NASCAR's first Cup Series race outside the United States was off to a bumpy start Friday with several teams yet to arrive in Mexico City because of travel issues in North Carolina.
At least one chartered flight to Mexico City was grounded Thursday with an engine issue, leaving teams scrambling to find alternative routes to get to Mexico. Some drove to Atlanta to catch a commercial flight.
But when the track opened Friday, many were not at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Trackhouse Racing was among them - Daniel Suarez arrived Tuesday with some support personnel so he was not affected - but the communications director for the Cup team had been summoned to help unload the Trackhouse cars off the truck because no crew members were available.
The trucks came directly from last Sunday's race in Michigan and arrived at the Mexico City track on Thursday.
NASCAR said only "a select few" teams aren't on site Friday morning. But, it seems most are Xfinity Series teams based on a revamping of the weekend schedule.