Oilpressure

The NTT IndyCar Series has quite the turnaround facing them this weekend. In just five days, they have gone from running a short oval in St. Louis to a natural terrain road course across the country in Portland, Oregon. I think some teams went back to their respective shops just after Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway, but others packed up at Gateway and drove straight to Portland.

Perhaps it’s the way the calendar works out, but it always seems like the second-half of each IndyCar season just flies by. It seems like no time has passed at all since we were just crossing the halfway point at Mid-Ohio on the Fourth of July weekend. Suddenly we are at the penultimate race of the season.

There is a good chance we will see Alex Palou clinch his second championship in three years. There are several scenarios where it will go to the final weekend at Laguna Seca, and a not that far-fetched pathway for Scott Dixon to win the championship – but that includes Scott Dixon winning both races and leading the most laps, while Alex Palou finishes close to last in one of the races and mid-pack in the other. That’s not out of the question, but not that likely – since that would mean Scott Dixon will win the final four races of the season. Somewhere I read that if Palou finishes at least third this weekend, and ahead of Dixon – that clinches the championship at Portland. I’m not positive that scenario is correct, but it sounds right.

If I’m being honest, I preferred this race when it was run in mid-June, in conjunction with the local the Rose Festival. That was during the rainy season, and there were a few of those races run in the rain – some ran in total downpours. But the entire area was green. Apparently, this is the dry season in Portland. What were lush fields in June, turn into brown fields by Labor Day.

Emblematic of this Labor Day date was the start of the 2018 race, where Marco Andretti ended up on his head in the Turn One chicane and several cars piled up in a giant cloud of brown dust. Scott Dixon somehow managed to navigate through and kept his engine running. His car was covered in dirty, but he kept going and somehow ended up fifth. You would never see that kind of dust cloud in June.

Other than the dust clouds that also form every time a driver drops a wheel off in the dirt, I was glad to see this race return – no matter what time of year it runs. I have godd memories of watching this race in the late 80s and through the 90s. The most memorable race was in 1986, when Mario Andretti passed his son Michael at the line, as Michael sputtered coming out of the final turn.

Eleven years later in 1997, there was a three-way battle at the line between Raul Boesel, Gil de Ferran and Mark Blundell, with Blundell taking the checkered flag for PacWest Racing over de Ferran by 0.027 seconds.

Since the series returned to Portland in 2018, they have not come close to replicating that finish – but they have put on some decent races. The chicane at the first turn can be an equalizer and can create some randomness that excites fans, but probably strikes fear in Alex Palou. He certainly can’t lose the championship at Portland with a last place finish, but it sure will make him nervous heading into Laguna Seca next weekend.

This race was lost from the schedule during COVID, so it has only run four times since its return. Takuma Sato won that first race ending a ten-year hiatus in 2018. He will not be racing this weekend, so there are only three former winners in the field – Will Power (2019), Alex Palou (2021) and last year’s winner, Scott McLaughlin.

That’s not enough of a sample size to spot a trend, so I’ll go off of my gut to pick a winner on the 12-Turn, 1.964 mile road course. I think Will Power keeps his own streak of seasons with a win going, and will win Sunday’s race.

With this being a west coast race, things kick off late today. Practice One will be shown live on Peacock at 6:00 pm EDT today. Practice Two will start Saturday at Noon EDT on Peacock. Qualifying will take place at 3:30 pm EDT on Peacock, with the Final Practice getting underway at 8:15 EDT Saturday night – also on Peacock. Sunday’s race coverage begins at 3:00 pm EDT on Big NBC.

I hope everyone enjoys a safe Labor Day weekend. I will be here on Monday with my usual Random Thoughts post.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 1, 2023 at 4:04 am 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.