The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season is suddenly flying by. The Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) will be the halfway point in the season, marking the ninth race out of an 18-race season. While Alex Palou is seemingly running away with another championship, by winning four of the eight races (along with the pole for the Indianapolis 500), things are a lot tighter than they were this time a year ago. Heading into Gateway last year, Palou had a 90-point lead over Pato O’Ward. This year, Palou leads by 62-points over Kyle Kirkwood, and 79-points over David Malukas. Still, it’s safe to say that Palou has a comfortable lead to win his fifth championship in six years.
After creeping further and further into the daytime, race organizers (and probably FOX) decided to move last year’s race back into the nighttime, with a twist – a Sunday night prime-time race. Susan and I has stopped going to Gateway after the 2023 race. The 2024 race was scheduled to be held on a hot Sunday afternoon, so we decided to pass. We really like Gateway, but the afternoons there can be brutal. There is very little grass in the infield, and a lot of black asphalt. Racing at night is quite pleasant, but practice during the day is scorching.
After last year’s race looked so inviting, we decided we would attend this year’s race. Unfortunately, my 50th high school reunion is this year. Originally it was planned for May 9, which was Sonsio Grand Prix weekend. I raised such a stink about that date, they changed to date to June 6, mostly for me. Contrary to what some might think, I do have the ability to compromise. So I agreed to that date, knowing we would be missing Gateway for the third year in a row.
I’m really sorry to be missing this race. The weather looks like it’s going to be nice, and the racing should be good. Plus, we learned earlier this week that Team Penske is going to run a throwback livery that mimics a classic that is one of my all-time favorites. Scott McLaughlin will be sporting sponsorship from DEX Imaging, but this weekend the trim will be identical to the classic Marlboro livery that Team Penske ran for twenty years. (Photos: Team Penske)
From Al Unser in 1989 to Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe in 2009, at least one Penske car sported the familiar Marlboro chevrons. Before anyone tries to correct me and say Emerson Fittipaldi won the 1989 Indianapolis 500 in a Marlboro Penske chassis – he was driving for Pat Patrick, and there was a very odd sponsor arrangement between the two teams.
Those Marlboro cars always looked so good in person, and especially at night when they just seemed to pop. It’s hard to tell on television or even in print, but what appeared to me normal red chevrons on the car, were actually in bright day-glo. The Marlboro cars always stood out from the rest. When I attended the 1992 Indianapolis 500, it was the first time I had seen the Marlboro colors in person. I was pleasantly shocked to learn that the cars of Emerson Fittipaldi and Rick Mears were actually day-glo.
In my opinion, day-glo has become very under-utilized in the past fifteen to twenty years. It seems like sponsors would want to use it to make their car really stand out. Who can forget the STP cars of Andy Granatelli? At first, they were all day-glo, then they added in the (what some called) Petty blue, trimmed in day-glo.
Many cars in the 90s used day-glo – the Penske cars, Scott Brayton’s Amway car, the Menard cars, Tony Bettenhausen’s Alumax car and even Mario’s No. 6 was in day-glo. In the past few years, the closest we have come to day-glo was the fluorescent green on the Menard scheme that Simon Pagenaud occasionally ran seven or eight years ago. I wish I was going to see McLaughlin’s car in person, but we will settle on watching it from our den. I can only hope they will run it in a couple of weeks, when we will be in attendance at Road America.
But the throwback paint scheme is just an aside to what should already be a fun weekend. After all, there will be twenty-four other cars in the race not wearing the Marlboro livery.
This has become a good enough race that I think it should be the follow-up race after the Indianapolis 500, instead of Detroit. If I were running the show, I would flip-flop those two dates. Surprisingly, no one from FOX or Penske Entertainment has called me to ask my opinion on the schedule. World Wide Technology Raceway is a unique egg-shaped oval with two distinct ends. The south end, which has the Turns 1-2 complex is much tighter and has 11º of banking. Turns 3-4 in the north end has a more shallow turning radius with 9º banking.
I used to watch most of each race down at Turn Four at Pit-In. Few people would walk all the way down there, so it was always uncrowded, but it was interesting to see (and hear) cars get a big run coming off of Turn Four to set up a pass going into Turn One.
Since the series returned to Gateway in 2017, this race has been won by Josef Newgarden five times – but not since 2024. The lasting image from last year’s race is when Louis Foster spun on the front straightaway on Lap 130. In the process, he took out Josef Newgarden who was leading the race and had been for the previous twenty-five laps. Not only was Newgarden taken out by the rookie, but his car flipped and the two-time champion ended up on his head – continuing a nightmarish streak of bad luck for the Nashville driver. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood went on the win the race, while points leader Alex Palou finished eighth.
For those suffering from Palou fatigue, take solace in the fact that statistically – this is one of Palou’s worst tracks. Not only has he never won at Gateway, his average finish there since a double-header in 2020 is worse than 11.1. But in the last four races at the egg-shaped oval in Madison, Illinois; Palou has scored four Top-Tens, ranging from eighth one year ago to ninth, seventh and fourth from 2022 to 2024 – so it looks like he is starting to figure it out.
As is the case with most ovals, this will be a two-day weekend. Practice One kicks things off at 12:30 pm EDT on FS1. IndyCar qualifying will take place at 4:30 pm EDT on FS2. Then High-Line practice will begin at 8:00 pm EDT on FS1, before the Final Practice gets underway at 9:00 pm EDT. Sunday’s race coverage begins at 9:00 pm EDT; so the vast majority of the race will be run in total darkness – as it should be.
Josef Newgarden has already won on the only other short oval of the season, at Phoenix. After five wins in nine races, logic would have it that he will win again Sunday night. But rumors are starting to stir that Newgarden wants out at Team Penske, which is almost unheard of. Drivers don’t choose to leave Team Penske, they are told to leave. But these are different times, and more and more people that I tend to respect are saying more and more that Newgarden will be elsewhere by the start of next season.
I think this weekend is the weekend that David Malukas finally breaks through and gets that elusive first career victory. He has always done well at this track, and I think his wait finally comes to an end this weekend. We’ll see.
George Phillips
