Oilpressure

First of all…what a race! After a four hour delay, when a lot of people swore to me that “they heard” that plans were already in motion to scrap the day and do this on Monday, the track dried and suddenly the traditional pre-race ceremonies were underway.

Josef Newgarden won the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on a dramatic last lap pass going into Turn Three. He became the first back-to-back winner since his former Team Penske teammate, Helio Castroneves, won in 2001-02.

It was a surreal day, as I sit here in the IMS Media Center typing at 8:30 pm with the sky beginning to darken. Scott Dixon was brought into the Media Center first, since he finished third. Overall he was in good spirits and said he was proud of his result and his efforts – especially since he started twenty-first.

That was in stark contrast to second-place finisher Pato O’ Ward, who sounded like someone whose dog had just been shot. He was so distraught, that Jenna Fryer with the Associated Press asked him if he was OK, since she had never heard him sound like this before.

If anything, Dixon had more to complain about. he and Newgarden were swapping the lead back and forth late in the race, when they came upon the lapped car of Augustin Canapino – who was running twenty-second. Newgarden played it perfectly, as he used the lapped car as a pick and put the car of Canapino in between himself and Newgarden. Although it was his right to fight to stay on the lead lap, that late in the race I thought the prudent thing to do was to move over and let the leaders race and not become a factor in the final results.

Instead Canapino was racing with Newgarden and Dixon, as if he was racing for position. Dixon ultimately got shuffled back to fourth as Alexander Rossi also used the slower car as a pick to get around Dixon.

Pato O’ Ward got into the mix as Rossi got shuffled back to fourth and Dixon moved up to third as O’Ward and Newgarden battled over the last seven laps.

It was an unbelievable race that no one had any clue who would end up winning. No one car dominated, which added to the suspense. It was not a clean race, but best of all – there were no red flags at the finish.

Congratulations to Josef Newgarden for winning two in a row. Unlike last year when some felt the red flags at the end gave him an advantage – there was no such talk today (tonight). He earned this one.

That will do it for us tonight. It’s been a long day We got here around 5:45 am and it’s now 9:30 pm – just your basic near 16-hour day at IMS, and we are tired.

I will have my usual Random Thoughts post tomorrow, but I can tell you it won’t drop in first thing in the morning as usual. We are going to go grab a quick bite and go to bed. I will write it in the morning. Please check back mid-to-late morning on Monday.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 26, 2024 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Indianapolis 500. 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.