Oilpressure

It was another good day at Road America, but then – in the ten years we have been coming here, I’ve never had a bad day.

We went up to the hill overlooking the Turn 6,7 & 8 complex and had the obligatory first brat of the weekend along with a Wisconsin brewed adult beverage. Thanks to Susan for all of the photos today.

After sitting there in the breeze and watching for a while, we drove around just to re-familiarize ourselves with the place. There is a major improvement this year, that I was aware that was in the making over the winter. If you’ve been here, you know there was a tunnel just north of the start-finish line. Pedestrians, gold carts and bicycles created a constant bottleneck. It was an accident waiting to happen. More than once, I would have a young kid bolt out in front of us. I would not be surprised with all of the race weekends they have here, if they have not had some type of injury in that tunnel.

Well, the tunnel is now for pedestrians only, as it should be. For golf carts, bicycles and any pedestrians that want to take their chances, they have built a beautiful new bridge that spans the track and pit lane.

It’s like driving on an expressway. It has alleviated potential traffic jams in the crowded tunnel. That’s another thing I like about it here – this facility is 70 years old this season, yet they continue to make major improvements.

We started watching practice in the pits. While it was nice to see friends we’ve not seen since the Indianapolis 500, it was too hot. We grabbed the golf cart and went to a couple of vantage points, before we ended up in Turn Five.

While there, we saw a few cars cook their brakes and use every bit of the runoff area. Colton Herta, Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal and Pato O’Ward all went into the turn too hot and used every bit of the runoff area, but without making any contact.

As you could see in the video I took, Alex Palou is running a new livery this weekend from Solo Cups. That famous red is on the three-time champions car for the weekend. It looks quite similar to the famous red & white Target livery the No. 10 car ran with Dario Franchitti behind the wheel.

The speed chart was an eclectic mix of some familiar names with a few surprises sprinkled in. Kyle Kirkwood, winner of the last two races, wound up at the top of the pylon (that doesn’t really exists here). Curiously enough, Devlin DeFrancesco made his way to post the second-quickest time. Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Christian Lundgaard rounded out the Top-Five.

After practice, they brought Josef Newgarden and Felix Rosenqvist into the media center for a press conference.

As I type, the Radical Cup Cars are on the track. I don’t know why, but I am very intrigued with them . I love watching them race.

That will do it for us for tonight, we have dinner reservations in Sheboygan in an hour, so I need to finish this up and get it loaded up. The heat arrives tomorrow, but at least we will be ready for it. I’ll be curious to see how it affects the cars in tomorrow’s practice and qualifying.

We will be here earlier tomorrow. Practice will be at 11:00 am EDT on FS1. Qualifying will be Saturday afternoon at 2:30 EDT, also on FS1. I will post from the track as soon as we arrive, and then after qualifying. Please check back tomorrow afternoon.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on June 20, 2025 at 6:14 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.