1. What a phenomenal race. Ryan Hunter-Reay becomes the first driver to win from 19th on the grid since Bill Vukovich in 1954. He was on fire at the start, picking up positions from the get go. He methodically worked his way to the front and he didn't sit back. He went for it and look where he ended up. IndyCar dropped the ball on promoting his championship in 2012. This is IndyCar's mulligan, make up for it powers that be.
2. Hélio Castroneves was 0.0600 seconds from joining A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears in the 4-time winner club. Nothing for him to hang his head about.
3. Marco Andretti third. His track record at Indianapolis is fantastic. He is missing one thing though but you have to think it will one day fall his way
4. Carlos Muñoz in fourth after second the year before. He was much quieter in this race but he was solid all day.
5. Had he not been caught speeding, Juan Pablo Montoya may have been up by Hunter-Reay and Castroneves' side. Not a bad recovery
6. Kurt Busch was the top finishing rookie in sixth but if I had to vote for Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year, Sage Karam and him should split the honor after Karam went from 31st to 9th. If they split it, I would be pleased. Maybe Busch comes back to do more IndyCar races or maybe he enjoyed it so much he switches full-time (doubt it). Karam however, despite the "should-they, shouldn't-they" Ganassi made over running him proved he deserves a full-time ride. Resurrecting Dreyer and Reinbold back to full-time status wouldn't be a bad thing.
7. Sébastien Bourdais finishes an Indianapolis 500 best seventh driving for the defending Indianapolis 500 winning team of #11 KV Racing. Quiet day for the Frenchman but a good day.
8. Had he also not been caught speeding, Will Power may have been up by Hunter-Reay, Castroneves and Montoya's side for the victory.
9. JR Hildebrand should take those results and super glue them to John Barnes' door. Tenth place as a one off. If only he can turn it into a full-time ride. He's a better driver than he is given credit for.
10. A quiet eleventh for Oriol Servià. This was scheduled to be his last race of 2014. Hopefully that changes as he has been the one bright thing for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2014.
11. Simon Pagenaud couldn't sweep the month at Indianapolis but twelfth is nothing to be ashamed about.
12. Alex Tagliani finished thirteenth as a one-off. He worked strategy to his favor and he was top Canadian as Jacques Villeneuve finishes fourteenth. Not bad for 19 years away from the Indianapolis 500.
13. Sebastián Saavedra and his roommate (former roommate? Maybe? I don't remember) James Davison finish fifteenth and sixteenth. Not a bad day for either. And Carlos Huertas was seventeenth. He is more than a ride buyer but not necessarily the next raising star.
14. Ryan Briscoe's race started poorly, nearly brushing the wall but eighteenth is a big turn around after it appeared his day was over before it even started.
15. Takuma Sato kept his nose clean in nineteenth as did Jack Hawksworth rounding out the top twenty.
16. Mikhail Aleshin started the race well but faded and finished two laps down in twenty-first.
17. Justin Wilson was in position for another top ten before front wing damage from the Townsend Bell accident forced him to pit and drop him to twenty-second.
18. Odd month for Martin Plowman. Runs over Franck Montagny but keeps going in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Runs into the back of Josef Newgarden, ending his day early. But Plowman was smart late in the race when the leaders were catching him. I thought he'd be a favorite for Rookie of the Year back in March. I was wrong. I think he should get another few starts in 2014.
19. Pippa Mann in twenty-fourth not a bad day. She had a lengthy pit stop (I believe it was her second or third) but she took the checkered flag, seven laps down.
20. Townsend Bell was in the top five when he had an accident with 10 to go. He proves Tony Stewart wrong every year when Stewart says you can't be competitive as an Indianapolis 500 one-off. Only wish the finish came to Bell as well as the strong run he made from 25th. But I think Busch also proves Stewart wrong. Not a bad thing at all. Bell should be a full-time driver though.
21. Tony Kanaan's hopes for back-to-back Indianapolis 500 ended when he had problems on the same round of pit stops as Mann. Ran out of fuel and then tore up his gearbox.
22. Ed Carpenter and James Hinchcliffe collided with 25 to go after going three-wide with Townsend Bell. Bell survived, Carpenter and Hinchcliffe didn't. Both would have been threats at the end of the race. I really think it would have been Hunter-Reay and Carpenter 1-2 had he not been caught up in the accident.
23. Scott Dixon had a good run but a quiet run before he hit the turn four wall.
24. Josef Newgarden was punted by Martin Plowman when the caution flew for Dixon's accident. It was a disappointing end to his day. He started really well but, like Kanaan, ran out of fuel coming into pit on one stop and lost many laps.
25. Charlie Kimball brought out the first caution for a spin after 149 consecutive laps under green flag from the start of the race. The long run was thrilling and draining. A caution was bound to happen but it felt for a while that it would go 200 laps of green flag with no interruptions.
26. Buddy Lazier's day ended before halfway but I do hope he does run a few more ovals and if it's not him, maybe he hires Hildebrand, Davison, Tagliani or Karam who all showed they deserve more than one race a season.
27. Graham Rahal's season has been one to forget. The National Guard sponsorship has put a lot of pressure on him and RLLR and he has been an after-thought in every race of 2014. That team needs a massive shakeup as Servià has out-classed Rahal for most of this season.
28. It was an unbelievably fast race at the beginning. Slowed down after a handful of cautions in the final quarter of the race. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak. It was torture but it was fantastic.
29. The call to throw the red-flag after Bell's accident. First, the SAFER barrier was damaged, it had to be thrown. Second, I don't mind the call, it's better than letting the race run out under caution especially for ten laps. Third, my only fear is a car doesn't restart and it ruins the day of a team. The Chevrolet and Honda engines have proven to be near bulletproof but you never know when heartbreak is about to happen.
30. After watching the Hinchcliffe/Carpenter accident, it only confirms my thoughts that when the apron returns, it should be fair territory. Don't make it "out-of-bounds" like at Daytona and Talladega for NASCAR. The apron very well would have prevent that accident from happening.
31. It wasn't a slingshot fest. There was a fair amount of passing but I think a little more horsepower and aero kits will allow the field to break up a little bit and allow the top cars pull away. Letting the top two or three or four or five or six pull away isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you have a great car, it should have the capability of breaking away from others.
32. Listened to both the television and radio broadcast simultaneously. Cheever and Goodyear weren't as bad but maybe it's because the radio crew picked up where they lacked. Allen Bestwick did great on debut. Paul Page was great on his return to being the voice of the "500" and I enjoyed Robbie Buhl be the driver analyst on radio. Cheever and Goodyear still need to be shown the door.
I think ABC needs to improve their whole pre-race. Lindsay Czarniak is great. Should be pre-race host for all ABC IndyCar races but all the featurettes should be their own half-hour show followed by a proper half-hour pre-race show breaking down teams, strategies, qualifying, etc. Also, more driver interviews. It seems ABC talks about the same handful of drivers: Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Kanaan and whoever else is driving for Penske and Ganassi. Interview James Davison about his Indianapolis 500 debut and what it means for his historic racing family from Australia. They completely ignored Townsend Bell until late. Alex Tagliani got no acknowledgement until he led under caution late. Sébastien Bourdais and the defending Indianapolis 500 winning team KV Racing got barely any attention.
Pipe dream is Will Buxton, and only Will Buxton, doing the grid walk interviewing drivers in the pre-race with the remaining pit lane reporters coming in during the race. Of course that will only happen if NBC gets the rights to the "500" and Monaco doesn't fall on the same day. It truly is a pipe dream.
33. 364 days until the 99th Indianapolis 500
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