Oilpressure

As I type, I am sitting in our hotel room about ten minutes from The Milwaukee Mile. As we left the track last night, we were under the impression that we would be returning around 7:30 this morning. When we woke up, however, it was raining and fairly hard. Fortunately a friend of ours with IndyCar texted me at 6:30, informing me of another schedule change. I was glad he did, before we showered quickly and scurried to the track.

The latest schedule now has Race Two running on schedule, starting at Noon local time on FOX (1:00 pm EDT). Then roughly three hours after the completion of Race Two, race One will resume at approximately 5:00 pm local time on FS1 (6:00 pm EDT). Is that confusing enough? It gets worse.

My understanding is that teams were allowed to work on the cars overnight, even though they were “impounded”. Now with Race One resuming after the completion of Race Two, the cars will return with the same tires and fuel levels they had when the red flag flew after completing 90 of 250 laps.

The three hours between races are to give teams and drivers a break between races. It also gives teams that suffer crash damage or a blown engine a chance to do what is needed for Race One. It’s tight, but doable.

There is no shortage of geniuses on social media attacking IndyCar and Doug Boles specifically. At the risk of being labeled an IndyCar cheerleader, what else could they do? There was not enough daylight left Saturday night to even get to Lap 126, the mark for an official race. It wasn’t ideal, but they decided to try and get it in this morning, before Race Two. Does Doug Boles control the weather? Could he help it that there was still a constant drizzle at 7:00 am? Keep in mind, none of these trolls actually offered an alternative solution. They just liked to complain and blame Boles for the situation. I finally replied to one of them that if they couldn’t deal with rain delays, maybe motorsports wasn’t for him.

Look, this isn’t ideal Far from it. But it happens in racing. Dating back to 1967, I cannot begin to count how many hours I have spent at race tracks watching service vehicles circle the track in track drying efforts. Out of the six oval races on the 2026 schedule, Phoenix is the only one that was not affected by rain so far. Can that be helped? No.

Short of building a roof overnight at The Milwaukee Mile, I’m not sure what else Doug Boles could have done any differently. Some people just like to complain, even though they have no idea what else could be done. I don’t like it either. The sun is shining as I type, and I feel like they will get Race Two in. But the forecast late in the day does not look good. I don’t even know if running on Monday is an option. The entire series needs to be at Laguna Seca by Thursday for the season finale.

If they do push it to Monday, we can’t stay. We have a ten hour drive staring at us on Monday, and both of us have to work Tuesday. I finally wrap up my brief un-retirement stint this week, but I am needed there on Tuesday. If Race One hasn’t been completed by sundown today, I suggest they simply cancel it. Races in progress have been cancelled before – see Las Vegas in 2011, and Charlotte in 1999. Granted, both of those races involved fatalities – but the precedent is there.

I feel like this is a microcosm of the 1973 Indianapolis 500. By now, I think everyone just wants to complete at least one race, and move on. I won’t feel cheated or short changed if they only get one race in. That’s just the way it happens in racing sometimes.

I will be back at the end of the day with some sort of an update and wrap-up. Will I have a Random Thoughts post on Monday? Probably, but abbreviated. At this point, nothing is certain. That’s the fluidity that this weekend has become. But please check back after sunset (CDT).

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 30, 2026 at 9:09 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.