The small team, overcoming an accident just over 48 hours ago, one that totaled its best race car against the world power, the team with nearly 60 decades of history and can be spouted from every corner of the globe when it comes to racing greatness.
It had to be the final attempt of the day. It had to be for the final spot in the field. It had to come down to the final attempt. The difference had to be 0.019 MPH over four laps, 0.019 MPH will forever be the difference between Kyle Kaiser and Juncos Racing taking the 33rd and final starting spot in the 103rd Indianapolis 500 from Fernando Alonso and McLaren.
Juncos Racing had a lifetime in a week. It lost its two biggest sponsors, it went out and was solidly in the middle of the field during practice, it had an accident on its first flying lap of Friday practice and had to pull an all-nighter to get the only back up car prepared to make the race and it was all hands on deck with the IMSA crew and Road to Indy crews dropping everything to get the only bullet left in the gun prepared for a shootout.
Kaiser didn't turn a practice lap this morning. The team didn't get a chance to dial the car in one final time. It was going to be four laps of make it or break it and living with whatever happens. After all, he was the final car in line. He was going to know what he would have to beat to make the race and at some point in every driver's career they will face a situation where it is all or nothing and there is nothing left to lose, even the race car.
The car was on its freshest legs and it put down its best qualifying run. The car that was white, a billboard begging for sponsors returned to the traditional Juncos Racing green, who said green was unlucky? The team returned to its identity and made the race. It rested on its laurels and it paid off.
2. Fernando Alonso joins a historic list that includes Al Unser, Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, Tom Sneva and Bobby Rahal but it is not the list of Indianapolis 500 winners, it is the list of drivers to not qualify for the Indianapolis 500.
It shouldn't have gone this way. McLaren shouldn't miss the Indianapolis 500. It just has to beat three cars out of 36. It just has to be in the top 91.667%. That is all it takes. It just has to beat three cars, teams that have existed in single-seater racing for less than two years. It doesn't have to set the fastest time to make the race. It just had to be average and it couldn't muster that.
We know Alonso can do this. He showed it in 2017. This wasn't a case of a man thinking he was greater than the occasion. This wasn't a case of a team taking Indianapolis for granted. Sometimes the biggest names get it wrong. If Alonso doesn't have an accident on Wednesday, who knows what would have happened. Who knows if he would have not made the top 30 on Saturday. Everything that could have gone wrong did from the start. The car died because of a dead battery on the turn two access road leaving the pit lane for the first time to start the April 24th test, the cruelest bit of foreshadowing but no one could have thought it would lead to this.
There is no shame is failing to make the Indianapolis 500. Many have failed: the six Indianapolis 500 winners above, world champion Nelson Piquet, grand prix winner and Le Mans winner Johnny Herbert, Le Mans winner Geoff Brabham, Le Mans winner Chris Amon, Le Mans winner Masten Gregory, IndyCar champion Paul Tracy, World of Outlaws champions Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell. That isn't even the complete list.
Great drivers from every discipline have missed the Indianapolis 500. Alonso is just another name added to the list.
3. McLaren can buy its way into the race. It appears it won't be it could. We have to confront that.
Zak Brown could give enough money to Juncos Racing to assure the team could run the next five full seasons in IndyCar. The same is true for Clauson-Marshall Racing and DragonSpeed. Brown could bring Dreyer & Reinbold back as a full-time competitor.
It is a team sport. It is a business. What is best for the team? What is best for business?
Everyone has a price and we have to keep that in mind. It is not against the rules but it could break some of your spirits. It might not happen this year but it could be reality next year.
4. Sage Karam saved his career. If Karam had missed the race it would have been easy to write him off and say he would never drive an IndyCar again. It would be easy to say he was not committed enough and like the idea of being a race car driver but couldn't get down the practice. He would have been easily dismissed as a pretty face.
But Karam put down the qualifying run of his life and when he got out of the car he sounded like a kid that had escaped certain death on the radio interview. He was excited to be alive but he knew he got away with one and he knows he might not be lucky next time.
5. James Hinchcliffe saved his job today and by the skin of his teeth. Thirty-second on the grid never seemed so good. The team got the backup car tuned in and Hinchcliffe put it in the show but I think Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and Honda has to have a long conversation about Hinchcliffe's future. Last year, Robert Wickens handily beat Hinchcliffe in the championship. This year, Marcus Ericsson had no problem qualifying 13th. Hinchcliffe's record in the championship is not great. He can win a race here and there but for every race victory there seems to be two retirements due to accidents.
Hinchcliffe is known for his personality but is this really the guy to throw the support behind?
Honda had two drivers go toe-to-toe for the championship last year in Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi. It has Colton Herta, a 19-year-old who has already won an IndyCar race and is on row two for the Indianapolis 500 and is in a band. I think it might be time to put Hinchcliffe aside because the guy in the national commercials has to do better than 32nd on the grid for the Indianapolis 500 one year after failing to make the race.
6. This was a rough day for Carlin. It had half of the cars in the Last Row Shootout and none of the six made. It should have got one through, even if it was the McLaren partnership. It went 0-for-3 today.
Max Chilton said this car was the most comfortable he has had in his career at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it was the 36th out of 36 cars. Patricio O'Ward has gone from Red Bull Junior Team darling to the only rookie not to make the Indianapolis 500 after being impressive in every IndyCar start. O'Ward reportedly had an offer to do about eight races with Andretti Autosport and he gambled on himself. It looked like he made the right choice after his first few starts this season. How does it look now?
The one car that made the race was the least sexy driver of them all, Charlie Kimball but Kimball has always been the right guy for the job. Kimball gets the car in the show. He consistently completes laps. He takes a car that starts 17th and gets it into the top ten. He is the guy you always select to marry in Marry, Fuck, Kill.
Kimball was fine all week and never in danger of miss the race. I don't know if that says more about him or the team. Carlin is going to have difficult decisions looming for the rest of this season and into next season.
7. And now for what we all forgot was taking place: The Fast Nine!
Simon Pagenaud became the first French pole-sitter since René Thomas in 1919! Pagenaud won pole position with a four-lap average of 229.992 MPH. Ed Carpenter was second, 0.003 MPH off Pagenaud with the fastest from Saturday, Spencer Pigot rounding out the front row.
Ed Jones will start on the inside of row two with Colton Herta, the fastest Honda in fifth position, and Will Power will look to defend his Indianapolis 500 victory from sixth.
Sébastien Bourdais, Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi will start on row three.
And that is all I have to say about the first three rows of the grid because nobody could focus on the first three rows of the grid, which brings me to my next point...
8. Remember when moving the Fast Nine session to the end of Sunday was meant to have the most climatic moment close qualifying? Yeah, this weekend kind of proves that was bullshit.
Nobody was talking about pole position at the end of Saturday. Nobody was talking about pole position at the start of Sunday. Nobody was talking about pole position when Bourdais first took to the track. Bumping was the story. Pole position was the afterthought. Everyone was focused on Alonso, O'Ward, Karam, Hinchcliffe, Chilton and Kaiser and the bumping battle. No one really cared about the Fast Nine except the nine drivers in the Fast Nine.
I think yesterday showed we could revert to pole position being decided on Saturday evening. The most climatic moment is deciding the final spots and seeing who will not make it. Pole position sounds like it is the most climatic thing of the weekend and it is important and historic but it was overshadowed all weekend and worst of all Pagenaud is not going to get the same type of adoration that others have received.
Television plays apart in the decision making process and all the drama was attempted to be jammed into a three-hour window on network television, I get it but IndyCar was fine with the Fast Nine session get rained out and just setting the first three rows on Saturday's times but it wasn't going to let the Last Row Shootout not take place. It was going to have the thrill of victory and agony of defeat, the go or go home moment play out on television whether it had been at noon on NBC or Monday afternoon or Tuesday evening. The Last Row Shootout was always going to happen. It made a choice over what was more important and it selected bumping over pole position.
We can have both ends of excitement and spread it over two days. When the Fast Nine session was first introduced, Saturday qualifying began at 11:00 a.m. ET and ended at 4:00 p.m. ET with the Fast Nine taking place at 4:30 p.m. ET. I think we could go back to that or maybe even start qualifying at 10:30 a.m. and give everyone six hours and at 4:30 p.m. ET, the Fast Nine is set. There was not linear television coverage until 5:00 p.m. ET on NBCSN anyway and that could be when the Fast Nine session takes place.
As for Sunday, I am not sure we can go back to six hours of bump day but three hours on national television? Sign me up. Don't hold the teams to one attempt, go or go home, don't lock in the top 30 times and have only the final row up for grabs, have it so anyone could be bumped and keep every team at the back on their toes for three hours with teams making multiple attempts.
I think if you give the teams nine hours of qualifying to get into the race that is plenty. The grid could be decided by 3:00 p.m. ET Sunday and then the post-qualifying practice session could take place.
Does this proposal have flaws? Every proposal has flaws and a notable flaw with this one is rain on Sunday. In the past, if bump day was rained out and the field was filled then qualifying was over. That is understandable but that doesn't fly today and that isn't conducive to television. If you say you are going to air a final qualifying session to decide the final qualifying spots you better broadcast it even if it is delayed a day. If that means qualifying on Monday then we will have qualifying on Monday. Of course, maybe a hard deadline is set that if the field is full and qualifying cannot be completed by the end of Monday then the final session will not be held.
I know people hate change but it's evolution and being open to new practices and finding what fits best. A few years ago, it made sense to move the Fast Nine session to Sunday. Now it appears best to move it back to Saturday and let bumping take center stage on Sunday.
IndyCar drivers aren't struggling to make rent but every dime helps and that money just disappeared, which isn't a good thing. If that $40,000 was taken away and added to the prize for pole position then I could understand it but it appears the series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway aren't awarding it anymore just because. That is not right. I stand with the drivers on this one.
10. I want to touch upon the television side of things now because I want to focus on the race next week and not let the periphery of distractions creep in.
NBC has done a great job promoting this race. Consider that we have been seeing advertisements since the NFL wild card playoff games and that was the weekend of January 7-8th. Previously, the Indianapolis 500 was not getting this level of promotion from ESPN and ABC. The race would get mentioned when ABC showed the season opener but we didn't see dedicated advertisements for the Indianapolis 500 until late-April or the start of May.
NBC has been mentioning the Indianapolis 500 for all of 2019. From the NFL playoff games to NHL games on Wednesday nights to weekly NASCAR America shows and during other properties, NBC gave it maximum effort.
I was skeptical before the year began about the TV rating for the Indianapolis 500 because we have seen events change networks and ratings decline and after more than five decades being on ABC, I thought people would forget the Indianapolis 500 because it is a change and people are terrible with change. I was afraid people in their 50s and 60s who tune into the Indianapolis 500 because it is just something you do on Memorial Day weekend would go to ABC, see whatever else ABC is showing and when they see it is not the race turn the TV off and head outside.
After the last five months, I think NBC has done all it could to get the message out, to remind the American public that the Indianapolis 500 is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and it can be seen on NBC. If the rating is down from last year, it is not because of NBC lack of investment.
11. I am spent. Practice is tomorrow. Then a few days off. Then Carb Day. It will fly by. Don't forget to enjoy it.
