Oilpressure

I’m not quite sure what it looked like on television, but the Children’s of Alabama was an extremely fun race to see in-person. There was mayhem near the back of the field, in the first turn of the opening lap. After that, things settled down to the point I was afraid things were going to get processional.

There was a lot of action in between Lap 20 and 20 laps to go, before things semi-settled down on the way to the checkered-flag. Sting Ray Robb had the scariest crash of the day, when he seemed to miss Turn One and went head-on into the tire barrier. Fortunately he was OK.

Santino Ferrucci gave Foyt fans a thrill as he was running legitimately in the Top-Five for a lot of the day, but when his teammate went into the wall – those in front of Ferrucci all pitted, while he stayed out. May the TV booth explained why he did it, but those of us in the crowd had no idea while he stayed out. Ferrucci pitted under green from the lead and came back out in twentieth.

He carved his way back up to seventh and now sits tenth in points.

But up front, it was Scott McLaughlin successfully defending his win from last year. His Team Penske teammate Will Power finished second, while rookie Linus Lundqvist finished third, earning his first career podium in only his third IndyCar start.

Susan and I went across the track after the morning warm-up. She took plenty of photos, but the early start caught us. By the time we rode the tram back around, the cars were already gridded up – so she had no time to write. I will include those photos in my post on Monday, but we did do an obligatory grid selfie just before the start of the race.

She was able to get some good Victory Lane photos of the podium and Scott McLaughlin. I was in the media center by then, and she was quite visible getting her photos in the NBC shots from Victory Lane.

I can’t remember the last time we spent a race weekend with better weather. I’m not sure Barber has ever had a weekend that didn’t see one drop of rain – even overnight. It was a good weekend a great lead-in to the Month of May. Thanks to those that followed along here all weekend. Please don’t forget to go back and read our interview this weekend with Indy NXT driver Lindsay Brewer. Come back tomorrow with my usual Random Thoughts post.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on April 28, 2024 at 3:39 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.