Oilpressure

I now get it why fans love to watch racing at The Milwaukee Mile. I already had a good idea, but it’s now been confirmed. From what I saw in practice, there will be some good side-by-side racing this weekend, and the main stands provide an outstanding viewpoint for watching it all unfold.

Susan and I made our way over to the main stands after about 20 minutes of watching practice from the pits. We were joined by our good friend and former IndyCar blogger John T. Howard (IRL Defender) and his brother Bill, who have both been here many times. We sat low in the upper section, about halfway between Turn Four and the start/finish line.

Just as we came out of the tunnel connecting the infield to the stands, we saw all of the independent food vendors nestled just behind the grandstand. I had heard how this was almost like a food court at a mall. This certainly beats some of the standard institutional fare we’ve seen at some tracks. We didn’t sample anything yet, but it all looked good and unique. We will dig in there at some point this weekend.

Once we got up into the stands, the first thing I saw was that we were sitting directly across from the Nolan Segal pit. This week, it was adorned with decals promoting the Music City Grand Prix. The dark blue looks especially good against the papaya orange.

The next thing I noticed was there are many video boards to see from no matter where you happen to be sitting in the main stands.. I took all three of these photos from the same spot – from Turn Four, then the start/finish line and then all the way down to Turn One.

As was the case at Iowa and the upcoming race at Nashville – you can see the entire track from your seat. I took the following video following Alexander Rossi doing one lap around the track.

Josef Newgarden led the extended single practice before tomorrow’s qualifying session, with a top speed of 158.762 mph. Scott Dixon was second quick with a speed of 158.080 mph, and Pato O’Ward was third quick at 157.750 mph.

Points leader Alex Palou was ninth quick with a fastest lap of 156.793 mph. Second in the championship was Will Power, who was eleventh quick with a top speed of 156.539 mph.

From what I could tell, it looks like there was a lot of side-by-side racing. I’m not sure we will see what we saw at Gateway, but I also don’t think we will get what we saw at Iowa. I’ll be OK with something in-between.

Tomorrow’s qualifying session begins at 1:15 pm local time (CDT), and tomorrow’s Race One broadcast begins at 4:40 pm CDT and the green flag will fly around 5:00 pm CDT. Remember, tomorrow’s race is exclusively on Peacock.

I’ll close with a couple of Susan’s photos from the post-practice press conference.

We will get here mid-to-late morning tomorrow. I’ll post when we first get here, and then Susan will have a post that will be up way before qualifying. Please check in then.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 30, 2024 at 6:40 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.