Oilpressure

Greetings from a much warmer Gateway Motorsports Park. As promised, the typical temperatures for August have returned after an unusually cool and pleasant evening last night. The crowd for yesterday and last night was kept away from the downpour of yesterday morning and the lingering showers throughout the day. But as we were pulling into the track today – there was much more of a buzz than we saw yesterday.

But as nice as the weather was last night during the final practice, it got nasty again overnight. Around 4:00 this morning, we were awakened by a heavy thunderstorm that rumbled through our hotel area. It was one of those with constant flickering of lightning for about thirty minutes. But when we got up around 7:00, the skies had cleared again and the sun was out. All indications are that the weather will stabilize today, and the only weather we will have to deal with today is heat.

With qualifying rained out yesterday and the grid determined by entrant points, I’m really looking forward to the battle up front. Will pole-sitter Scott Dixon play it safe with a twenty-nine point lead in the championship? Will Alexander Rossi get aggressive on the first lap and try to dominate tonight’s race like he has for the past two races? Will Josef Newgarden try to make something happen from inside the second row. It should be an interesting start and a fascinating race to see how the championship battle unfolds.

I still like my pick of Tony Kanaan pulling a surprise and winning this race. He was the fastest Chevy in both practices. I would have liked his chances better if he had been able to qualify instead of starting from fifteenth as dictated by his standing in the points. Still, it should be an interesting night.

We are going to wander around a bit and go check out the vintage Indy car exhibit in the infield, along with exploring more good food behind the main grandstands. That area last night had a county fair feel to it, and I want to explore it some more.

Susan will have a post up here later this afternoon and I will be back for a post-race wrap-up. But be sure and follow us on Twitter for photos, videos and comments. Follow me at @Oilpressureblog and Susan at @MrsOilpressure. TV coverage on NBCSN begins at 7:00 CDT with the green flag flying at 7:35 CDT. Please check back later.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 25, 2018 at 12:31 pm and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.