASCAR Next driver scored his first series win at the track last season and will go for his second win of the season in the first of two 100-lap races at the fast .333-mile track.

In Edmonton, their race will be held three days later on Saturday night and Alex Tagliani will attempt to become the first driver to win multiple races at the quarter-mile bullring located just south of Edmonton, Alberta.

While both Lapcevich and Tagliani have reason to be confident returning this season, no driver enters this group of three races in four days hotter than Kevin Lacroix.

The St. Eustache, Quebec, driver has already scored three wins this season including back-to-back wins at Circuit ICAR and Toronto prior to this western swing. While Lacroix has scored all seven of his series wins so far on road courses, he did capture the pole at Edmonton last year and is ready to go for his first oval-track series win.

Another driver looking forward to returning west is 2014 series champion L.P. Dumoulin. Although Dumoulin hasn’t visited Victory Lane since his title-winning season – including a win in Saskatoon that year – he finished second in both western events in 2016.