Oilpressure

Greetings from Vanderbilt University Medical Center! After a day at the track and writing a post-race re-cap, I packed up my stuff and headed west to visit with Susan in the hospital and write my Random Thoughts. This may be more brief than usual, but please understand why. Susan is still doing very well, and will most likely go home Monday. Fingers crossed.

Looking back at the race, it was an odd race. I suppose it was because the championship battle never materialized and was over after 12 laps. I don’t know if I would classify the race as processional, but there were not a ton of passes near the front – especially in the first half. Altogether, there were three cautions, and two of them were in the first half. All three cautions were single car incidents.

The bulk of the action came in the last thirty to forty laps of the race. One by one, the leaders would drop out, making you wonder just who would win the race. No matter how much passing there is, it’s always intriguing when you have no idea who is going to win as you approach the end of any race.

As I said yesterday, I always feel a little sad for the race winner in the season finale, because they never get the full attention that a race winner should – so much attention is paid to crowning the champion. I would really feel sorry for a first-time winner that won a race that features a championship battle. Late in the race, I wondered if we would be celebrating David Malukas getting his first win as he closed out his brief career with Meyer Shank Racing. That would have been awkward.

But in the end, it was Colton Herta earning his first career oval win with a brilliant late-race pass on Pato O’Ward, and Alex Palou winning his third championship in four years. It’s hard to believe that he already has half as many championships as Scott Dixon, and he’s only twenty-seven. You wonder if we are witnessing the early career of one of the best ever. Congratulations to both Herta and Palou on a very successful weekend.

TV Coverage: Obviously I’ve not seen any of the coverage, but I wanted to express my thanks to this TV crew that has been coming into our living rooms since 2009. I will miss them, and I hope as many as possible will make the transition to FOX – now that NBC has officially signed off.

Local Winner: In past years, if you had said that a local driver won the Music City Grand Prix – most would have guessed that Josef Newgarden had won his hometown race. When this event was first announced in 2020, Josef Newgarden was part of the announcement. You could tell that the first race was circled on his calendar, and he really wanted to win in the town he grew up in. After three races in downtown Nashville, it never happened.

The Colton Herta moved to Nashville in early 2023, and suddenly there were two IndyCar drivers living in Music City. When they announced that this year’s race was moving to Nashville Superspeedway, most figured if a local driver would win on the 1.33 mile oval east of downtown – it would be the one who dominated ovals in 2022-23, not the one that had never won an oval in his IndyCar career, and had just moved here.

I know Josef Newgarden has lost some fans along the way this season, and some of that is justified. But I would enjoy seeing the local driver that has lived here all of his life, come away with a hometown win before he hangs up his helmet. He has suddenly knocked down two Indianapolis 500 wins, so maybe he can check a Nashville win off of his list in the next year or so.

The Weather: As recently as Thursday, I was wondering if we would even see a car turn a wheel this weekend. The forecast for the remnants of Hurricane Francine, had the eye of the former hurricane stalling directly over Middle Tennessee for days. Some wondered if it might be Tuesday before we could crown a champion.

Saturday was a pleasant surprise. First we got in the full practice Saturday morning. Not only was it dry, it was even sunny. It was the same for qualifying on Saturday afternoon. Few at the track could believe our luck that we got so much in. The luck sort of ran out shortly after qualifying, as one of the circular bands went through – and then another, and another. At around 7:30 Saturday night, I finally gave up. But race officials stayed with track drying efforts and they finally got the final practice in.

Sunday dawned a beautiful day. There was not a cloud in the sky as I headed to the track, but shortly after I arrived and got settled, it started clouding up. By lunchtime, thew skies were gray and threatening. But they never opened up and by time for the race, it was sunny again. As I type on Sunday night, I have not seen a raindrop all day. We got very lucky, considering what had been predicted for days.

The Crowd: Not only was everyone predicting poor weather all weekend, but an almost non-existent crowd was expected. Now, I’m not going to gloss over things and call it a near-sellout, but all things considered – I think everyone was pleasantly surprised by how many people actually showed up. Maybe there was a large last-minute walk-up crowd that saw the same clear skies I saw on Sunday morning.

Few people I talked to all last week even knew IndyCar was in town this weekend, much less settling the championship. But apparently enough people got the word.

With a tropical storm passing through, the Titans home-opener getting all of the headlines and potential ticket buyers, and the late decision to move the race to the oval – some feared the stands would consist of only friends and families of drivers and crew members. I took this photo during the second caution period, about halfway through the race. I figured that was a truly representative time for a grandstand photo of the crowd. As you can see, it was not a bad crowd at all.

It was big enough to build on for next year, when this event will be held over Labor Day weekend. My wish is that they run the season finale next season as a night race on Sunday night. That would be the number one improvement I would suggest for this event. Cars look so much better at night. They really pop under the lights. This event did not go away after 2008 due to attendance issues. It was poor track ownership and management, which have both changed. I always thought that the fans loved the cars under the lights back in those days. Anytime you can run Indy cars under the lights, that’s a good thing. You will probably hear more from me on this topic in the offseason.

Drive of the Day: Most of the time I will choose a driver who didn’t win the race, but had a good showing for this award. But for Sunday’s race, I am going with the race winner – Colton Herta. He started ninth and had a not so great qualifying effort. Not much was expected of Herta, since he had never won on an oval. But he hung in there all day and made his move at the front when it counted – aided by an unbelievable pass on Pato O’Ward for the lead with only four laps remaining. Not only did he get his first oval win, he has earned the Oilpressure.com Drive of the Day.

All in All: This was a fun weekend, despite the threatening weather and the fear of a small crowd. Neither happened. There was a lot of energy with this event. Scott Borchetta and his Big Machine Records did a phenomenal job to pull this off after changing directions in February. There were a couple of minor hiccups, that can be tweaked for next year; but overall this was a very good event. I imagine it will be even better next year. In all honesty, if this event stayed at the oval and never returned to the streets of downtown Nashville – I wouldn’t be upset. I’m an oval fan at heart and this was a very fun event to attend in person. Well done, Music City Grand Prix!

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 16, 2024 at 4:02 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.