Iowa 2013: First Impressions

1. What a dominate day for today's winner James Hinchcliffe. The Andretti dominance at short tracks continue as they have won seven of the last eight short track races with four different drivers and has won the last four races at Iowa with four different drivers. This is what Hinchcliffe needed to get himself back in the championship hunt but he now has to be consistent for the rest of 2013.

2. Despite beginning on a low note, Ryan Hunter-Reay turned the weekend around and narrowed the championship gap to Helio Castroneves with a second place finish. Only nine points, the amount Castroneves received for winning heat three, separate the two drivers.

3. After retiring from the first three Iowa races, Tony Kanaan has finishes of first, second, third and third at the 7/8 mile oval. Not bad. Kanaan heads to Pocono in a fortnight looking to win stage two of the Triple Crown and $250,000. Should Kanaan go two for two, he would have a shot at one million dollars and join Al Unser as the second driver to complete the IndyCar Triple Crown.

4. Ed Carpenter and Graham Rahal each scored their second top five finishes of 2013 with fourth and third respectively. Can Rahal turn around what has been a dismal 2013? He didn't qualify well but he had a great heat races to get him to the final and was racy there as well. As for Carpenter this is only the second time in his career he has scored multiple top fives in a season. In 2008, Carpenter had a pair of fifth place finishes (Homestead and Indianapolis).

5. Simon Pagenaud has had a respectable 2013 after it appeared his rookie teammate was going to show him up in the beginning of the season.

6. Great run for Oriol Serviá in a part-time ride. The driver for Pocono has yet to be announced. It will be interesting to see who Panther Racing puts in the car.

7. Helio Castroneves keeps his streak alive of completing every lap in 2013 but finds his points lead down in the single digits. Penske and Andretti have had the best cars on ovals in 2013 and if one team get the set up correct at Pocono, it could swing the championship in one teams favor once and for all.

8. Marco Andretti has had speed all season, he just needs to finish races better. He isn't out of the championship hunt but he needs to start winning races.

9. EJ Viso bookended the top ten for Andretti Autosport as all four cars cracked the top ten. Viso has been the biggest improvement of 2013.

10. Honda had only two cars in the top ten but took eleventh through thirteenth and fifteenth. Justin Wilson just missed out with Charlie Kimball being the top Ganassi driver ahead of Tristan Vautier.

11. Scott Dixon's perfect attendance in the top ten at Iowa comes to an end with a fifteenth as Ganassi Racing takes two steps back this weekend. Dario Franchitti was behind the eight ball all weekend and his twentieth place finish proves it.

12. Will Power also took two steps back. Everything looked great for Penske after their one-two in the heat races but didn't translate to the race.

13. I bet Simona de Silvestro cannot wait until IndyCar gets back to road and street courses.

14. Tough weekends for Takuma Sato and Alex Tagliani. Sato raced his way into a top ten starting position but an engine change negated that and his raced ended early. Tagliani hasn't scored a top ten since week one at St. Petersburg. The only accident of the day ended Tagliani's shot at his second top ten of the year.

15. IndyCar earned it's week off. I cannot wait until Pocono on July 6th and 7th. I will be at Pocono for the first IndyCar race at the tricky triangle since 1989 and hopefully I'll be able to make it to time trials.