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  • McLaughlin saves season with dominant drive in Alabama

    McLaughlin saves season with dominant drive in Alabama

    On Wednesday, Scott McLaughlin learned he lost his second-place finish in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, for push-to-pass violations by Team Penske. As a result, he fell to last in NTT INDYCAR SERIES points.

    “We took the penalty, as we said at the start of the week,” he said. “It was black and white. You move on.”

    Fast-forward to Sunday, McLaughlin dominated the field to win in Alabama.

    He led a race high of 59 laps to win the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix for the second year in a row, and the fifth time in his career. He built up a large enough gap to pit on Lap 75 and exit pit road ahead of Alex Palou. A caution with five laps to go gave Palou and the field another chance, but nobody had the goods to overtake McLaughlin on the final restart with two laps to go.

    “We did what we thought we could do,” he said. “It was execution. Like, probably one of the most I guess you could say so proud of the execution, the way that the team, particularly on the three cars, stuck together. We just kind of kept executing. That’s our word for the rest of the year. Keep knocking ’em out. Points are points. Points are imaginary things. You just, like, get them. It’s a reward at the end of the race.

    “It’s about executing. The higher you finish, the more points you get. Ultimately it’s a bonus at the end of the season. We’re here to just take it race by race and see what happens towards the end.”

    Teammate, Will Power, who lost 10 points in Wednesday’s penalty announcement, brought his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet home to a runner-up finish. INDYCAR rookie, Linus Lundqvist, passed Palou for third on Lap 79. For a moment, he thought he could pass Power in Turn 5. To no avail.

    “I think these guys were obviously the pace of the field today,” he said. “I was able to hold off fairly easily from Palou. I think he still had some fuel saving or old tires.”

    Felix Rosenqvist and Palou rounded out the top-five.

    Christian Lundgaard, Santino Ferrucci, Colton Herta, Marcus Armstrong and Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top-10.

    Race summary

    McLaughlin led the field to green at 1:40 p.m. ET. A three-car incident in Turn 1 set the tone for the day. For which Rinus VeeKay served a pass-through penalty, for avoidable contact. I counted at least six times one car touched another, over the course of 90 laps.

    McLaughlin pitted from the lead on Lap 28. Palou followed suite, two laps later. Followed by Rosenqvist on Lap 31 and Ferrucci on Lap 36. McLaughlin cycled back to the lead on Lap 37.

    Alexander Rossi lost a wheel exiting pit road on Lap 44. Which brought out a caution. Running on a three-stop strategy, Palou stayed out during the caution to retake the lead. When Sting Ray Robb plowed into the Turn 1 tire barrier on Lap 55, Ferrucci stayed out to inherit the lead. It was a lucky break for McLaughlin, who was “probably on the backfoot” when the caution flew.

    “That was a way of us getting back to the point where these other guys had to take the fuel and hope they made the fuel,” he said.

    After Ferrucci pitted on Lap 66 and Lundqvist on Lap 70, McLaughlin built a roughly 30-second gap to Palou. When he pitted on Lap 75, he exited ahead of Palou.

    Aside from Christian Rasmussen’s stall in Turn 14 with five laps to go, it was McLaughlin’s race to lose.

    What else happened

    File under “Well that happened.”

    On Lap 53, a mannequin named Georgina fell off the bridge before the entry to Turn 7 and partially onto the track. Which Luca Ghiotto clipped. In a sports league where fans tape up beer cans to make a beer tower on Carb Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, nothing compares to this. Hell, I once saw a bat fly around the media center at Bristol Motor Speedway, and that was less bizarre than any of this.

    Nuts and bolts

    The race lasted one hour, 56 minutes and 45 seconds, at an average speed of 106.369 mph. There were 10 lead changes among six different drivers and four cautions for 15 laps.

    Herta leaves Barber Motorsports Park as the points leader.

  • The White Zone: Yeah, this race wasn’t good

    The White Zone: Yeah, this race wasn’t good

    EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story used the headline “The White Zone: Yeah, this race sucked.” After discussing it with Tucker, he understood this was too mean-spirited of a title. Furthermore, he rewrote several paragraphs for the same reason.

    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Even IndyCar puts on lackluster races.

    I’ve worked enough NTT INDYCAR SERIES races to know what makes a good race. You won’t see bumping and banging, and multiple on-track lead changes like NASCAR. And if you understand and accept that, there’s a lot of fun to have with IndyCar. Which, in my opinion, is more strategy-heavy than NASCAR.

    But just like NASCAR, INDYCAR has doldrum days.

    All weekend, I heard beat writers and even NBC take potshots at Formula 1 for how stale and boring its product is (and rightfully so). Now by no means was Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete near the level of the Max Verstappen Invitational.

    But it had some elements of it.

    Josef Newgarden led 92 of 100 laps and won by a margin of roughly eight seconds. All the lead changes happened during pit stops. Three times, a driver braked wrong, overran a corner and a caution flew. In one case, Romain Grosjean clipped Linus Lundqvist in Turn 10 and put him in the tire barrier (for which, he served a pass-through penalty).

    Outside of that, Sunday’s race didn’t give me much to discuss.

    Look, there was a lot of good from this weekend. This race drew an insanely huge crowd, which crowded pit road, pre-race. I found it more difficult than normal to move my way through the sea of people. Furthermore, St. Pete is an amazingly intimate venue. Everything’s centralized to an excellent walking distance radius of the deadline room and once you figure out the basic layout, it’s insanely easy to navigate.

    Would I come here to cover a race, again? ABSOLUTELY!

    Moreover, this race was probably an outlier.

    For now, however, the kickoff to the 2024 season could’ve been better.

    That’s my view, for what it’s worth.

  • Newgarden takes pole at St. Pete

    Newgarden takes pole at St. Pete

    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Josef Newgarden told NBC’s Marty Snider, Friday, in the Mahaffey Theater that despite his Indianapolis 500 victory and wins on all but one oval, he was bummed to not win a pole in 2023.

    He rectified that in Race No. 1 of 2024.

    “Crazy proud,” he said. “I’m always proud of my team and even more so today. They deserve it. They’ve done a great job all off-season. They’ve done a great job in 2023 (sic), and I feel like we fell short in a lot of areas that we didn’t need to.”

    The two-time NTT INDYCAR Series champion scored his 17th career pole with a Firestone Fast Six time of 59.5714 (108.777 mph). He jumped to the top of the charts with just 15 seconds left in the final round. Besting Felix Rosenqvist, who broke Will Power’s track record in the second round.

    All of which came after a less than stellar performance in first practice, Friday. Newgarden’s team didn’t change much on the car after first practice.

    “We were sort of same car,” he said. “Just really putting it together better, and I think (second practice) was representative more so for where we were as a team.”

    Rounding out the top-six are Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta (who ran his fastest time in the final round on Firestone black tires, while the rest used greens*), Romain Grosjean and defending race winner Marcus Ericsson.

    Aside from Rinus VeeKay kissing the wall off Turn 10, nothing out of the ordinary happened during qualifying. Gusts of wind dragged debris onto the track, but that wound up a non-factor.

    * The green-banded Firestone tires are the same compound as the reds of years past, but with a different construction. How differently it performed was “hard to say.”

    “I felt like it was probably more of a lap two, lap three tire than the past,” Rosenqvist said. “I think here last time we were here it was like a lap one tire. It changes all the time kind of depending on the weather and the wind and what not.”

  • Dixon vs. father time

    Dixon vs. father time

    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Scott Dixon took his seat at the podium inside the deadline room of the Mahaffey Theater. The six-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion starts his 22nd season, Sunday.

    In most sports, an athlete’s performance peaks in their mid to late 20s. Whereas in auto racing, many drivers race well into their 40s. Mario Andretti raced full-time in IndyCar until 1994, at the age of 54. AJ Foyt ran his final race in 1996, at 61, in a 28th-place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

    Furthermore, winning races isn’t just for the youth. Dixon, 43, capped off the 2023 season with three wins in the last four races.

    With that said, however, father time waits for nobody.

    “I think it’s different for everybody, depending on when they feel like they should be done with a sport,” Dixon said.

    Sometimes, a driver leaves a sport on top. While he didn’t win a fifth NASCAR Cup Series championship, Jeff Gordon, at 44, raced his way into the Championship 4 in his final full-time season in 2015.

    More often than not, however, a driver exits with a whimper.

    While Jimmie Johnson won his seventh championship in 2016, at 41, his performance declined as well. He finished less than half the races in the top-10 for the first time in his career and didn’t lead the most laps in a single race. Moreover, his results fell sharply in his final four full-time seasons. He went winless in his final three and missed the playoffs in his final two.

    Dale Earnhardt Jr., at 43, finished his Cup Series career in 2017 with no wins in his last two seasons. That, and a concussion cost him half of his penultimate season.

    Sometimes, a driver gets no say on how they go out. A wreck in the penultimate round of the 2013 IndyCar season forced Dario Franchitti, at 40, into an early retirement.

    So how much longer Dixon has is “hard to answer.”

    “I think you go until you feel like you don’t want to or maybe you’re not winning as much,” he said.

    In 21 years in INDYCAR, Dixon won at least one race in all but one. Last season, in addition to his three wins, he finished top-10 in all but one race and top-five in 11 of 17.

    For now, the New Zealand native shows no sign of decline. Aside from clocking in 12th in first practice.

  • Kurt Busch’s ‘The Double’ Challenge: 10 Years Later

    Kurt Busch’s ‘The Double’ Challenge: 10 Years Later

    Ten years ago on this day, March 4, Kurt Busch announced his attempt to tackle ‘The Double.’ It’s the ultimate motorsports challenge that involves competing in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, two prestigious events centered around two motorsports series, on the same day during Memorial Day weekend. 

    Busch’s first interest in attempting ‘The Double’ occurred in early May 2013 when he tested an IndyCar powered by a Chevrolet engine for Andretti Autosport at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana. By then, the 2004 Cup Series champion from Las Vegas, Nevada, was campaigning in the Cup circuit for Furniture Row Racing after spending the majority of the previous season driving for Phoenix Raceway.  

    After spending the remainder of the 2013 season along with the early months of the 2014 season mulling over the decision to attempt ‘The Double’, Busch’s decision and announcement for the challenge was officially made on March 4, 2014, two months before the Indy 500 would occur, as he would join forces with Andretti to pilot a fifth entry for the organization. 

    On April 28, Busch’s Indy 500 ride with Andretti Autosport was revealed, where he would pilot the No. 26 Dallara-Honda sponsored by Suretone Entertainment in IndyCar’s most prestigious events on the calendar to commence the double duty process. He would then fly back to Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, in time to compete in NASCAR’s longest event on the calendar, the Coca-Cola 600, behind the wheel of his full-time Cup Series ride: the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing. 

    A day later, Busch’s double challenge on the track commenced as he piloted his Andretti entry around Indianapolis Motor Speedway during a refresher test program. He turned in 66 laps during the program and recorded a top speed of 220.844 mph. Another week later, the Las Vegas veteran topped the speed charts during the event’s Rookie Orientation Program with an average running speed of 222.289 mph, which cleared him to attempt a qualifying run for the Indy 500, before he posted the second-fastest speed at 224.159 mph behind teammate EJ Viso during a practice session the following week. 

    On May 17, when the qualification process of the 2014 Indy 500 occurred, Busch made two qualifying attempts and ended up posting the 10th-fastest average speed at 229.960 mph, which was one spot short of reaching the Fast Nine Shootout. Flying back to Charlotte Motor Speedway to compete in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, where he finished 11th, Busch would participate in the Indy 500’s second qualifying session the following day, May 18. With his best four-lap average qualifying speed averaging at 230.782 mph, he ended up claiming the 12th-place starting spot for the 2014 Indy 500 and watched from a distance as Indianapolis native Ed Carpenter claimed the pole position. 

    Aside from time management, the only hurdle to Busch’s double attempt was being involved in a hard accident during the post-qualifying practice session on May 19, where he slid into the outside wall while entering the backstretch and spun across the track before coming to rest towards the backstretch’s infield grass. The wreck resulted in Busch’s team using a backup car from teammate Marco Andretti as Busch’s for Carb Day and the Indy 500.  

    Meanwhile, Busch would proceed to qualify in 28th place for the Coca-Cola 600 on May 22 as his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team had Parker Kligerman tabbed as a backup competitor for Busch in the event of a scheduling conflict that would result in the latter having traveling issues from Indianapolis to Charlotte. 

    On race day for the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 25, Busch, who started alongside IndyCar champions Scott Dixon and Juan Pablo Montoya on the fourth row from 12th place, ran a consistent race and spent the majority of the day running within the top 20. Amid a handful of late-race incidents that eliminated Dixon, Charlie Kimball, teammate James Hinchcliffe and pole-winner Carpenter out of contention, Busch climbed his way up the leaderboard to run within the top 10 with 25 laps remaining.

    Then while running in seventh place with 10 laps remaining, he barely dodged an accident entering the backstretch that eliminated Townsend Bell out of contention to gain a spot. With scheduling concerns rising as the event was placed in a red-flag period to clear Bell’s wreckage, the race would proceed in stable time for a six-lap shootout, where Busch would steer his No. 26 Honda to a strong sixth-place finish while teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay fended off a late charge from Helio Castroneves to win the Indy 500 for the first time in his career.  

    Despite returning to Charlotte Motor Speedway in time for the start of the Coca-Cola 600, Busch was ultimately forced to start at the rear of the field due to missing the pre-race driver’s meeting. When the green flag for the start of the 600-mile event, he spent the early stages of the event pinned a lap down and mired within the top 30 in the running order. While trying to methodically carve his way up the leaderboard, Busch gained a break on Lap 148 when a debris caution enabled him to cycle back onto the lead lap after being pinned a lap down, and by then, he was running within the top 15.  

    Racing as high as within the top-10 mark as the event surpassed its halfway mark of 400-scheduled laps, where he would receive the free pass a second time due to another debris caution on Lap 222, Busch’s 600-mile event at Charlotte slowly began to go south just past the Lap 250 mark as he radioed the loss of two cylinders to his No. 41 Chevrolet. By Lap 273, his event came to a bitter end after his engine went up in smoke entering the backstretch, which resulted in Busch nursing his car to the garage as he retired in 40th place, thus ending his long double run, while pole-sitter Jimmie Johnson would proceed to win. 

    Overall, Busch completed a total of 906 miles from the planned 1,100 (471 of 600 combined laps). He joined John Andretti, Robby Gordon and Tony Stewart as the only competitors to have attempted and achieved ‘The Double’ at least once to date. Despite not achieving a victory in either event during his double challenge, Busch would be named the 2014 Indy 500 Rookie-of-the-Year recipient as he was the highest-finishing rookie on the track.

    In addition, his sixth-place result during the Indy 500 matches Gordon and Stewart’s best on-track result in the Indy 500 for any competitor participating in ‘The Double’ challenge. Stewart, however, is the only competitor to date to have completed all 1,100 miles of competition during ‘The Double’, which he accomplished in 2001 after finishing sixth at Indy before settling in third at Charlotte. 

    “We gave it our all,” Busch said in the garage on FOX. “To feel the stock car right after driving an INDYCAR was a day I’ll never forget. I can’t let the mood here with the [expired] car [at Charlotte] dampen what happened up at Indy today. That was very special. It takes a team everywhere. All in all, I’m very satisfied. I trained hard. [I] had a lot of people helping me out. Everybody worked hard on both sides.” 

    Following his 2014 double attempt, Busch, who would not make any additional attempts for another double bid, would proceed to make the 2014 Cup Series Playoffs and end up in 12th place in the final standings. He then spent the next eight seasons accumulating a total of nine Cup victories and making the Playoffs from 2015-21 while competing between three organizations (Stewart-Haas Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing and 23XI Racing). An accident during a qualifying session at Pocono Raceway in July 2022 would force Busch to retire from full-time NASCAR competition before the 2023 season amid sustaining concussion-like symptoms, with Busch officially announcing his retirement from racing for good this past August. 

    This season, a new name strives to be added to the list of competitors who have successfully performed the double on Memorial Day weekend as Kyle Larson declared his bid in January 2023 to attempt ‘The Double’ challenge for the 2024 season. Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion from Elk Grove, California, will join forces with Arrow McLaren and attempt to qualify for this year’s 108th running of the Indy 500 in the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Dallara-Chevrolet.

    He will then travel to Charlotte Motor Speedway and conclude the day by competing in the Coca-Cola 600 behind his familiar No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports in the Cup circuit, where he will bid for his second 600 victory after winning his first in 2021. 

    The 2024 Indianapolis 500 is scheduled to occur on May 26 and air at 11 a.m. ET on NBC. The 2024 Coca-Cola 600 will follow suit on the same day and air at 6 p.m. ET on FOX. 

  • Three Big Stories: Gateway (IndyCar)

    Three Big Stories: Gateway (IndyCar)

    MADISON, Ill. — And then there were two.

    Scott Dixon reminded everyone that we live in his world. Josef Newgarden’s championship hopes hit the wall. Moreover, how did two tire compounds affect today’s race?

    So without further adieu, here are Three Big Stories from World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

    We all live in Scott Dixon’s world

    MADISON, Ill. – AUGUST 27: Pato O’Ward (L), Scott Dixon (C) and David Malukas (R) spray each other with champagne in victory lane, after the NTT IndyCar Series Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on Aug. 27, 2023, in Madison, Illinois. Photo: Simon Scoggins/SpeedwayMedia.com

    “Scott Dixon decided to do a Dixon, today,” Pato O’Ward said, in the deadline room.

    “How does he do it?” Dave Furst, IndyCar vice-president of competition and communication, jokingly asked O’Ward.

    “Well, he just does it,” O’Ward said. “He’s just Scott Dixon, you know? I feel like that’s what he’s best known for.”

    Dixon stretched his stint on Firestone red tires to 60 laps, when everyone else ran roughly 40. A timely caution let him pit for sticker blacks and exit pit road with the race lead.

    Now he needed to hold off the field AND save fuel.

    “I think probably the hardest part was the restart where we were leading, having to get a pretty high fuel number,” Dixon said. “We weren’t getting it. We were a ways off.

    “But I knew we could kind of stress that kind of second through fifth pack, get them into a pretty vulnerable situation. I knew once we caught the back markers we’d be able to save and get beyond the fuel mileage that we needed to. It actually worked out perfectly. We were able to go further and beyond where we needed to.”

    Dixon entered Indianapolis, two weeks ago, winless on the 2023 season. Naturally, everyone asked if he’d win, period.

    Fast-forward 15 days, the six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion not only has two wins, but he’s reeling in Alex Palou’s once insurmountable points lead.

    Now it’s still his teammate’s title to lose, but Dixon won’t make it easy.

    Though in the end, Chip Ganassi wins.

    “I think what is special is going into the last two races, it can only be a Ganassi driver, which is very cool,” he said. “I know that makes Chip very proud, and the hundred-plus employees that work at that place, as well.”

    In the meantime, Dixon celebrates back-to-back wins by downing cans of Stag with Marshall Pruett.

    Josef Newgarden’s title hopes hit the wall

    One picture says it all.

    Newgarden, with the slimmest of hopes, needed everything to go right to catch Palou and win his third IndyCar championship. And for much of the first half, it did.

    He led 98 laps and even when he fell behind Dixon and his pit strategy, he was in contention.

    Then he hit a wall, literally.

    He turned the wheel like there was no tomorrow, but to no avail.

    His chance at sweeping all six oval races vanished.

    As did his slim chance at the title.

    Effect of different tire compounds

    MADISON, Ill. – AUGUST 26: Firestone red tires sit stacked in the garage during the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on Aug. 26, 2023, in Madison, Illinois. Photo: Tucker White/SpeedwayMedia.com

    Sunday marked the first time IndyCar used different tire compounds for an oval race.

    And the result?

    Well, it varied from driver to driver.

    Case in point, the race winner:

    “The tire was kind of interesting,” Dixon said. “It actually had a good amount of deg.”

    The guy who finished second:

    “It brought in some pretty horrendous marbles onto the racetrack, which made the second lane almost impossible to use,” O’Ward said.

    Both agreed, however, it needs more falloff.

    “I think having an alternate tire, you really kind of want it to – I know Firestone doesn’t want to do it because that’s the product they produce, they produce very good tires – but I think for falloff like we see at Iowa where you go from an 18-second lap all the way to 22s, 23s, you have good cars coming and going, people able to make changes throughout the race,” Dixon said. “I think that’s what they need to bring back here, a little bit more aggressive for next time.”

    Now while both series use different tire makers, these sentiments echo similar statements NASCAR Cup Series drivers made in June at Gateway. Denny Hamlin noted drivers could run 50+ laps on the same Goodyear tires and not experience significant dropoff.

    So whether it’s a matter of Firestone and Goodyear bringing harder tires or the track surface, that’s for a more engineer-minded person to decipher.

    As for the future of INDYCAR, O’Ward likes the idea of different compounds for ovals.

    “I just think if they want good racing, we can’t be in single file,” he said. “Then even the lappers can be racing with the leaders.”

  • Newgarden steals Indy 500 victory

    Newgarden steals Indy 500 victory

    INDIANAPOLIS — Josef Newgarden walked into the DEX Imaging Media Center at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, talking about stocks.

    No, I didn’t make that up.

    “I am into finance,” he said. “I think it’s a great career path. It’s probably something I would be doing if I wasn’t driving cars. It’s kind of as simple as that. I won’t bore everybody, but I love that world. I think it’s super fun.”

    As Newgarden says this, the video screens both in the deadline room and around the track play a highlight package of his Indianapolis 500 victory.

    With one lap to go, Newgarden overtook Marcus Ericsson on the backstretch, using the same move Ericsson used to win in 2022.

    And Newgarden knew exactly how he wanted to celebrate.

    Go up in the stands.

    INDIANAPOLIS – MAY 28: Josef Newgarden, driver of the #2 Shell Chevrolet, celebrates with the fans in the stands, after winning the NTT IndyCar Series Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 28, 2023, in Indianapolis. Photo: Karl Zemlin/Penske Entertainment

    He parked his car on the yard of bricks, exited his Team Penske Chevrolet and hopped through a crossover gate to celebrate with the fans.

    “Yeah, I knew exactly where the gap was,” he said. “I’d been over there many, many years. I’ve seen that photo, whole spot, and really it’s just like an access point that you can crawl under. It looks like it’s closed but there’s a way to get through. I knew exactly where I was going at the end of this race.”

    He wanted to go higher up, but thought better of it. So he hugged a couple of people and crawled back through the gap.

    “But it was really cool,” he said. “You just can’t beat the Hoosier hospitality, the energy that people bring here. It is second to none when it comes to a sporting event.”

    Meanwhile, his crew channels Helio Castroneves and hangs from the catch fence.

    Visibly crying as his crew wheeled his car to victory lane, he climbed out and followed through the traditional victory lane celebrations, from the wreath to drinking the milk.

    “The milk, I felt good about it,” he said. “It tasted so good. I love milk. I drink a lot of milk. So for me, the Indy 500 is kind of the greatest thing ever. Other people might not like to get milk after. That’s the choice I would have made, too. I love Louis Meyer. I love that he threw that up as a tradition. I’m a big milk guy.”

    Compare this to his 2016 post-race interview, after he finished third. He was dejected, frustrated, and in despair.

    Now, the newest Indianapolis 500 champion talked about how fascinated he is with finances.

    FULL DISCLOSURE: I asked him what fascinates him about finances.

    When Newgarden’s press conference wrapped up, he put the wreath back on and turned his focus to the rest of the season. As well as getting Roger Penske his 20th Indy 500 victory, next season.

    “I put my hand on his shoulder in Victory Lane and said, ‘Now we got to get 20,’” he said. “He was the first one to go, ‘Absolutely.’ He didn’t even take a breath. He was ahead of me in the thought process, as you know.

    “He’s eyes forward. It will be important. We need to come back. There’s still areas we can be better, so we’ll go and analyze after this weekend and see where we can improve. But we’ll come back ready to fight and get No. 20 for him.”

  • Graham Rahal: ‘It’s certainly very very different’

    Graham Rahal: ‘It’s certainly very very different’

    INDIANAPOLIS — Graham Rahal entered the North Chataeu Pavillion at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He sat at the interview table in the back of the room and kicked out his feet until the toes of his shoes poked out of the cloth.

    Virtually every reporter gathered around and craned their necks to hear every word he’d say. And why wouldn’t they? After all, just four days earlier, teammate Jack Harvey bumped him out of the Indianapolis 500.

    But then Rahal received a call.

    “I will say that there was a part of me that thought it wasn’t right, and that I was just going to accept that I wasn’t racing and I was going to move forward and move into kind of a different phase and my mental process and the way the rest of my week was going to be,” he said.

    One day after Harvey bumped out Rahal, Stefan Wilson pounded the wall in Turn 1 and injured his back. And Rahal was the first choice of Dreyer and Reinbold Racing team owner, Dennie Reinbold.

    Instead of watching at home, Rahal finds himself in a “very very different” situation.

    Those differences range from a different manufacturer to the fit of gloves.

    “Obviously, the engine is different,” he said. “The brakes feel different, like the way the button, everything feels different. The way the end, the buttons feel, too, thumbs to the gloves is different. There’s a lot that goes into that.”

    He asked questions about input to the car but felt it wasn’t his place to push the issue. He feels he’s here to “fill out a big void for the weekend.”

    Moreover, for one race, he transitions from helping his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammates to racing against them. He is, however, excited for the opportunity.

    “I know they’ve had very strong cars. But the mentality is different. My job is turned from maybe a team leader to a guy that wants to go win this thing again. Not that it ever went away, but clearly, I have a chance now that I didn’t, Monday afternoon.”

    If Sunday’s his day, the final practice Friday didn’t reflect it. He clocked in 30th, over half a second back of Takuma Sato.

  • Palou drives away from field at Indy

    Palou drives away from field at Indy

    INDIANAPOLIS — With eight laps to go, it was Alex Palou’s race to lose.

    The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series champion led 52 of the 85 laps to win the GMR Indy Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

    “We knew we had a fast car honestly since practice, since we were all off the trailers,” he said. “The car was really, really good. I was comfortable. We missed a little bit on pole, yesterday, but we knew we had a fast car.”

    It’s his fifth career IndyCar victory and first since the season-finale at Laguna Seca in 2022.

    “Yeah, every win is special, honestly,” he said. “We’ve been close here. We had little bit of bad luck. I know in ’21 we had a failure when we were going for the fight for the win at the end. It was the first race that everything came perfectly, the strategy, the tires, the speed of the car, myself obviously.

    “Super proud. It’s a special place. You can feel that in the car just with the fans that we had already since practice one. There’s something about this place obviously. Even if it’s not the big one, it’s still special.

    “So super proud of the first win of the season, first win with the American Legion, as well, and first win at the IMS. Couldn’t be better.”

    Pato O’Ward had fresh red tires, but couldn’t overcome a 10-second gap before he reached his tires’ crossover lap and finished runner-up, 16 seconds behind.

    “Super stoked for the team,” he said. “We put three cars in the top-five. Fricking hard to do in this series with how competitive it is. Just stoked for everybody in the organization, for our 5 crew.

    “We made our strategy really work, right? I just think today Palou and Ganassi were very, very strong, so we couldn’t quite get them there in the end.

    “Historically this hasn’t been the best of tracks for us. So this is awesome to see just the massive step forward we’ve taken here in race pace. Super happy to see that.

    “Rolling with some great momentum into our Super Bowl.”

    Alexander Rossi rounded out the podium, after he overtook Christian Lundgaard into Turn 7 with 10 to go.

    “Like Pato said, to get three cars in the top-five is near on impossible these days,” he said. “Arrow McLaren has done a phenomenal job all year. You can’t talk about how challenging it is to add a car in the off-season. They’ve done it with relative apparent ease. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes.

    “Really proud to get the first podium for the team, the first one as part of Team Chevy. It was a good day. We’ve had a really strong pace on Sundays, we just haven’t gotten the results that we feel like we deserve. We’re missing a little bit on Saturdays.

    “The pieces are coming together. I’ve got an awesome team, awesome teammates around me.”

    Pole sitter Christian Lundgaard and Felix Rosenqvist rounded out the top-five.

    Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Marcus Ericsson, Colton Herta and Graham Rahal rounded out the top-10.

    Race summary

    INDIANAPOLIS – MAY 13: Alex Palou races Felix Rosenqvist, during the NTT IndyCar Series GMR Indy Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 13, 2023, in Indianapolis. Photo: Simon Scoggins/SpeedwayMedia.com

    Lundgaard led the field to green at 3:46 p.m. ET. He and Palou touched in Turn 1, but Palou overtook him in Turn 13 to lead the first lap.

    “We knew starting on the alternates we needed to go hard and try and get the lead as fast as possible,” Palou said. “I think the alternates had two, three laps that they were a lot better. Afterwards, you kind of got stuck behind.

    “I tried in Turn 1. He went really aggressive. It was right, it was perfect what he did, but yeah, I wanted it to be something easier (smiling). We were able to get it on the last corner. That was good.”

    Rahal contacted someone also, and dropped through the field. On Lap 7, Will Power drove Kyle Kirkwood wide into Turn 1. Entering Turn 2, Kirkwood turned him. IndyCar gave him an avoidable contact penalty and he dropped seven spots, behind Power.

    By Lap 15, Palou hit the crossover point on his red tires and Lundgaard cut the gap by over a second in three laps. Palou pitted from the lead on Lap 18. Lundgaard stayed out for two laps, before changing over to reds on Lap 20. Palou cycled ahead, but Lundgaard ran him down and overtook him down Hulman Boulevard on Lap 24.

    Meanwhile, Rahal inherited the lead, thanks to multiple stops from his Lap 1 hit. By Lap 30, however, Lundgaard chewed half a second a lap into his lead, and Rahal pitted from the lead on Lap 31.

    Lundgaard’s reds hit their crossover lap on Lap 37. After that, Palou on blacks ate into his lead and overtook him into Turn 1 for the lead on Lap 42. Before he crossed the start/finish line, Lundgaard pitted from second for used reds. Meanwhile, Palou followed suit on Lap 43, but took sticker blacks.

    Lundgaard pitted from third on Lap 60 for sticker blacks. Palou responded a lap later, but took used blacks. He cycled out ahead of Lundgaard, on new blacks, and O’Ward, on fresh reds.

    This set up the run to the finish.

    What else happened

    Entering Turn 7 on Lap 2, Romain Grosjean clipped David Malukas, who spun into Sting Ray Robb.

    That was the only caution of the race.

    Nuts and bolts

    The race lasted one hour, 47 minutes and 57 seconds, at an average speed of 115.234 mph. There were 12 lead changes among eight different drivers, and one caution for three laps.

    Palou kicks off the Month of May with a six-point lead over O’Ward.

  • Why IndyCar and IMS continue Indy 500 blackout

    Why IndyCar and IMS continue Indy 500 blackout

    INDIANAPOLIS — It’s that time of year, again. The IndyCar teams leave their shops on Main Street and pull into the racing capital of the world for the centerpiece of the NTT IndyCar Series calendar, the Indianapolis 500. Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO, Mark Miles, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway track president, Doug Boles, kicked off the Month of May at the Brickyard, Saturday, by unveiling an environmental initiative to make the 2023 edition “the most sustainable on record.”

    For all that IndyCar and IMS changed for 2023, however, one tradition lingers: The Indy 500 local blackout.

    Why the blackout?

    INDIANAPOLIS – MAY 13: (l to r) Mark Miles, Doug Boles and Glenn Johnson speak to the media during the NTT IndyCar Series GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 13, 2023, in Indianapolis. Photo: Tucker White/SpeedwayMedia.com

    While the rest of the United States sees the Indianapolis 500 live, the NBC affiliate blacks it out for its namesake city and airs it later that day, in primetime, to incentivize locals to pack the grandstands. This practice started in 1986 and continues to this day, except for 2016 (sellout for 100th Indy 500), 2020 and 2021 (COVID restrictions). Meanwhile, NASCAR doesn’t blackout races for the local markets. Not even for its crown jewel race, the Daytona 500.

    So why does IndyCar and IMS continue this tradition? It’s a question Miles has had many times over many years.

    “We have to get people here as they have been here in growing numbers for many, many years,” he said. “We’re really clear-minded about the fact that for us, attendance is first, and this spectacle emanates from the vibe here on race day with 300,000 plus people here. I think that’s unique.”

    Unlike NASCAR, where tracks get 65% of its $6.6 billion TV deal, IndyCar doesn’t make those numbers public. How much IndyCar and the track rely on ticket sales, vs. the league’s TV deal, is unknown. And that doesn’t include how much the teams and drivers get from the TV deal the league signed in 2021.

    So there might be a financial rationale to continue the practice.

    “We think this is a unique event,” he said. “With all due respect, and I mean with complete respect to our friends at NASCAR, at Indianapolis for the 500, we sell as many tickets in the 500 hours after this race, renewals, as they have at the Daytona 500 in total by the time they run the race. And that is in no way meant to be — like I said, we have complete respect for them. It is meant to emphasize how important attendance is to us, to the success of this event.”

    Of course, NASCAR doesn’t disclose how many tickets its tracks, Speedway Motorsports Inc., Indianapolis, Pocono Raceway or World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway sold, unless it’s a sellout. So I can’t verify the veracity of Miles’ statement on ticket renewals, compared to Daytona.

    Bottom line

    At the end of the day, IndyCar and IMS see a financial incentive to continue the local media blackout. Unlike NASCAR, however, IndyCar hasn’t struggled to pack the stands for its events.

    “We also, I think, have demonstrated over the last few years that when getting people here is not an issue,” Miles said, “either because it’s COVID and we can’t bring anybody here, or because the number of people that could come were limited and we were definitely going to have that total here, then we do open it up. We like the idea that people can take it in, whether it’s linear or streaming.

    “But for now, that’s our rationale, and it’s important to us.”