Oilpressure

If you thought last night’s race was one of the most processional races you’ve ever seen…Hold my beer!

I say that at the risk of angering a few people, but when the championship leader, Alex Palou, says that today’s race may have been the most boring thing he has ever been a part of – there is not much positive you can say and maintain any credibility.

The only thing that saved last night’s race was having three cautions in the last seventy-five laps that gave us some restarts to keep thing interesting. Today’s race only had one caution – Lap 101 for a tow-in for Agustin Canapino. Green flag pit stops had already begun, when the yellow came out. Will Power had not yet pitted, so he was the beneficiary of being able to pit under the yellow. With the field reset, Will Power came out in second-place behind Palou. On the last round of pit stops, Power came out ahead of Palou and that was essentially the race.

It wasn’t all processional. Santino Ferrucci seemed to be able to pass when others couldn’t. The one re-start of the race, Ferrucci put on a clinic on passing high and passing low. At one point in the race, Ferrucci had almost twice as many passes on-track than the driver with the second-most. But once the field got strung out, he fell in line with everyone else and maintained his position.

Palou, McLaughlin and Power were all in the media center after the race. None of them had good things to say regarding the current state of this track and the tire and aero package that IndyCar brought this weekend. Palou had the sharpest criticism, but the other two were very critical also. Power said that they have taken a track that was a fan favorite because cars could pass anywhere at will, to a track where no one can overtake. Power is hopeful that something can be done to improve the racing here, because it used to be a fun track

But in the end it was Will Power winning his second race of the season, the forty-third of his career and his first oval race in five years. He also broke my extended dry spell in picking winners. I picked Josef Newgarden and Power to win the two races this weekend. I’m not sure the last time I picked a winner, but it has been a few years.

While I was out watching the race in the heat, Susan went inside to get cool. While she was in the media center, she wrote another post about her impressions of the track and the weekend. You will find it just below this post. Please check it out. She included several photos on her post, but I will steal one from it because I really liked it.

That will do it for us today and for the weekend. Susan’s photos from today’s press conference are below. I will have my usual Random Thoughts post on Monday. Thanks to all who followed along throughout the weekend on our first trip to Iowa. We had a blast!

George Phillips

This entry was posted on July 14, 2024 at 3:33 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.