First Impressions: Long Beach 2014

1. Who had Conway!? WHO HAD CONWAY!? I DID! On a day that saw a plethora of drivers taken out and fuel mileage came into play, the little team that could stun the big boys on a street circuit.

2. Moving on from tooting. Great drive by Mike Conway. Congratulations to Ed Carpenter. One step closer to the owner's title. And now Mike Conway shows why I nominated him for 2013 For the Love of Indy Racer of the Year: He will get on a plane and run in the FIA World Endurance Championship season opener at Silverstone next week. That's my kind of racer.

3. Will Power recovered from a poor qualifying session. Hip-checked Simon Pagenaud and escaped penalty and somehow finished second. For the driver who for a half decade never had breaks go his way, breaks are finally going his way and that elusive title may just fall into his lap.

4. Colombians finished third and fourth with Carlos Muñoz beating out Juan Pablo Montoya. A few accidents played into their favor but they will take it.

5. Simon Pagenaud recovered from Power's hip-check to finish fifth and his teammate Mikhail Aleshin finished sixth. Once again, a few accidents played into their favor but you got to take what you can get.

6. Oriol Servià finished seventh, he was quicker than his teammate Graham Rahal (more on him in a moment) all weekend. Someone fund him for the rest of the season, not just through Indianapolis.

7. Marco Andretti finished eighth after having a sore wrist and an extra pit stop for a wing replacement. Not bad.

8. Colombia had a great day. Sebastián Saavedra and Carlos Huertas rounded out the top ten. Who saw that coming?

9. Scott Dixon was leading late before needing to stop for fuel and finished 12th. He hip-checked Justin Wilson a whole hell of a lot worse than Power on Pagenaud and how he escaped penalty amazed me. I feel bad for Justin Wilson. He could have won this race had it not been for Dixon's move.

10. On to the major incident. Got to give Ryan Hunter-Reay credit for going for it. He saw a gap and went for it. He was trying to re-create Alex Zanardi on Bryan Herta in 1998 and it didn't work. It stinks Josef Newgarden, James Hinchcliffe, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Jack Hawksworth and Takuma Sato were also involved. I don't place blame on Hunter-Reay. It was a racing incident. We can't place blame every time there is an accident. It was a driver going for a gap. What do you want him to do?

11. But even after all those contenders were taken out, the race didn't suffer. Other players stepped up and fought like no tomorrow for the victory. IndyCar has a deep grid and it surely showed today.

12. Sébastien Bourdais had a rough day. He had a great weekend going before getting into the tires twice. Let's hope Barber goes more in the Frenchman's favor.

13. On to Graham Rahal. It was a poor weekend and the race didn't go better. It's only race two but this team has to turn it around. Servià handed Rahal's ass to him and Servià had two test day and should be on the back nine of his career. Rahal was 12,698,967.47 reasons why he NEEDS to turn it around.

14. Rough day for Ganassi. Dixon's fuel strategy being three laps short. Ryan Briscoe had electrically issues. Kanaan was in an accident that wasn't his fault and Charlie Kimball had an engine fail on him. By the way Chevrolet, that will cost you ten points.

15. On to Barber in a fortnight. Let's see if the drivers calm down over Easter. Someone get them a box of chocolates (for Kimball, a fruit basket... because of his diabetes. It's a joke people, don't take it too seriously).