Oilpressure

What a great weekend of racing we witnessed this past weekend! Fears of a repeat of Iowa were sort of dispelled on Friday, when it was obvious that the upper and lower lines on the track were working. It didn’t take long into Race One for it to become obvious that we were going to be in for some good racing for the weekend. Saturday’s race went 83 laps before the first caution, and that was for a spin by Katherine Legge that did no damage to her car. Altogether there were only three cautions in Race One, and only one of those cautions produced car damage – the second caution for a crash between Josef Newgarden and Marcus Ericsson, who were both going after the same piece of real estate in Turn Two. The third caution was for a wheel that escaped from Colton Herta’s car on Lap 187. That was it. It was a very clean race.

The same cannot be said for Race Two on Sunday. There were six caution periods and just about all of them featured some level of crash damage. Plus there was the drama involving the car of Alex Palou having a dead battery at the start, forcing him to start the race 29 laps down.

My theory is that drivers are more careful in the first race of a double-header. They don’t want their crews pulling an all-nighter, nor do they want to hop into a repaired car without a sufficient opportunity to sort it out. They have no such worries in the second race, and they are more willing to take chances during the second race.

Whatever the case, Race Two had a lot more chaos than Race One. Not only were there more cautions and crashes, there were so many pit strategies going on, it was hard to figure out who was doing what.

As processional as the double-header at Iowa was, Gateway was very entertaining. We all wondered which one was the outlier, Iowa or Gateway. After two good oval races at Milwaukee, we have our answer. Kudos to Firestone and IndyCar for figuring out what went wrong at Iowa and making sure it didn’t happen again. I was talking to one crewmember from one of the more prominent teams on Sunday afternoon as we were walking back to our car. He thinks the series has figured out how to deal with the extra weight of the hybrid system, and that has made the difference.

Hopefully, this will translate into a good race at Nashville Superspeedway in two weeks. With only 33 points separating Alex Palou and Will Power entering the championship weekend – things will be very intriguing.

TV Coverage: Obviously we saw none of the coverage, but we did see one comment here over the weekend that Townsend Bell might have been more over the top than usual. That’s a shame.

National Anthem: Unlike some double-headers, they used the same performers for both races. I cannot remember their name, but they were a local a cappella group that were sort of a light version of a barbershop quartet. The multiple harmonies got the best of them on Saturday and by the end of the performance, it was somewhat ear-piercing. It wasn’t really my favorite style, but they did much better on Sunday.

The Crowd: I would think that the powers-that-be for the NTT IndyCar Series would have to be thrilled how the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s turned out. Labor Day is a tough draw anywhere. A lot of naysayers predicted the historic Milwaukee Mile would be close to empty this weekend. Of the seats that were available, I would guess that 75% of them were sold.

On Saturday, the upper section appeared to be mostly full, while the lower section was about half full. Sunday, I’d guess the upper deck was about the same as Saturday, but the lower part definitely had more fans than Saturday. That’s a little surprising because a Saturday ticket bought you Indy NXT qualifying and a race, as well as IndyCar qualifying and Race One. Sunday, all a paying fan got was one race – the second IndyCar race of the weekend.

This also seemed to be a very knowledgeable crowd. They were very vocal and knew when to cheer. This is racing country up here. From my experience of going to Road America every year, and now Milwaukee – I can tell you, the people up here know and appreciate their racing.

Winners and Losers: Obviously the two race winners, Pato O’Ward and Scott McLaughlin were the two biggest winners of the weekend. But there was a big discrepancy even in their weekends. O’Ward came away with 53 points for Saturday’s performance, but he only came away with 6 points on Sunday for a total of 59 points. McLaughlin won the pole for Saturday’s race, led at least one lap and finished eighth. That earned him 26 points for Saturday. By winning Sunday, and leading the most laps – McLaughlin earned 53 laps, giving him a total of 79 points.

Santino Ferrucci was very consistent and placed fourth in both races and leading laps in Race Two, giving him a total of 65 points for the weekend.

I’m guessing the biggest loser for the weekend was Josef Newgarden. Although he won the pole for Sunday’s race and started on the front row on Saturday, he finished 26th on Saturday and 27th Sunday, earning him a total of only 12 points over both races. Even Graham Rahal earned 17 points. It’s hard to imagine a driver having such a disappointing weekend like Newgarden, when he had such a good car for both races.

Finally: One driver has had a very disappointing season, and it has been something of a head-scratcher. But finally, Marcus Ericsson had a good finish on Sunday, when he placed fifth. That included a late race pass for fifth on Alexander Rossi. Ericsson is a nice gut and a good driver. He is the kind of driver who is easy to root for, but his first season with Andretti Global has not gone well. Here’s hoping Sunday started some momentum for next season.

What is the problem? The same malady that has plagued Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for the last two seasons, raised its ugly head again – their oval program. I was talking to someone in the media center Saturday night after Race One, who said she talked with Graham Rahal after qualifying. She said he was being honest as he just shook his head and said the most frustrating thing is that they have no idea what the problem is with their oval package. The three Rahal cars were the slowest cars in the field this weekend and they all just seemed defeated.

I know Graham Rahal and Christian Lundgaard are both good drivers, but they seemed absolutely lost this weekend. I can’t help but think that this oval performance helped push Lundgaard to make his decision to leave at the end of the season. Some say Alexander Rossi might go there, but I have to think their oval package and their performance in the Indianapolis 500 will prevent him from signing. I’m hoping this once proud team can figure out some things over the winter.

The Curse: I’m starting to actually believe my predictions are cursed. Last week at Portland, I predicted Scott Dixon would win the race. He lasted half a lap. Before that at Gateway, I said that Pato O’ Ward would take the victory. He finished 26th.

For this weekend’s double-header, I predicted that it would be a big weekend for Team Penske. I said that Will Power and Josef Newgarden would both win races. Newgarden had a disastrous weekend. Power finished second on Saturday, but had a chance to possibly take the lead in the championship. Instead, he spun on a restart and finished 10th. Scott McLaughlin was the only driver I did not pick to win this weekend, and he was the only one that did.

Drive of the Weekend: A few years ago, a longtime reader accused me of being on the Andretti payroll because he claimed I was cheerleading for Alexander Rossi. After the past week and a half that saw Santino Ferrucci win a pole, make moves that other drivers wouldn’t think of making and have a post written by yours truly that defended him from his haters – I will probably be accused of being on the Foyt payroll. It won’t help that I am also going to award him with the Drive of the Weekend.

But when you look how he started nineteenth on Saturday and finished fourth, combined with starting twelfth on Sunday to finish fourth; and making unbelievable moves on the track in the process – you would be hard-pressed to convince me that anyone else deserved it over both races.

All in All: I had wanted to attend a race at The Milwaukee Mile for decades. When the series did not return after the 2015 season, I was afraid I had missed my chance. Hearing rumblings a few years ago that the place may be leveled at one point, made me fear I would never get there. When a double-header was announced for Labor Day weekend this year – I told Susan that we had to go, no matter what.

We were not disappointed. The track is more than 120 years old and is oozing with history. But they have done a good job of keeping the place up to date. Best of all, the racing in both races was excellent. The weather was perfect and this has been one of our most enjoyable race weekends this season. If you ever get a chance to go – do it.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 2, 2024 at 4:03 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.