Track Walk: Gateway 2022

The 15th round of the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series will be held at Gateway Motorsports Park, the fifth and final oval round of the season. This will be the 14th race held at the 1.25-mile oval, and through the first 13 races there have been 11 different winners. Five of those winners are entered this weekend. Since Gateway returned to the schedule, Chevrolet holds the edge having won four of six races, including the last two. Chevrolet has won three of four oval races this season and nine races total. This will be the first season Chevrolet has won majority of the races since 2019 and it is looking for its first manufactures’ championship since 2017. Chevrolet leads the manufactures’ championship with 1,157 points to Honda’s 1,089 points.

Coverage

Time: Coverage begins at 6:00 p.m. ET on Saturday August 20 with green flag scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Kevin Lee and Dillon Welch will work pit lane.

IndyCar Weekend Schedule

Friday:

First Practice: 1:00 p.m. ET (60 minutes)

Qualifying: 4:15 p.m. ET 

Second Practice: 7:15 p.m. ET (105 minutes)

Saturday:

Race: 6:30 p.m. ET (260 laps)

* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock

Championship Picture

The IndyCar championship was already tight prior to the Nashville race at the start of August. After the Nashville race, the top drivers have only gotten closer. The gap from first to fifth went from 46 points to 33 points and the gap from first to seventh dropped from 81 points to 59 points. 

Will Power retained the championship lead with 450 points, but his advantage is down to six points over Scott Dixon after Dixon’s victory at Nashville. Power was 11th at Nashville, his fourth finish outside the top ten in the last nine races, but those other five races have all been podium results. However, every top ten finish Power has had this season has been a top five result. Dixon has eight consecutive top ten finishes, six of which have been top five results. 

Marcus Ericsson’s 14th at Nashville dropped Ericsson to third in the championship, but he only lost three points to Power and Ericsson is 12 points off the top spot. Ericsson has been outside the top ten in the last two races and he has not had a top five finish in the last four races, one of two drivers in the top ten of the championship without a top five result in the last four races. 

Josef Newgarden is fourth, 22 points behind his Team Penske teammate Power while reigning champion Álex Palou is up to fifth after the Spaniard’s third-place finish at Nashville. Palou is now 33 points off the championship lead, the closest he has been since he was 14 points off and fourth in the championship after the Belle Isle round. 

Three consecutive top five finishes has Scott McLaughlin up to sixth in the championship, 58 points behind his teammate Power while two consecutive finishes outside the top ten has dropped Patricio O’Ward to seventh, 59 points from the top spot. This is McLaughlin’s best championship position since he was third after the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. This is O’Ward’s worst championship position since he was seventh after the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.  

Alexander Rossi is 120 points off the top spot after a pair of top five finishes, five points closer than Felix Rosenqvist, the other driver in the top ten of the championship without a top five finish in the last four races along with fellow Swede Ericsson. Colton Herta maintained tenth in the championship with his comeback drive to fifth at Nashville. Herta is 135 points off of Power. 

Rinus VeeKay sits 11th in the championship, 150 points back. VeeKay has alternated finishing inside and outside the top ten in the last seven races and he was 12th at Nashville, his fourth consecutive street course finish outside the top ten after opening the season with a sixth at St. Petersburg. 

With only 162 points left on the table, Simon Pagenaud, Graham Rahal, Romain Grosjean, Christian Lundgaard, Conor Daly and David Malukas were mathematically eliminated from championship contention after Nashville. 

After Gateway, there will only be 108 points available over the final two races. 

Dixon’s Surge

In recent weeks, it has been hard not to notice Scott Dixon climb into the championship discussion. After his second victory and now only being six points off the top spot, Dixon has emerged as possibly the favorite to hoist the Astor Cup at Laguna Seca in less than a month. 

Dixon had arguably the biggest blunder of his IndyCar career at the Indianapolis 500 when he sped entering the pit lane for his final pit stop while the leader. Instead of possibly finishing first and scoring the maximum 115 points, Dixon was 21st and had 33 points scored. Instead of exiting Indianapolis as the championship leader with 248 points and leading the championship by 42 points, Dixon left sixth on 166 points and 60 points behind his teammate and Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson. 

Since the Indianapolis 500, Dixon has an average finish of 4.5 with six top five finishes, the most top five finishes in that timeframe. He has won twice, and is one of two drivers with multiple victories since Indianapolis with the other being Josef Newgarden. 

Dixon did remain sixth in the championship through Mid-Ohio and his deficit to the championship lead grew initially. He was 74 points off first after Belle Isle before narrowly decreasing to 69 points after Road America and 64 points after Mid-Ohio. 

Surprisingly, winning does a lot of good, and Dixon’s Toronto triumph took him to fifth in the championship, 44 points off the top spot. He gained six more points after the first Iowa race and four more points after the second Iowa race. Dixon then lost four points at the second Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race but his Nashville victory took out a 32-point chunk in the championship fight and this is the closest he has been to the championship lead all season. 

In the last eight races, Dixon has scored 278 points, the most in IndyCar. The next closest is Newgarden with 254 points while Power has scored 248 points. McLaughlin has 230 points in the last eight races while Ericsson has scored 212 points, seven more than Palou. 

This run of form is also coming at a time when Dixon has been starting poorly. He has started outside the top ten in the last four races, his most consecutive races without a top ten start since a four-race run from Texas to Pocono in 2013. Despite not starting in the top ten, Dixon has three top five finishes in the last four races. Dixon has not gone five consecutive races without a top ten starting position since 2005 at St. Petersburg, Motegi, Indianapolis, Texas and Richmond. 

Dixon last led the championship after the 2021 Grand Prix of Indianapolis. If Dixon were to take the championship lead after Gateway, it should be noted the last time Dixon did not convert a championship lead after one of the final three races into a title was 2009 when he led after the penultimate round at Motegi but lost the title to Dario Franchitti at Homestead by ten points. 

Oval Championship

Larger championship aside, Gateway is the final oval race of the season, and the unofficial oval championship will be decided. Unlike most seasons, Gateway is cut and dry over who could be the top oval driver in 2022.

It is a two-horse race. Marcus Ericsson leads with 197 points, four points clear of 2021 oval champion Patricio O’Ward. 

Ericsson’s lead is boosted with his Indianapolis 500 victory, but he was third at Texas and he has finished in the top ten of all four oval races this season. O’Ward was second to Ericsson at Indianapolis and he was second and first in the two Iowa races. A 15th at Texas has hamstrung O’Ward’s oval title defense. 

Twenty-three of Ericsson’s 36 laps led this season have come on ovals, ten at Texas and 13 at Indianapolis. O’Ward led 26 laps at Indianapolis alone and he went on to lead 66 more laps on his way to his victory in the second Iowa race. 

If Ericsson were to win the oval championship he would become the tenth different driver to take the honor since the 2010 season. He would also become the eighth consecutive different driver to be the top oval driver and each of those eight champions would represent a different nationality. It would be the fourth time a Chip Ganassi Racing driver took the honor. 

If O’Ward were to win the oval championship, he would be the first repeat oval champion since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2014-15. The only other drivers with multiple oval titles are Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon. It would be the first time since 2010 that IndyCar would have gone consecutive seasons without the oval champion being from either Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing. 

There is an outside shot Josef Newgarden could be oval champion, but it would require Ericsson not starting the Gateway race. Newgarden is 50 points behind the Swede, but if Ericsson starts the most Newgarden could make up to Ericsson is 49 points. If Ericsson for some reason does not start this race, Newgarden would be second only to O’Ward, 46 points back. 

In that case, the only way for Newgarden to win the oval championship would be with a victory. With 51 points for a victory, Newgarden would need O’Ward to finish 25th or worse with no bonus points. With the maximum 54 bonus points, Newgarden would need O’Ward to score eight points or fewer. Eight points are awarded for a 22nd-place finish. 

In all likelihood, Newgarden will be fighting for third in the oval championship and he is only four points ahead of Penske teammate Will Power. There is 20 points between Newgarden in third and Palou in fifth. Scott Dixon is on 125 oval points, two behind his Ganassi teammate Palou. Felix Rosenqvist is quietly in seventh with 110 oval points. 

Scott McLaughlin has 96 points, two ahead of Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly. Coincidentally, Rossi and Daly each have only one top ten finish on an oval this season. Rossi was fifth at Indianapolis and Daly was sixth at Indianapolis. In his first season on ovals, Jimmie Johnson has 90 points, one more than David Malukas. 

Simon Pagenaud, Rinus VeeKay and Hélio Castroneves round out the top fifteen with 86 points, 85 points and 83 points respectively. 

Tony Kanaan will not be competing at Gateway, but he has 78 oval points, the same total as Graham Rahal. Romain Grosjean and Ed Carpenter are tied on 67 points. Santino Ferrucci and Callum Ilott are tied on 62 points but Ferrucci will not be competing at Gateway. Christian Lundgaard has 60 points while Takuma Sato and Devlin DeFrancesco are tied on 54 points. 

J.R. Hildebrand scored 53 points between Texas and Indianapolis but, like Iowa, Hildebrand will not contest Gateway. Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood are tied on 52 oval points. Dalton Kellett has scored 41 oval points. Juan Pablo Montoya only ran the Indianapolis 500 and scored 38 points. Jack Harvey has run three of four oval races having missed Texas after a practice accident, but he has scored only 34 oval points. 

Marco Andretti, Sage Karam and Stefan Wilson ran the Indianapolis 500 and are the bottom three in oval points with 17, 14 and ten points respectively. 

Palou’s Search For Success

While Álex Palou is still defending his title, and his podium result at Nashville brought him back into the thick of the championship fight, Palou does have one thing still gnawing at his season. He has yet to win a race.

After winning three times last year, including winning the 2021 season opener at Barber Motorsports Park on debut with Chip Ganassi Racing, Palou has yet to take the top step of the podium in 2022. The Spaniard has three runner-up finishes, the most this season. The only other drivers with multiple runner-up results are Scott McLaughlin and Patricio O’Ward. Palou’s five podium finishes are tied for the second-most this season with McLaughlin and only Will Power has more. 

Palou led 31 at Nashville, but it was the first time he has led since Belle Isle, where he led lap 26 during a pit cycle. He led a lap in five of the first seven races before not leading for six consecutive races. It was Palou’s longest stretch without leading a lap since the first 12 races of his IndyCar career. 

With the fourth best average finish this season at 8.1429, Palou is the only driver averaging a top ten finish this season without a victory. He also has an average starting position of 8.3571 and the only other driver averaging a top ten starting position without a victory is Felix Rosenqvist. 

Palou is trying to avoid an unceremonious position in the history book, a winless defending champion, but one that is not as devastating when you find out the last defending champion to not win a race. The last time a defending IndyCar champion did to win a race was Scott Dixon in 2004. Since the CART/USAC split in 1979, the only other winless defending champions are Al Unser (1984), Bobby Rahal (1993), Nigel Mansell (1994) and Buzz Calkins (1996-97 Indy Racing League). 

There is still plenty of time for Palou to get a victory. He could still match his 2021 victory total but the races are running out. The last time a defending champion took 15 races or more to get his first victory of a season was Scott Dixon, who did not win until the 15th race of the 2014 season, a year after Dixon won his third championship. The 2014 season was 18 races long, but Dixon did also win the 17th race of that season at Sonoma. Since the CART/USAC split in 1979, the only other defending champions to take 15 races or more to get their first victory of the season are Emerson Fittipaldi (15th race of 1990), Jimmy Vasser (16th race of 1997) and Gil de Ferran (17th race of the 21-race 2001 CART season). 

Palou next shot at victory will be at Gateway, which would be his first career oval victory. In three Gateway starts, Palou has finished 15th, 12th and 20th. He was caught in a lap 65 accident last year, but he finished on the lead lap in both races in the 2020 doubleheader. Palou has not had a top five result on an oval since he was runner-up in the 2021 Indianapolis 500. 

Road to Indy

Two Road to Indy Series join IndyCar at the 1.25-mile oval this weekend. 

Indy Lights has four races remaining, but the championship is firmly in Linus Lundqvist’s control. 

Lundqvist has five victories and has finished in the top five in every race of this season. With 436 points, he is 95 points ahead of Hunter McElrea, who has five consecutive podium finishes. McElrea leads the quartet of Andretti Autosport drivers in the championship, and all four are in the top five of the championship. 

Sting Ray Robb has 333 points in third and Robb has nine top five finishes from ten starts. Matthew Brabham sits on 321 points after three consecutive top five finishes. Christian Rasmussen has four consecutive top five finishes and Rasmussen rounds out the top five in the championship on 302 points. 

Benjamin Pedersen has not had a top five finish in the last five races after opening the season with four top five finishes in the first five races. This has dropped Pedersen to sixth on 296 points. Danial Frost is 18 points behind Pedersen. Jacob Abel has 235 points, one more than Kyffin Simpson.

Christian Bogle, Ernie Francis, Jr., Antonio Serravalle and James Roe, Jr. have all been mathematically eliminated from championship contention. 

Entering Gateway, there are 216 points left on the table this Indy Lights season. After this race, only 162 points will remain available. With only 12 cars entered for Gateway and the field likely remaining at 12 cars for the remainder of the season, the top six in the championship are the last ones with a realistic chance at the championship. Regardless of number of entries, if Linus Lundqvist scores 122 points over the next four races, he will be champion. 

Lundqvist had an accident in the first Gateway race last year but rallied to finish fourth in the second race. Rasmussen and McElrea were second and third respectively in last year’s Indy Pro 2000 race at Gateway. Robb has six Gateway starts over the Road to Indy series. Pedersen was third in both Gateway Indy Lights races last year. 

The 75-lap Indy Lights race will take place at 4:15 p.m. ET on Saturday August 20.

Indy Pro 2000 will run its second and final oval race of the season at Gateway. 

Louis Foster has won six of the last eight races and Foster has a healthy 71-point lead over Reece Gold. Foster did win on his oval debut at Indianapolis Raceway Park with Gold finishing second. 

Enaam Ahmed is up to third in the championship on 257 points, 91-points behind Foster. Nolan Siegel is down to fourth on 253 points with Josh Green rounding out the top five on 239 points. 

Braden Eves won last year at Gateway in Indy Pro 2000. Eves has 235 points with Kiko Porto on 222 points, 126 points behind Foster. 

With a maximum 147 points remaining over the final four races only seven drivers are alive for the championship. If Foster exits this weekend with a 100-point lead, he will clinch the championship before the season ending Portland triple-header.

Indy Pro 2000 will race at 3:15 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 55 laps. 

Fast Facts

This will be the 16th IndyCar race to take place on August 20 and the first since Will Power won at Pocono in 2017. 

There has never been a repeat winner on August 20. 

Team Penske has won seven of 13 Gateway races. The only other team with multiple Gateway victories is Chip Ganassi Racing with three. 

Chevrolet has won six of the last seven short oval races. Scott Dixon’s victory in the first Gateway race in 2020 is the most recent short oval victory for Honda. 

Andretti Autosport has not won any of the last 17 short oval races. Its most recent short oval victory was at Iowa in 2015 with Ryan Hunter-Reay. Andretti Autosport had won nine of 12 short oval races held from 2010 through 2015, which included seven consecutive short oval victories from Iowa 2011 through Iowa 2014.

The average starting position for a Gateway winner is 4.153 with a median of third.

The last eight Gateway races have been won from a top five starting position. 

Twelve consecutive IndyCar oval races have been won from a top ten starting position. Ten of those 12 races have been won from a top five starting position. 

Only two of the 25 oval races since the introduction of the universal aero kit have been won from outside the top ten. The first was James Hinchcliffe from 11th at Iowa in 2018 and the other was Simon Pagenaud from 23rd in the first Iowa race in 2020.  

Six of 17 oval races with the original aero kit (2012-2014) and five of 17 oval races with manufacture-specific aero kits (2015-2017) were won from starting positions outside the top ten. 

The average number of lead changes in a Gateway race is 8.846 with a median of ten. 

Eight of 13 Gateway races have had double-digit lead changes. 

Only two Gateway races have had five lead changes or fewer (three in 1998 and five in 2003).

The average number of cautions in a Gateway race is 4.461 with a median of four. The average number of caution laps is 39.307 with a median of 35.

There has never been a caution-free race at Gateway. 

It has been 31 races since the last caution-free race in IndyCar (the second race of the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix weekend on the IMS road course).

The most recent caution-free oval race in IndyCar was the second race of the 2011 Firestone Twin 275s at Texas Motor Speedway. There have been 189 total races, 63 ovals, since the last caution-free IndyCar oval race.

There have been 13 caution-free races in IndyCar since its most recent caution-free oval race. 

Last year’s race had seven caution periods, the most at Gateway since eight in the 1999 race, the third Gateway race. 

Predictions

Josef Newgarden makes up for the mechanical failure in the second Iowa race and gets his fifth victory of the season. There will be a new championship leader after this race. Colton Herta will not have a mechanical failure. Romain Grosjean will have another top ten finish. Jimmie Johnson will not. There will not be an accident that takes out five cars. Alexander Rossi avoids the barrier. Graham Rahal completes more than three laps. Dalton Kellett spends zero laps in the top ten. The total number of passes will be up from last year. The race will not be joined in progress because the NASCAR Xfinity Series race goes long. Sleeper: Simon Pagenaud. 

Musings From the Weekend: More IndyCar Tidbits!

Formula E ended its season at a new location, and the series completed its 100th race. There was an important dirt race. Porsche did some testing and then signed a new driver. Some rookies did some testing on an oval. Bubba Wallace signed a contract extension. Álex Palou still has Chip Ganassi’s support. Richmond was a slow burn. Kimi Räikkönen and Mike Rockenfeller tested NASCAR Cup cars at Virginia International Raceway. Räikkönen received more attention though. Newman/Haas Racing relics will be going up for auction. Today is Sam Schmidt’s 58th birthday. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking. 

More IndyCar Tidbits!

At the halfway point of the IndyCar season, I picked over some of the facts from the season up to that point and that was not only fun enough to do again, but a lot has happened over the last six races that is worth looking at. With this brief break in the IndyCar schedule before we get into the final weeks of the season, I thought we would go over a few more tidbits from the 2022 season with three races to go. 

Second That!

Through the first 15 races, second starting position has produced seven winners this season, and no matter what happens in the final three races, second starting position will have produced the most winners in the 2022 season. It isn't surprising many winner started second. It is a front row starting position, but it just felt inevitable after a stretch of four consecutive races won from second on the grid and it happened five times in six races.

It had me wondering, what is the most victories for a single starting position in a season? I went through every season since 1946 and found out. Here is every season where a starting position won at least seven times.

1969: 2nd - 10 victories

1967: 2nd - 9 victories

1968: 1st - 9 victories

2003 CART: 1st - 9 victories

1966: 1st - 7 victories

1970: 1st - 7 victories

1985: 1st - 7 victories

2004 Champ Car: 1st - 7 victories

2009: 1st - 7 victories

2011: 1st - 7 victories

2022: 2nd - 7 victories

This season is in historic territory. This is only the 11th time in 91 IndyCar seasons since the end of World War II that one starting position has won at least seven races. But it should be noted how the schedule lengths have varied in these seasons. 

The 1969 season had 24 races, 1968 had 28 races and 1967 had 21 races. These are the three longest seasons since World War II. Meanwhile, the 2004 Champ Car season was only 14 races. Half the races that year were won from pole position. 

Some other fun facts about the most prolific starting position each season:

The worst position to be the sole leader in victories was ninth in 2015, when it won three races, the

second Belle Isle race with Sébastien Bourdais, Iowa with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Sonoma with Scott Dixon.

In 1965, the most prolific starting position was fifth when it won six of 18 races. That included a five-race winning streak which saw Johnny Rutherford scored his first career victory at Atlanta, Jim McElreath win at Langhorne, Joe Leonard score his first career victory at Milwaukee, A.J. Foyt win at Springfield and Gordon Johncock win at Milwaukee. Don Branson had won the season opener at Phoenix from fifth.

The worst starting position to have at least a share in most winners in a season was 14th during the 1998 Indy Racing League season. Fourteenth won the final two races of the season at Texas with John Paul, Jr. and at Las Vegas with Arie Luyendyk. The only other position to win multiple times that year was sixth with Tony Stewart at Loudon and Kenny Bräck at Atlanta. 

Passing Statistics

When the universal aero kit debuted in 2018, IndyCar was big on sharing its passing statistics and started including it in the post-race reports. It has been a few years with the universal aero kit and those great races in 2018 now have context in 2022. We still have three races to go in the season, but how do the passing statistics look over the last five seasons? How do this year's races compare?

Average Passes/Passes for Position (2022 numbers)

St. Petersburg: 189.6/136.4 (154/106)

Texas: 424.1667/191 (461/284)

Long Beach: 162.75/103.25 (152/88)

Barber: 175.75/111.75 (178/121)

IMS Road Course: 250/197.444 (471/362 (May race). 280/273 (July race))

Indianapolis: 518.6/365 (423/338)

Belle Isle: 159.57/104.714 (280/148)

Road America: 192/167 (226/191)

Mid-Ohio: 169.833/120.6 (183/149)

Toronto: 165.667/136.333 (145/140)

Iowa: 703.5/256.5 (772/372 (Race one). 812/262 (Race two))

Nashville: 256.5/224.5 (334/285)

Gateway: 232/117.8 

Portland: 167.333/123.333

Laguna Seca: 242.5/183

Outside of that impressive 2018 race, St. Petersburg has not broken more than 166 passes in the last four years. 

Texas' passes had declined over each of the last five races before this year, which had the most passes since 2019. 

Long Beach and Barber were somewhat average in 2022. The IMS road course had its two most active races this year. 

The Indianapolis 500 has been declining in the number of passes each year with the universal aero kit. The 2018 race was 633/428. This year was 423/338. 

Belle Isle ended its run with its most passes since 2018. Road America was above average as was Mid-Ohio. Toronto was somewhat in the ballpark. Iowa did great. Nashville has only existed for two years but this year had more passes than 2021.

What do we take away? The low downforce oval aero configuration makes it more prudent to be a fuel-mileage race than to try and make passes. That configuration also doesn’t punch the same hole in the air making passes inevitable like it was from 2012 through 2017. Worn out tracks are good for IndyCar. Some tracks have greater days than we expect and tracks fall to earth. Nothing new. 

Let's see how the final three races perform. 

By the way, the last three Gateway races have had fewer than 200 total passes. Laguna Seca went from 160/145 in 2019 to 325/221.

Andretti vs. Power

When going over the pole position statistics after Will Power won his 66th IndyCar pole position, I found some interesting facts for both Power and Mario Andretti and I thought I would share more of those facts here. 

Andretti started on the front row from pole position with Al Unser, Bobby Unser and Al Unser, Jr. for a combined 15 times. Andretti shared the front row from pole position for the 1984 Long Beach Grand Prix with Derek Daly, whose son Conor races against Power. Conor Daly's only IndyCar pole position at Iowa in 2020 saw Power start third, directly behind Daly. 

Other drivers who started second to Andretti include Jim Clark (1966 Indianapolis 500), Dan Gurney (1967 Indianapolis 500), and Teo Fabi (1983 Road America). 

Johnny Rutherford and Tom Sneva each started second to Andretti only once. Sneva was at Trenton in 1974. Rutherford was at the 1980 season finale at Phoenix.

There is one driver who competed against Mario Andretti, who Will Power shared a front row with when Power won a pole position. That would be Paul Tracy. Though Tracy and Andretti never shared a front row, whether it be Andretti on pole or Tracy on pole, Power was on pole position with Tracy in second for the 2007 Las Vegas season opener for Champ Car.  

Power also shared the front row with Marco Andretti, Mario's grandson, at the 2013 Texas race.

Andretti and Power have both won pole positions at Mid-Ohio, Long Beach, Milwaukee, Pocono, Portland and Watkins Glen. And of course, Power has won 66 pole positions, but zero at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the oval, and Power hasn't won pole position at Road America either.

Twenty Oval Victories

After Scott Dixon won at Toronto, tying Mario Andretti on 52 victories, many comparisons were made on how the drivers reach that number, but there is one thing that stood out. Dixon has won 24 times on ovals. That might not sound like much, but in contemporary IndyCar where there are only five or six oval races a season, 24 is quite a number. 

But where does 24 oval victories place Dixon? Probably higher than you thought. 

It is the seventh most oval victories in IndyCar history behind A.J. Foyt (64), Al Unser (33), Mario Andretti (29) Bobby Unser (28), Rodger Ward (26) and Johnny Rutherford (26). 

The only other drivers with 20 IndyCar oval victories are Gordon Johncock (23), Tony Bettenhausen (22) and Rick Mears (22). 

That's it. That's the list. Ten drivers. 

Dixon is the only driver to start his career in the last 46 years to reach 20 oval victories. The last two drivers chronologically to start their careers and reach 20 oval victories are Mears and Dixon. Mears' first IndyCar start was nearly four years before Dixon was born. 

Is it realistic to think anyone else could reach 20 IndyCar oval victories? 

The next best active driver is Hélio Castroneves on 18. It is possible, but slightly unlikely as Castroneves is 47 years old. 

Who is next? Technically, Tony Kanaan on 15 oval victories. We know Kanaan is in his final IndyCar days, and he could just be an Indianapolis 500-only driver from now until whenever he is done. I doubt Kanaan is going to win five more Indianapolis 500s.

The only other active driver with at least ten oval victories is Josef Newgarden on ten. Newgarden is possible, but it could be close. Newgarden is only 31 years old. He could race 15 more years. Ten oval victories in 15 years? For Newgarden, as long as Iowa is on the schedule, he can pull that off. Plus, we could see the IndyCar schedule get back up to seven or eight oval races a season before Newgarden's career is over. More opportunities makes it more likely for Newgarden or anyone else to reach 20 oval victories. 

The only other active IndyCar drivers with more than five oval victories are Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya, each with nine victories. Montoya isn't going to happen and Power is also unlikely. Power is 41 years old. Unless Power is winning two or three oval races a year for the next four or five years, I don’t think he will reach it. 

The likes of Patricio O'Ward, Alexander Rossi, Colton Herta, Álex Palou and Rinus VeeKay are all young, and it is still too soon to say definitively whether any of them will or will not reach 20 oval victories, but at the moment, only O'Ward and Rossi have won on ovals, and they have each only won twice. 

This is another reason to appreciate Dixon while we have him. He is doing things we may never see again.

Where Does Marcus Ericsson Rank Among Indianapolis 500 Winners?

Prior to this year's Indianapolis 500, I was looking at Jimmie Johnson's career average finish in IndyCar, which was over 20th at that point, and I wondered, what is the worst career average finish for an Indianapolis 500 winner? 

I was thinking about the drivers and the one name that stood out was Graham Hill because I knew he only made three IndyCar starts, all at Indianapolis, one was a victory, and another was an early retirement. I went through every Indianapolis 500 winner, and I was right. 

The worst career average finish for an Indianapolis 500 is Graham Hill at 17.3333.

But who are some of the other worse drivers?

Hill: 17.333

Buddy Lazier: 14.559

Takuma Sato: 14.374

Jim Clark: 13.555

Bill Vukovich: 12.818

Arie Luyendyk: 12.771

Troy Ruttman: 12.632

Eddie Cheever: 12.622

Mark Donohue: 12.241

Louis Schneider: 11.941

With that being the bottom ten drivers, where does Marcus Ericsson rank?

Ericsson's current career average finish through Nashville is 11.01667, 56th out of the 74 Indianapolis 500 winners, but it is directly behind A.J. Foyt's 10.899 and ahead of the likes of Ryan Hunter-Reay (11.2375), Tom Sneva (11.2475) and Johnny Rutherford (11.4571).

What does the top of this list look like?

Jimmy Murphy: 3.8653

Ray Harroun: 4.8823

Frank Lockhart: 5.291667

Gaston Chevrolet: 5.4667

Tommy Milton: 5.7941

René Thomas: 6.0

George Souders: 6.0

Ralph DePalma: 6.14

Joe Dawson: 6.2222

Dario Resta: 6.4117

What do all those drivers have in common? 

Here are the years they won the Indianapolis 500

1922, 1911, 1926, 1920, 1921 and 1923, 1914, 1927, 1915, 1912, 1916.

They were all winners in the first 14 Indianapolis 500s. Those are ten of the first 15 winners of the race. The missing names are Jules Goux, Howdy Wilcox, the 1924 co-winners Joe Boyer and L.L. Corum, and Peter DePaolo. 

Ray Keech is 11th at 6.6363 with Jimmy Bryan being the first post-World War II driver in 12th at 7.129. Then is is DePaolo at 7.4545 and then it is Scott Dixon at 7.5123. 

Best the Team is...?

As previously stated in this space, I spent much of my July following the Tour de France and in the Tour de France there is a team classification. The three best riders for each team per stage have their times added and the team with the lowest combined time wins the team classification.

For IndyCar, I am not going to add time, but which teams have the lowest average finish this season? That means across the board. Every entry counts, one-offs and all. 

Team Penske: 8.5

Chip Ganassi Racing: 10.175

Arrow McLaren SP: 11.724

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing: 13.88

Andretti Autosport: 14.491

Ed Carpenter Racing: 14.593

Meyer Shank Racing: 14.678

Dale Coyne Racing: 15.5

Juncos Hollinger Racing: 17.231

A.J. Foyt Racing: 21.459

That doesn't surprise anyone, although it does make Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's season look a lot better and it hasn’t won a race while Andretti Autosport has won twice. 

Brothers First and Last

Something happened at Mid-Ohio this year in the U.S. F2000 weekend that caught my eye. 

Michael d'Orlando won the third race of the weekend. Nicholas d'Orlando was 20th, dead last. One brother won the race. Another brother was last. 

I wasn't going to go through the U.S. F2000 history book, nor the Road to Indy history book, but IndyCar has had plenty notable pairs of brothers race and I wondered had a pair of brothers ever finished first and last in the same IndyCar race?

There is a lot that could go into this. For example, one brother could be great and another be average. That could lead to such a scenario and IndyCar has had plenty of those pairings. 

When was the last time an IndyCar race had a pair of brothers competing? 

It was Justin and Stefan Wilson at Baltimore in 2013. Of course, Justin Wilson's final IndyCar victory was in 2012, so it wasn't the Wilsons. 

What about Buddy Lazier and Jaques Lazier? 

Jaques Lazier's only victory was at Chicagoland in 2001. Buddy Lazier was 11th that day out of 25 cars. Jaques was never last for any of Buddy's victories. 

What about Michael Andretti and Jeff Andretti?

Jeff Andretti only made 20 starts with his brother Michael. Four of those races were the Indianapolis 500. Jeff Andretti was quite respectable in his only full season in 1991. His worst finish was 23rd, last place at the Meadowlands, but Bobby Rahal won that race. Jeff Andretti was 22nd at Mid-Ohio, Michael won, but there were 24 cars in that race, and Buddy Lazier was last. 

It is a no for the Andrettis. 

It was also a no for the Snevas. And the Mears brothers. And the Bettenhausens. 

What about IndyCar's ultimate pair of brothers, the Unsers?

Al Unser won on the Indianapolis Raceway Park road course on July 26, 1970. His brother Bobby blew his engine on the opening lap and Bobby was 24th, dead last. But there is more! On February 28, 1971, Al Unser won the season opener at the 2.874-mile oval in Rafaela, Argentina. Bobby Unser was out after three laps, classified in 27th, dead last. 

But what about Bobby? Did Bobby Unser ever win a race with Al Unser finishing last?

No. But there was one that was close. Bobby Unser won the 1976 California 500. Al Unser was 32nd out of 33 cars. 

Al Unser's victories at IRP and Rafaela are the only two times a pair of brothers have finished first and last in an IndyCar race. Leave it to the Unsers to have a place in IndyCar history. With the looks of things, no other siblings will be competing in IndyCar for at least a few more seasons. In seven or eight years, it could be the d’Orlandos joining the Unsers in the history book. Although I am sure neither wants to finish last. The d’Orlandos may decline joining the Unsers in such company. 

Champion From the Weekend

Stoffel Vandoorne clinched the Formula E World Championship with finishes of fifth and second at Seoul.

Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team clinched the Formula E Teams’ championship.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Stoffel Vandoorne and Mercedes, but did you know...

Mitch Evans and Edoardo Mortara split the races at the Seoul ePrix.

Kevin Harvick won the NASCAR Cup race from Richmond, his second consecutive victory. Chandler Smith won the Truck race, his third victory of the season. 

Donny Schatz won the Knoxville Nationals, Schatz’s 11th Knoxville Nationals victory.

Coming Up This Weekend

IndyCar's final oval race and final Saturday race at Gateway.

NASCAR is back at Watkins Glen.

MotoGP revisits a slightly re-profiled Red Bull Ring. 

Super Formula has a doubleheader at Motegi. 

Supercars has a doubleheader at Sandown.

GT World Challenge America has a doubleheader at Road America. 

The World Rally Championship contests Ypres Rally Belgium. 

A Look Back: IROC XIII

We fail to take into consideration some of the great little moments we get to see in modern motorsports. As much as we herald the past as the golden era with drivers regularly competing in multiple disciplines, we fail to notice when it happens under our nose in the present. 

In IndyCar, a four-time Supercars champion from Australia is competing against a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion while a six-time IndyCar champion, who is also now has the second most victories in series history, and a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, is also on the circuit. 

In a few weeks at Watkins Glen, a past Formula One World Drivers' Champion will be competing in the NASCAR Cup Series and he will only be the second past World Drivers' Champion to compete in the Cup Series this season. There will also be an overall Le Mans winner in that race. 

Endurance races bring together plenty of decorated drivers. 

We see these race occurrence all the time, but do not properly acknowledge them, probably because we do not step back and appreciate the moment. 

But what if there was an entire series full of some of the greatest drivers ever? 

That is what the International Race of Champions was known for from the 1970s through its final season in 2006. There were many great IROC seasons, one of which was highlighted in this forum last year. As great as IROC XIV was in 1990, the year before gathered arguably one of the greatest collection of names in American motorsports and perhaps the world. 

Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the IROC XIII season finale. What made it so special? 

It was A.J. Foyt vs. Richard Petty vs. Rick Mears vs. Dale Earnhardt vs. Al Unser, Jr. vs. Hurley Haywood, and that was only half the field. 

At this point in time, Foyt was a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner. Mears had just won his third. Richard Petty was a seven-time Cup champion and had 200 Cup victories. Earnhardt had three Cup titles. Unser, Jr. was still emerging in IndyCar, but had already won two IROC championships, including the year prior. Haywood was the reigning Trans-Am champion, a two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, tied for the most 24 Hours of Daytona victories with four, and a two-time 12 Hours of Sebring winner. 

And those six drivers do not include the defending NASCAR and IndyCar champions, Bill Elliott and Danny Sullivan respectively. Elliot also had two Daytona 500 victories and Sullivan had won the Indianapolis 500 four years prior. Geoff Brabham and Scott Pruett were both IMSA champions the year before, Brabham in GTP and Pruett in GTO. 

Rounding out the field was Terry Labonte, who had won the 1984 NASCAR Cup championship, and Rusty Wallace, the runner-up in the 1988 Cup championship after winning four of the final five races, bringing him 24 points shy of topping Elliott.

Race One - Daytona

The build up to this race was Foyt vs. Petty, two drivers that had competed together in their fair share of Cup competition, but both were clearly on the tail end of their careers. At the start of this IROC season, Petty was about four and a half years removed from that 200th Cup victory, which had come at Daytona International Speedway. It was also the tenth anniversary of Petty's seventh, and final, championship. 

Foyt had not won an IndyCar race since 1981. Like Petty, it was ten years since Foyt's seventh, and final, IndyCar championship. Both drivers were over 50 years old and Sam Posey was even asking at the top of the Daytona race broadcast if they had lost their competitive edge and risked their careers entering IROC, where the cars were equal and if a driver finished last, he had no one to blame but himself. 

Daytona was the 50th IROC race. Mears and Foyt shared the front row ahead of Elliott and Sullivan. Labonte and Petty were on row three while Earnhardt and Pruett started on row four. Rounding out the top ten were Haywood and Unser, Jr. Brabham and Wallace occupied the final row. 

Mears led the opening lap, but Petty took the top spot on lap two. Petty led three laps before Earnhardt took the lead. Wallace was a big mover, jumping up to fourth from 12th on the opening lap and soon finding himself in second position behind Earnhardt. 

While Petty had a great start, he soon started dropping positions and fell out of the top five. 

The field broke in half with Earnhardt leading a six-car group while the rest of the field fell off. After a few settled laps, Labonte and Unser, Jr. made their way to the front and passed the leading tandem of Earnhardt and Wallace. However, those two would push back and regain the positions. 

Entering the final ten laps, Earnhardt, Wallace, Labonte and Unser, Jr. had broken away, but Unser, Jr. started to struggle with his tires. Exiting turn four on one lap, Unser, Jr. brushed the wall. Wallace found his way back to the lead after a pass low into turn one. On the final lap, Labonte made a run to the inside of the back straightaway, but Wallace blocked it off and held on for the victory ahead of Labonte, Earnhardt and Unser, Jr.

Elliott was a distant fifth ahead of Haywood and Foyt. Mears was eight, a spot ahead of Petty. The IMSA champions Pruett and Brabham were tenth and 11th respectively. Sullivan was actually lapped in this race, but he had been in a practice accident in the build up to the race after contact with Unser, Jr. 

Race Two - Nazareth

Hold on! Nazareth? Yes! For the first time, IROC was visiting a short track. Shocking to the 21st century viewer, this IROC race was run on a Saturday in conjunction with a standalone NASCAR Busch Grand National Series event, which took place on Sunday while the Cup Series was off. IndyCar and also been off for two weeks after running at Long Beach, as was Trans-Am. IMSA had run the weekend before on the streets of West Palm Beach. 

The grid was inverse of the Daytona results, but an accident almost immediately into the race caused a stir. Brabham was sent into the outside wall after contact with Petty. The initial start was waved off and Brabham was allowed into a backup car, but had to start last in the field. 

On the second start, Sullivan led lap one before Pruett took the top spot on lap two. Sullivan was losing positions on each lap and it would not be long before he was down to seventh. 

Foyt aggressively drove forward and took the top spot on lap 18, but simultaneously Elliott made a pit stop for tires, and a theme would emerge over this afternoon. Foyt continued to lead, but Wallace was driving to the front from 11th on the grid after the second start. On lap 37, just after halfway in the 75-lap race, Wallace took the lead. 

Almost immediately after Wallace inherited the top spot, a caution came out for debris. On the restart, Foyt worked his way around Wallace, but soon Wallace was into the pit lane with a tire problem. Wallace was the fifth driver to take tires at this point. Not long after that, Unser, Jr. and Earnhardt each made pit stops for tires, as would Labonte.

Foyt was hanging onto the top position, but faced pressure from Pruett. During the battle, Foyt lost his right-front tire while leading and Pruett moved into first with 16 laps to go. However, Sullivan was gaining on the leaders. After being a distant third he was taking a second a lap out of Pruett's advantage. Pruett began to slide on his tires and ran wide with 13 laps remaining. This opened the door for Sullivan to retake the lead for the first time since the opening lap. 

With all the tire issues, Wallace had wound up in third ahead of Unser, Jr. Foyt had rejoined competition in fifth position, but Sullivan was the only driver without a major tire issue all race and he drove into the distance, winning the race over Pruett by 13.45 seconds. The performance was so startling, Sullivan had not even realized he won until the mechanics pointed for him to go to victory lane. 

Wallace, Unser, Jr. and Foyt rounded out the top five with Labonte in sixth ahead of Earnhardt. Brabham took the backup car to an eight-place result ahead of Haywood. Mears, Elliott and Petty took the final three spots. 

Race Three - Michigan

Paul Page billed it as a pivotal race at the top of the broadcast. The top seven drivers in the championship were mathematically eligible for leaving the two-mile Michigan International Speedway as the championship leader. Only 14 points covered Wallace, Labonte, Earnhardt, Sullivan, Pruett, Unser, Jr. and Foyt. 

Petty and Brabham shared the front row, and Brabham led a few of the opening laps. Meanwhile, Wallace nearly replicated his Daytona start, this time going from 12th to fifth on lap one with Labonte on his coattails while Earnhardt had also driven from tenth into the top five. 

Earnhardt would soon take the lead from Brabham after receiving a push from Labonte, but Labonte would make a move to the inside of Earnhardt on the front straightaway and move to the top spot. 

The bottom three starters held the top three positions as the race approached the quarter-post but Pruett was closing on the leaders. Earnhardt took advantage of Pruett's head of steam and was pushed to the lead. Labonte was caught out and dropped to fourth. Wallace took a look for the lead on Earnhardt, but this slowed both cars down and Labonte regained the top position after a three-wide pass. 

This dicing of the leaders allowed Foyt and a few others to close up on the field. With seven laps to go, the top eight were all under a blanket. Labonte went back to the top spot entering turn three that lap and Wallace dropped to fifth. As the side-by-side racing increased around third, Labonte and Earnhardt pulled away. 

Labonte and Earnhardt had gained some breathing room, but Wallace climbed back up to third and mounted a late charge. Labonte opened some daylight to the field and took the victory while Earnhardt held off Wallace for second. Elliott and Unser, Jr. rounded out the top five. 

Pruett was sixth ahead of Foyt, Haywood and Mears. Sullivan, Petty and Brabham took the final three spots.

Race Four - Watkins Glen

Five drivers were alive for the championship entering the season finale at Watkins Glen. Labonte's victory at Michigan put him in the championship lead, four points ahead of Wallace and eight points ahead of Earnhardt. Unser, Jr. and Pruett were tied on 34 points, and for either of those two to win the championship, it would have required winning the race with at least leading the second most laps in the race. 

The drivers lined up in championship order. Labonte and Wallace were on row one, Earnhardt and Unser, Jr. on row two and Pruett had Foyt to his outside on row three.

Labonte held onto the lead at the start while Unser, Jr. moved up to third around Earnhardt. Pruett overtook Earnhardt for fourth on the following lap. Unser, Jr. would soon get around Wallace for second and start applying pressure on Labonte in the lead. Pruett moved around Wallace into third. 

Unser, Jr. had a run into turn one at the start of lap 11 and took the lead on the inside of Labonte. Later that lap, Pruett moved ahead of Labonte entering the carousel. On the next lap, Pruett took the lead into turn one, but Unser, Jr. countered, getting a strong exit of the esses before passing Pruett back into the carousel. 

The top four remained close over the second-third of the race until Wallace needed to make a pit stop for a tire issue. Richard Petty suffered a hard accident in the carousel, slamming into the barrier and notably damaging it, but Petty was able to drive back to the pit lane and garage area with no caution being waved. 

Wallace emerged from his pit stop in eighth position, and with Labonte having led ten laps, he had effectively clinched at least three bonus points for the second most laps led. This spelled doom for Unser, Jr. and Pruett, as no matter what they could not overtake Labonte if he had those three bonus points. 

With Wallace out of the picture and Earnhardt never really challenging Labonte on the track, Labonte had to just stay on the road and the championship would be his. Unser, Jr. and Pruett pulled away from him, but the top two had next to no daylight between their cars in the closing laps. 

Unser, Jr. had control over the final two-thirds of the race and won by 1.3 seconds over Pruett, but Labonte's third-place finish clinched him the IROC championship. Elliott drove up to fourth of Earnhardt while sports car aces Haywood and Brabham rounded out the top seven. Wallace could do no better than eighth. Mears had a spin the carousel relegate him to ninth ahead of Foyt. Sullivan had early damage to his right front after an incident in the carousel. He spent much of the race multiple laps down, but finished 11th ahead of Petty. 

Labonte won the championship with 72 points, 12 ahead of Unser, Jr. Wallace was dropped to third on 58 points, one ahead of Earnhardt and seven ahead of Pruett. Elliott took sixth with 38 points, two more than Foyt and three more than Sullivan. Haywood had 31 points. Brabham and Mears were tied on 24 points, but the finish in the final race of the season was the tiebreaker, placing Brabham tenth in the championship. Petty scored 16 points over four races.

In Review

Outside of Mario Andretti and perhaps David Pearson, this is one of the best groups of American motorsports competitors to ever take to the racetrack together, and each were at different stages in their careers. 

Foyt and Petty were both at the end. Unser, Jr. and Pruett were both still at the beginning. Wallace would win the NASCAR Cup Series championship later that year. Labonte would win another Cup championship seven years later. Earnhardt would win four more Cup titles. Mears added his fourth Indianapolis 500 two years later.

It is fascinating to see how the series was contested. Daytona and Watkins Glen were both held on NASCAR Cup weekends. Nazareth was with NASCAR's second division. Michigan was with CART, but IROC had an accommodating schedule. Other than NASCAR, nothing was going on in February. Somehow, all these series were off the weekend of Nazareth. Cup was off for the Michigan weekend, though Trans-Am was at Lime Rock Park. IMSA was at Heartland Park Topeka the day after Watkins Glen, and Brabham won that race in the Nissan GTP after concluding his IROC campaign.

When you consider how the NASCAR Cup Series now has only one off-week from the Daytona 500 in the middle of February and the season finale on the first Sunday in November, not to forget mentioning IndyCar's tightly packed summer schedule, there would be no concession made in the year 2022. Although, with the limited practice in the NASCAR series and even IndyCar running less practice, theoretically, a schedule could be made that would not interfere with the day jobs for the competitors. 

Watching these four races, it is important to note how different these events were presented 33 years ago and what I mean by that is, before you say everything was better back in the 1980s and today's networks are atrocious broadcasting a race, note that the February 17th season opener from Daytona was not aired on television until AFTER the Indianapolis 500. It is what followed the Indianapolis 500 broadcast that year over three months later!

Also note that the second race at Nazareth had already taken place before the first race even aired. When did Nazareth air on television? July 30, three months and a day after it had been run. 

This is also without noting the lap number in the race was hardly mentioned until you got in the final five or ten laps, there were no intervals to the leaders, you barely saw anything that happened beyond the first three or four cars, and they would air two- to three-minute features during the race! They went away from the race to show you a piece on A.J. Foyt. Not even splitscreen or double-box. You saw the feature piece full screen and that was it. 

Remember that next time you are complaining about a race airing on a streaming service with a grand total of three minutes worth of commercials and consider if the alternative was really that much better. 

Broadcasting aside, IROC XIII was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It brought Rick Mears and Richard Petty to the same racetrack. These are likely the only four times they ever raced against each other. The same can be said for Mears and Earnhardt, Haywood and Petty. 

It is incredible that at one point the top four drivers from NASCAR, three of the top four from IndyCar, the two most decorated drivers from each of those series, and three of the top sports car champions from the United States would all compete against each other four times a year with $200,000 going to the champion. That isn't even $500,000 in 2022 money. But they did it and IROC was run that way for most of its 30-season history. 

Though it was far from the top series in the United States, it was something the competitors felt worthy of their time, almost obligated to do, and we all won out because of it. 

Let's Look at the League - August 2022

Nashville was not just the final race of six races in a 36-day stretch in IndyCar. In the fictional world of head-to-head IndyCar racing, it was the final weekend of the regular season in the top league. Playoff spots were decided. Safety for the 2023 season was decided. The battle for promotion continued. 

In June, we went over the first eight weeks of the season and set the scene. Below will be a brief summary of where things stood after Road America. 

League One (Through eight weeks): 

Conference One

1. #12 Penske 7-1

2. #27 Andretti 5-3

3. #3 Penske 4-4

4. #10 Ganassi 4-4

5. #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan 4-4

6. #26 Andretti 4-4

7. #9 Ganassi 3-5

8. #51 Coyne 1-7

Conference Two

1. #8 Ganassi 6-2

2. #2 Penske 6-2 

3. #15 RLLR 5-3

4. #60 Meyer Shank 4-4

5. #28 Andretti 4-4

6. #18 Coyne 3-5

7. #5 Arrow McLaren SP 3-5

8. #30 RLLR 1-7

League Two (Top three automatically promoted)

1. #7 AMSP 8-1

2. #21 ECR 6-3

3. #06 MSR 6-3

4. #48 Ganassi 5-4

5. #20 ECR 5-4

6. #29 Andretti 5-4

7. #77 Juncos Hollinger 4-5

8. #14 Foyt 3-6

9. #4 Foyt 2-7

10. #11 Foyt 1-8

How did the final six weeks shake up the regular season? Who are in the playoffs? What teams have to compete in the relegation playoff? Who has already been dropped? The actual IndyCar championship has been breathtakingly close and we are set for a possible historic championship finish to the 2022 season. Does the head-to-head world match what we are seeing in the real world? 

Conference One

1. #12 Penske 11-3

Mid-Ohio: WIN (3rd to #51's 14th)

Toronto: LOSS (15th to #9's 1st)

Iowa: WIN (3rd to #45's 18th)

Iowa: WIN (2nd to #10's 13th)

Brickyard: WIN (3rd to #3's 4th)

Nashville: LOSS (11 to #26's 5th)

2. #3 Penske 9-5

Mid-Ohio: WIN (1st to #10's 2nd)

Toronto: WIN (9th to #27's 23rd)

Iowa: WIN (22nd to #26's 24th)

Iowa: WIN (3rd to #51's 10th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (4th to #12's 3rd)

Nashville: WIN (2nd to #45's 10th)

3. #27 Andretti 8-6

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (19th to #26's 15th)

Toronto: LOSS (23rd to #3's 9th)

Iowa: LOSS (13th to #10's 6th)

Iowa: WIN (18th to #45's 20th)  

Brickyard: WIN (1st to #9's 8th)

Nashville: WIN (4th to #18's 21st)

4. #9 Ganassi 8-6

Mid-Ohio: WIN (5th to #45's 20th)

Toronto: WIN (1st to #12's 15th)

Iowa: WIN (5th to #51's 21st)

Iowa: WIN (4th to #26's 12th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (8th to #27's 1st)

Nashville: WIN (1st to #10's 3rd)

5. #10 Ganassi 7-7

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (2nd to #3's 1st)  

Toronto: WIN (6th to #51's 25th)

Iowa: WIN (6th to #27's 13th)

Iowa: LOSS (13th to #12's 2nd) 

Brickyard: WIN (10th to #26's 24th)

Nashville: LOSS (3rd to #9's 1st)

6. #26 Andretti 7-7

Mid-Ohio: WIN (15th to #27's 19th)

Toronto: WIN (2nd to #45's 19th)

Iowa: LOSS (24th to #3's 22nd)

Iowa: LOSS (12th to #9's 4th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (24th to #10's 10th)

Nashville: WIN (5th to #12's 11th)

7. #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan 4-10

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (20th to #9's 5th)

Toronto: LOSS (19th to #26's 2nd)

Iowa: LOSS (18th to #12's 3rd)

Iowa: LOSS (20th to #27's 18th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (20th to #51's 15th)

Nashville: LOSS (10th to #3's 2nd)

8. #51 Coyne 2-12

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (14th to #12's 3rd)

Toronto: LOSS (25th to #10's 6th)

Iowa: LOSS (21st to #9's 5th)

Iowa: LOSS (10th to #3's 3rd) 

Brickyard: WIN (15th to #45's 20th)

Nashville: LOSS (21st to #27's 4th)

Conference One Breakdown:

The #12 Penske entry tops the conference and the #3 Penske is second. 

On the final day of the season, Scott Dixon's victory over Álex Palou combined with Alexander Rossi's head-to-head win over Takuma Sato knocked Palou out of the playoffs and moved Rossi up to third in conference. Rossi was 2-0 head-to-head against Dixon. It should be noted Dixon went from seventh after Road America to the fourth and final playoff spot, going 5-1 in the final six matchups. 

Palou keeps fifth and is guaranteed safety for the #10 Ganassi entry for the 2023 season. Palou was 2-0 against Colton Herta head-to-head, meaning the #26 Andretti and #45 RLLR head to the relegation playoff. 

The #51 Coyne entry is relegated and he was relegated after the Toronto round. 

Conference Two

1. #2 Penske 10-4

Mid-Ohio: WIN (7th to #28's 21st)

Toronto: LOSS (10th to #60's 7th)

Iowa: WIN (1st to #30's 10th)

Iowa: LOSS (24th to #15's 14th) 

Brickyard: WIN (5th to #8's 11th)

Nashville: WIN (6th to #5's 24th)

2. #8 Ganassi 9-5

Mid-Ohio: WIN (6th to #30's 11th)

Toronto: WIN (5th to #18's 12th)

Iowa: LOSS (8th to #28's 7th)

Iowa: LOSS (6th to #5's 1st)

Brickyard: LOSS (11th to #2's 5th)

Nashville: WIN (14th to #15's 23rd)

3. #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan 9-5

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (12th to #60's 10th)

Toronto: WIN (4th to #5's 11th)

Iowa: WIN (9th to #18's 14th)

Iowa: WIN (14th to #2's 24th) 

Brickyard: WIN (7th to #28's 16th)

Nashville: LOSS (23rd to #8's 14th)

 

4. #28 Andretti 7-7

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (21st to #2's 7th)

Toronto: LOSS (16th to #30's 8th)

Iowa: WIN (7th to #8's 8th)

Iowa: WIN (9th to #60's 23rd) 

Brickyard: LOSS (16th to #15's 7th)

Nashville: WIN (16th to #18's 20th)

5. #60 Meyer Shank 6-8

Mid-Ohio: WIN (10th to #15's 12th)

Toronto: WIN (7th to #2's 10th)

Iowa: LOSS (23rd to #5's 2nd)

Iowa: LOSS (23rd to #28's 9th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (25th to #18's 13th)

Nashville: LOSS (9th to #30's 8th)

6. #18 Coyne 6-8

Mid-Ohio: WIN (9th to #5's 24th)

Toronto: LOSS (12th to #8's 5th)

Iowa: LOSS (14th to #15's 9th)

Iowa: WIN (8th to #30's 26th) 

Brickyard: WIN (13th to #60's 25th)

Nashville: LOSS (20th to #28's 16th)

7. #5 Arrow McLaren SP 5-9

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (24th to #18's 9th)

Toronto: LOSS (11th to #15's 4th)

Iowa: WIN (2nd to #60's 23rd)

Iowa: WIN (1st to #8's 6th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (12th to #30's 2nd)

Nashville: LOSS (24th to #2's 6th)

8. #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan 4-10

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (11th to #8's 6th)

Toronto: WIN (8th to #28's 16th)

Iowa: LOSS (10th to #2's 1st)

Iowa: LOSS (26th to #18's 8th) 

Brickyard: WIN (2nd to #5's 12th)

Nashville: WIN (8th to #60's 9th)

Conference Two Breakdown:

The final weekend of the regular season shook up conference two quite a bit. The #2 Penske entry went from second to first with Josef Newgarden defeating Patricio O'Ward head-to-head, combined with Marcus Ericsson, despite his retirement, defeating Graham Rahal, who entered Nashville as the one-seed.

Speaking of retirements, Romain Grosjean still made the playoffs despite retiring at Nashville because he was still ahead of David Malukas, and Christian Lundgaard, whose late surge in form wasn't enough to avoid relegation, played spoiler, defeating Simon Pagenaud by a single position to knock Pagenaud out of a playoff spot. Pagenaud will still be fifth on tiebreaker over Malukas and keep the #60 Shank entry in League One for 2023.

The #18 Coyne and #5 AMSP head to the relegation playoff. The #30 RLLR was assured relegation after the second Iowa race. 

League Two

1. #7 Arrow McLaren SP 12-3

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (27th to #48's 16th)

Toronto: WIN (3rd to #29's 18th) 

Iowa: LOSS (26th to #77's 12th)

Iowa: WIN (7th to #14's 25th) 

Brickyard: WIN (Walkover - #11 DNA)

Nashville: WIN (7 to #21's 12th)

2. #21 ECR 11-4

Mid-Ohio: WIN (4th to #11's 25th)

Toronto: WIN (13th to #77's 14th)

Iowa: WIN (4th to #4's 20th)

Iowa: WIN (19th to #06's 21st)

Brickyard: WIN (6th to #48's 22nd) 

Nashville: LOSS (12 to #7's 7th)

3. #06 Meyer Shank 11-4

Mid-Ohio: WIN (8th to #29's 17th)

Toronto: WIN (17th to #14's 22nd)

Iowa: WIN (16th to #20's 19th)

Iowa: LOSS (21st to #21's 19th) 

Brickyard: WIN (19th to #4's 21st)

Nashville: WIN (13th to #77's 15th)

4. #20 ECR 10-5

Mid-Ohio: WIN (13th to #77's 23rd)

Toronto: WIN (Walkover - #11 DNA)

Iowa: LOSS (19th to #06's 19th)

Iowa: WIN (16th to #4's 22nd) 

Brickyard: WIN (17th to #29's 18th)

Nashville: WIN (17th to #14's 19th)

5. #48 Ganassi 10-5

Mid-Ohio: WIN (16th to #7's 27th)

Toronto: WIN (21st to #4's 24th)

Iowa: WIN (11th to #29's 17th)

Iowa: WIN (5th to #77's 11th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (22nd to #21'st 6th)

Nashville: WIN (Walkover - #11 DNA)

6. #29 Andretti 7-8

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (17th to #06's 8th)

Toronto: LOSS (18th to #7's 3rd)

Iowa: LOSS (17th to #48's 11th)

Iowa: WIN (Walkover - #11 DNA) 

Brickyard: LOSS (18th to #20's 17th)

Nashville: WIN (22nd to #4's 25th)

7. #77 Juncos Hollinger 6-9

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (23rd to #20's 13th)

Toronto: LOSS (14th to #21's 13th)

Iowa: WIN (12th to #7's 26th)

Iowa: LOSS (11th to #48's 5th) 

Brickyard: WIN (14th to #14's 23rd)

Nashville: LOSS (15th to #06's 13th)

8. #14 Foyt 4-11

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (26th to #4's 22nd)

Toronto: LOSS (22nd to #06's 17th)

Iowa: WIN (Walkover - #11 DNA)

Iowa: LOSS (25th to #7's 7th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (23rd to #77's 14th)

Nashville: LOSS (19th to #20's 17th)

9. #4 Foyt 3-12

Mid-Ohio: WIN (22nd to #14's 26th)

Toronto: LOSS (24th to #48's 21st)

Iowa: LOSS (20th to #21's 4th)

Iowa: LOSS (22nd to #20's 16th) 

Brickyard: LOSS (21st to #06's 19th)

Nashville: LOSS (25th to #29's 22nd)

10. #11 Foyt 1-14

Mid-Ohio: LOSS (25th to #21's 4th)

Toronto: LOSS (Did not appear)

Iowa: LOSS (Did not appear)

Iowa: LOSS (Did not appear)

Brickyard: LOSS (Did not appear)

Nashville: LOSS (Did not appear)

League Two Outlook:

Unlike League One, the League Two regular season isn't over yet and the final three races will decide which three teams are promoted for the 2023 season. 

No team has locked up promotion yet, but the #7 Arrow McLaren SP entry must feel good being two games up on fourth with three to play. It does have the #20 ECR entry and #06 Shank entry in the final three weeks. 

The #21 ECR entry owns the tiebreaker on the #06 Shank entry. Rinus VeeKay is 2-0 against Hélio Castroneves this year. Conor Daly is 1-0 against Jimmie Johnson, but they face again at Portland and that could decide who will get promoted or not. It is a five-horse race with three races remaining. No one outside the top five can earn promotion. 

Playoffs:

Quarterfinals:

#12 Penske vs. #28 Andretti 

#8 CGR vs. #27 Andretti

#3 Penske vs. #15 RLLR

#2 Penske vs. #9 Ganassi

Josef Newgarden has won the head-to-head championship all three seasons it has been tracked. In year four, as a #1 seed, Newgarden faces Scott Dixon in the quarterfinals. On paper, that is the matchup that flips history upside down. 

Andretti's two playoff teams are both the worst seeds on the same side of the bracket. If the team makes it a sweep of upsets, Andretti will be guaranteed a finalist. If the team has a sweep of losses, that would be a fitting end to its season. And then you have Scott McLaughlin vs. Graham Rahal and one of those two will be a semifinalist.

Relegation Playoff:

Semifinals:

#26 Andretti vs. #5 AMSP

#18 DCR vs. #45 RLLR

Could anyone have imagined one of Colton Herta or Patricio O'Ward will be guaranteed to face relegation at the start of the season? That is going to happen as the two are paired at Gateway. The winners are guaranteed safety for 2023. The losers will face off at Portland to determine who will be the third team relegated from the 2022 season. 

There is plenty of drama in the final few weeks of the IndyCar season, and after Laguna Seca, we will tie up all that has happened.

Musings From the Weekend: No Changes Are a Good Thing

Scott Dixon made IndyCar history and surpassed Mario Andretti for second all-time in victory after surviving a chaotic Nashville race. God must have been upset with both NASCAR and IndyCar and showed His displeasure with rain. It also rained at Road America, but the IMSA race started on time. Meanwhile, MotoGP returned to competition and Andrea Dovizioso announced Misano in a few weeks will be his final race. The Suzuka 8 Hours was held for the first time since 2019. Finland hosted a race. A championship was awarded. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.

No Changes Are a Good Thing

One of the things I love most about IndyCar is you find out its next schedule from all the sports car series announcing their schedules first. 

Last week, SRO America announced its 2023 calendars, and it was revealed the GT America series will race at St. Petersburg over the weekend of March 3-5, 2023 and at Nashville over the weekend of August 4-6, 2023. Long Beach was already promoting the weekend of April 14-16, 2023 for next year's event and IMSA confirmed that date when it announced its schedule this past weekend at Road America. IMSA also confirmed the weekend for the new downtown Detroit event for June 2-4, 2023, but it will be the Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport class being the premier sports car race in Detroit and not the newly-minted LMDh machinery.

Throw in knowing the Indianapolis 500 will be Memorial Day weekend and pencil it in for May 28 with the Grand Prix of Indianapolis being 15 days earlier, as it has been since its inception in 2014, and a third of the 2023 IndyCar schedule is known before IndyCar even gets close to having its own announcement. 

We have to wait a little longer before IndyCar confirms if it returns to Texas, when Barber falls, the weekend of the Iowa doubleheader and when and where the season will conclude (a Saturday supporting the IMSA weekend at Indianapolis you say? Kidding... slightly), but from the sounds of it we will know the 2023 calendar sooner rather than later, possibly before the final weekend of the season at Laguna Seca. That is partially because there are no expected changes to the 2023 calendar, and it will look much like what we had this year. 

Before you exhale in disgust, we must consider no changes as a good thing. For a long time, change was too frequent for the IndyCar calendar and more often than not it was the bad kind of change. A lost race here, a lost race there, a new track only cancelling out a race going away, sometimes it would be a track leaving after one season on the schedule. IndyCar went a long time without having a 100% retention rate for its schedule, basically a decade. It felt good a few years ago when it was able to do that, but 100% retention has not annual when it really should be for series growth. 

Of course, then the pandemic came and that has thrown everything upside down. The 2020 season aside when everyone was only trying to get through the season with a respectable number of races, IndyCar has had a few rough patches in the last two years. Iowa went away before coming back. Texas has moved around, and that crowd has only shrunk. There have been many races we have been holding our breath over because we weren't sure what they would look like after a year away, Toronto being the lead example on that list. 

Richmond was set to return to the IndyCar schedule in 2020 before the pandemic flipped the script and it hasn't been close to being on either the 2021 or 2022 calendars. It will still be on the sidelines for 2023. Other than Nashville, no new venues have stepped up since the end of the 2020 season. No new ovals. No forgotten road courses returning. No trips down to Mexico though we have been floating them out there for nearly five years. 

For all the positives happening in IndyCar despite the pandemic, IndyCar remains in a fragile position, and it isn't as attractive to tracks and promoters as one would think. Iowa had a great crowd but look at all the work that had to go into that event. Most tracks don't want to spend that much on IndyCar, mostly because it is not a safe bet. Iowa comes off as the exception, not the rule, even if we would all love to see that kind of activation at Texas and other recently fallen venues such as Watkins Glen, Pocono and Phoenix. 

Its profile is something IndyCar must keep working on, but while it does that, not losing ground is a win, though a minor one at that. 

IndyCar's current schedule is good. There are 15 tracks, a good mix of ovals, road courses and street courses. The 2023 season will not go to Belle Isle, but it is still a good mix of street courses with St. Petersburg, Long Beach, Toronto and Nashville, and the new Detroit street course is in a promising position of the city. IndyCar goes to Road America, Mid-Ohio, Barber, Portland, Laguna Seca and the IMS road course, which has put on some strong races as much as people hate to admit it. Indianapolis leads off the ovals. Iowa proved why it is the most underrated oval in this country with its IndyCar doubleheader this year. Gateway has drawn a fantastic crowd every year, but let's see how this year's race looks when it starts around 5:30 p.m. local time and will likely end before sunset. Texas needs a lot of work, but this year's race was better than we have seen lately and if Iowa can draw 38,000 people on consecutive days, then there is no reason the Dallas-Fort Worth area could not get at least 50,000 for its IndyCar race, a crowd size that was the norm for that event not long ago. 

There are improvements that we would like to see. Four ovals with five races is suboptimal. The dream should be to run seven or eight different ovals and it would be great to see a few more short ovals, Richmond, Milwaukee and Loudon leading that camp. It would be great to get back to another intermediate oval, though there is no frontrunner in that department. IndyCar could use another big track, Michigan or Pocono and maybe even one final hoorah around the two-mile Fontana before that is downsized to a short track, though a Fontana short track could also be suitable for IndyCar once that is complete. 

Milwaukee has been the latest rumored oval race, though that would only be a return after nearly a decade away and that will not happen in 2023. All signs point to possibly 2024 with the hope being IndyCar and Penske Entertainment taking the Iowa model and replicating that success in Milwaukee. Any Milwaukee return is a long way from happening and there are plenty of hurdles that could trip up that revival. But if IndyCar maintains stability for 2023, that is a good launchpad for potential growth in 2024 even if it is only Milwaukee.

Prior to the Brickyard weekend, Roger Penske came out and said IndyCar's goal is to get to 20 races and possibly have an international race in the near future. That is a notable change from IndyCar's recent ethos of sticking to 17 races because that is financially responsible for the teams and keeping the series in the United States because those races are better for team sponsors than going to international markets where many of these companies do not do any business. 

If 20 races mean adding three more tracks, three more race weekends, that is a risk for IndyCar, especially with a new hybrid engine package and new chassis looming. More races only mean increased costs and they could come at a time when teams are already shelling out a healthy amount of cash in purchasing new equipment. That is a combination the team owners will only embrace with open arms. Yeah, right. 

Patience will be important. As much as IndyCar wants to grow, it doesn't necessarily have the suitors ready to receive IndyCar expansion. The last few years have been good for IndyCar, but not exceptional enough to have tracks lining up. However, keeping the status quo is better than contraction and makes expansion more likely down the road. 

Champion From the Weekend

Mikel Azcona clinched the World Touring Car Cup championship with a pair of third-place finishes at Anneau du Rhin. 

Winners From the Weekend

You know about Scott Dixon, but did you know...

Francesco Bagnaia won MotoGP's British Grand Prix, his fourth victory of the season and his second consecutive victory. Augusto Fernández won the Moto2 race, his fourth victory of the season and his third consecutive victory. Dennis Foggia won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.

The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor won the IMSA race from Road America, its fourth victory of the season. The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca-Gibson of Ryan Dalziel and Dwight Merriman won in LMP2. The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson won in LMP3. The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat won in GTD-Pro. The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Phillip Ellis and Russell Ward won in GTD. 

Kevin Harvick won the NASCAR Cup race from Michigan. Ty Gibbs won the Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season. 

The #33 Honda of Takumi Takahashi, Tetsuta Nagashima and Iker Lecuona won the Suzuka 8 Hours.

The #37 TGR Team KeePer TOM'S Toyota of Sacha Fenestraz and Ritomo Miyata won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #61 R&D Sport Suburu of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi won in GT300.

Linus Lundqvist won the Indy Lights race from Nashville, his fifth victory of the season. 

Onofrio Triarsi and Justin Wetherill split the GT America races from Nashville. 

Ott Tänak won Rally Finland, his second victory of the season.

Nathanaël Berthon and Rob Huff split the World Touring Car Cup races from Anneau du Rhin. 

Coming Up This Weekend

NASCAR returns to Richmond, its first short track race since May.

Formula E ends its season with a doubleheader in Seoul.

The 61st Knoxville Nationals. 

First Impressions: Nashville 2022

1. Some days things just go your way. After not really showing great pace and showing to be the threat this weekend at Nashville, Scott Dixon won the Music City Grand Prix. Dixon had a caution fall at the right time to put him at the front and while chaos ensued around him, Dixon missed it all. The legend wasn't going to slip and once in the lead, he held on to win for the 53rd time in his IndyCar career, moving him to second alone behind only A.J. Foyt. 

Oh, and this victory, along with the combination of everything else that happened today, Dixon is now second in the championship, six points behind Will Power. I joked a few races ago the scariest position in IndyCar is to be only 35 points ahead of Scott Dixon in the championship with five races to go. What is being up six points with three races remaining going to feel like? 

Dixon has turned what has been far from his greatest season into a championship-caliber run. Today was a day of breaks, in many ways. For Dixon, it is overcoming a poor starting position and getting in a bit of the jumble of the race to win this race. It wasn't the prettiest drive of his IndyCar career, but Dixon will take it.

2. In a race as chaotic as this, being the leader is a vulnerable position. It is bound to hit the fan when you least want it. For Scott McLaughlin, he overcame being shuffled back with untimely cautions, and he even overcame a botched pit stop. Second is impressive considering where his race was with about 20 laps to go. McLaughlin was dodging bullets today and he got second-place out of it. Still a great day even if it wasn't exactly how he wanted it to end.

3. At first, it appeared Álex Palou would be the lucky duck of the day when an early caution came after he was one of the first cars to stop. It didn't quite work out that way for Palou, but he remained at the front for most of this race and finished third with a broken front wing. Though it wasn't a victory, Palou keeps his championship hopes alive. He actually put himself in a much better position after today.

4. Andretti Autosport shot off most of its toes in about the first 15 laps and it still had two cars finish in the top five! Alexander Rossi went onto an alternate strategy early. It would have been interesting to see how it played out but then Rossi brought out a caution and lost a lap when his car unexpectedly lost power when he locked up the rear tires. 

Of course, this race was a mess and what should have hindered Rossi's race is completely forgotten because Rossi went from a lap down to fourth. Rossi hung on for the first half of the race, let the field take itself out, climbed back onto the lead lap and then made up ground to finish fourth. This was a disaster and somehow it turned into a respectable result.

5. That last sentence also applies to Colton Herta. Herta got into the barrier after contact from Dalton Kellett and it looked like it was race over for Herta. He lost a lap getting repairs and was still complaining about the feel once back on the track. And like Rossi, Herta let the field take itself out, cycle back to the lead lap and work his way forward. 

For Herta, it got him fifth place. Considering Rossi started 17th and Herta started 23rd, all the errors of the opening quarter of the race are forgotten. Take the result and run. 

6. Josef Newgarden rolled the dice in the middle of the race, making a pit stop and hoping cautions would get him to the end. It got Newgarden to the lead and had him ahead of Dixon, but with just under 15 laps to go, Newgarden came in for a splash under a caution. It worked out as Newgarden had fresh tires and went hard on each restart, gaining positions. 

Newgarden did arguably step over the line on the penultimate restart, trying to go from about ninth to sixth and putting Romain Grosjean into the barrier. IndyCar called no penalty. Newgarden was far along the inside of Grosjean, but if Grosjean's car wasn't there, I think Newgarden hits the barrier. I didn't like the move. It was overly aggressive from Newgarden. If that is allowed, we are going to have nine cautions in every IndyCar street race. It is a dangerous precedence to set.

7. Felix Rosenqvist survived and finished seventh. I am not sure Rosenqvist was noticed until the end. He took fresh tires late and was making up some ground. He stalled out on the final restart and could only finish seventh. It is a good day for him. Not many drivers can say they had good days after this one.

8. A poor set of restarts late saw Christian Lundgaard go from second to eighth in the final results. I don't know if Lundgaard had a problem with the car or if he couldn't get heat into his tires before those late restarts. It sucks because I felt a top five would have been justifiable for Lundgaard's performance. A podium would have been flattering. He has had a great last few races and solid summer in general. This was stings a little though.

9. Simon Pagenaud was one of the cars to benefit from an early caution, like Palou, and Pagenaud looked racy going for the lead. The rest of the race didn't quite pan out in Pagenaud's favor though. He gets a ninth-place finish. Eh. That is a little harsh. I felt his day was better than this. There are many drivers we could say that about after this one though.

10. Jack Harvey gets his first top ten finish of the season in tenth. Honestly, this was the day Harvey needed, just avoid the worst of it and you will get a presentable finish. When your season has been as bad as Harvey's you will take a top ten finish in any way shape or form. 

11. The final car on the lead lap was Will Power in 11th. That explains how nuts this race was. Oh, and Power was 11th after having his gearbox go in emergency mode, meaning he had to lift before every shift. It wasn't slowing him down through most of the final third of the race and it looked like Power was going to pull out a top five finish. But as the number of restarts piled up, Power lost ground. He nursed his car home. He lost points, but it could have been much worse today. The championship lead is still Power's but he will have more work to do. 

12. Rinus VeeKay had a few unforced errors and drove into the back of Graham Rahal's car after Rahal got into the turn five barrier when trying to limp his damaged car around the track and hopefully pick off more positions as other cars fell out of the race. VeeKay might have gotten a top ten finish out of this one if he doesn't run into Rahal. It was far from the biggest mistake today, but it didn't help his cause. Twelfth is a good day.

13. I don't know how Hélio Castroneves finished 13th in this race. Castroneves had a spin on his own when he really wasn't in the conversation in this one. It just goes to show what you can get if you just keep the car out of the barriers on some days. 

14. Marcus Ericsson's race ended early, and he had notable issues with the gearbox, which started after Herta bumped him from behind entering turn 11. Ericsson spent much of this race outside the top ten. In the final quarter of the race, it looked like Ericsson was going to have a shot at retaking the championship lead. Then the contact with Herta happened and Ericsson was trying to limp home, but when the red flag came out for Grosjean's accident it was game over for the Swede. 

The good news is with many cars already out, Ericsson was still 14th and he only loses three points to Power.

15. Callum Ilott was 15th. Ilott was caught in the turn six stack up around lap 26. It was a case of wrong place at the wrong time. 

16. Romain Grosjean deserved better today. Considering all the things that went wrong for Andretti Autosport in the first 20 laps, if you said two Andretti Autosport cars were going to finish in the top five and one was going to finish 16th, I definitely would have said Grosjean would be one of the top five finishers, and he should have been. 

Newgarden went to the limit with his pass. I really think at another street race in different circumstances that would have been a penalty. Grosjean has had some terrible results due to things out of his control. This is just another one.

17. Conor Daly was somehow 17th and Jimmie Johnson had a big accident entering turn five. I am pretty sure Daly was one of the cars caught in the lap 26 turn six traffic jam. His result likely stemmed from something in that mess.

18. David Malukas and Kyle Kirkwood got together in turn nine when both cars were looking at possible top five finishes. Kirkwood was making the move to the inside and hit the inside barrier, ricocheting Kirkwood into Malukas and sending both cars into the outside barrier. This falls on both drivers. Kirkwood has torn up a lot of race cars this year. You would think with four races to go and with 17 laps left in the race, he would pick his spots better. He has to get the car home especially when he is solidly in the top ten. 

As for Malukas, he squeezed Kirkwood a bit, and he made a few swerves today that were blocks. One was on McLaughlin into turn 11 and McLaughlin still made the pass. While both rookies showed promise today, they both showed areas for growth. 

19. That is the top twenty drivers. Here is the rest of the field: Takuma Sato and Devlin DeFrancesco got together in arguably the most unnecessary accident of the season. Graham Rahal, Patricio O'Ward, Dalton Kellett and Simona de Silvestro were all victims of the lap 26 turn six traffic jam. 

That incident is a product of this race course. Turns five through eight exist just to add maybe a quarter-of-a-mile to track length. It is a single-file, ragged ribbon of asphalt and it is only going to be a place where these kind of accidents with occur and take out four or five cars because everyone accordions together if there is the slightest bobble. 

Rahal got into the back of O'Ward but if you put any other driver in Rahal's position, they are getting into the back of O'Ward as well. 

People are excited about this Nashville event, but the track is slapstick. Even if the turn five through eight section didn't exist and there was only a hairpin on the other side of the bridge that would then be a left-hand corner back over the river, this course would still be reckless. Every restart was two-dozen drivers barging their way forward. I am surprised we didn't have nine more cautions in this race. The turn one-two section is narrow and pit exit is still a problem. Is this really the best IndyCar can do? 

There are positives to draw from this race, but it feels like this is another IndyCar street race where it settles for 90% good and thinks the final 10% is optional. The problem is that missing 10% is notable. 

It didn't help that this year's weekend was plagued with two thunderstorm affected days. That is a byproduct of racing in August in the Southern United States. But there aren't any better windows for this race. It cannot be any later because the football stadium is races by will be in use in about a week. July wouldn't be any better. The NASCAR race 45 minutes outside the city is in June. IndyCar is busy in May and its April isn't any more open. 

We have to live with this and accept that most weekends are going to terribly hot, rainy or both. The delayed start to this year's race makes it hard to gauge how support was in year two. It looked good all things considered. Even the previous two days were encouraging, but will the heat and rainy weather dampen the mood for 2023? It has happened to plenty races before. 

20. IndyCar has now completed its six-races-in-a-36-day stretch of the season. It gets a week off before heading to Gateway. Everyone needs a breather and an ice bath after this one.