I am in no mood to write about the Indy 500. It’s not because Honda lost. Or that Will Power and Roger Penske won (more on that later). It’s because Indycar ruined the race with its new-for-2018 Universal Aero Kit.
The race has been exciting and fun to watch since 2012, when the new DW12 chassis first ran the Indy 500, introducing Honda-vs.-Chevy racing to Indycar. But Sunday, no one could pass anyone else, except on restarts. And the overall conditions made top notch drivers like Tony Kanaan, Sebastien Bourdais and Helio Castroneves look like rookies. It was as if the track decided to randomly spin cars into the wall, just to spice things up.
It was the only thing that spiced things up, because there was virtually no passing except on restarts. Overall, it was like watching paint dry. For example, the best car in the early going belonged to Ed Carpenter. He led the most laps and his speeds from Lap 7 to 24 averaged in the 218-to-219 mph range. Then he caught Conor Daly at the back of the pack. For FIVE LAPS Carpenter could not get around Daly, even though he was at least 3 mph faster. So Carpenter was losing a second a lap in traffic (on a 40-second lap). The reason: With the new car, there is so much aero wash and so little front downforce that the chasing car can’t get close to the car in front.
At the end, Power had the best car and the Hondas at the front (Oriol Servia and Stefan Wilson both running a fuel mileage strategy) had to pit for a splash of fuel ceding the race to Power. If they had a bit more fuel, they might have been able to hold power off, that was how tough it was to pass.
But the final order was Power, Carpenter, Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi.
What about fuel Mileage?
Advantage Honda, but not enough to really make a difference given the way the yellows fell.
From the I-Don’t-Know-What-this-Means department: The average Chevy dropped 7 places from where it started during the race. The average Honda moved up 5.2 spots. I’m thinking that in aggregate, the Honda drivers in Indycar are better than the Chevy drivers. But I really don’t know. I thought it was interesting.
What will I remember from the race?
1.The sheer joy displayed by Will Power. Let me tell you a little story about Power and the Milwaukee Indycar race in 2015. The race was sponsored by the Milwaukee Honda dealers, and I was one of a group of S2000 owners that organized a parade of race drivers around the track during introductions. Will Power was on the pole, so he was the last driver to be introduces to hop into an S2000.
That particular S2000 was not your ordinary S2000. It was painted rattle-can flat black, and the driver was wearing a Darth Vader helmet. As it happens, we had more than enough cars, and there were a couple cars behind Darth that Will could have gotten into. But he went along with it, climbed right in and we had Power in the Black Verizon uniform riding in the back of an ugly ass S2000 driven by Darth Vader. It was perfect, and Will laughed along with everyone else. How could I not be happy for the guy? He gets it. He wears his heart on his sleeve.
2. Alexander Rossi is the most talented driver I’ve seen in Indycar since Juan Montoya. Rossi had trouble in qualifying and started 32nd out of 33. He passed every car in the field except two, moving up to third in the last stages of the race. Eventually Scott Dixon got him and he finished fourth. If you have not seen it, go find video of his passes on the outside of turns 1 and 2 on YouTube. Enjoy him while you can before someone in F1 snags him.
3. Happy for Roger Penske. Some people love to hate the guy, but without him, and without Honda, there is no indycar. It would have died in the early 2000s without them both. And he’s a fine gentleman who puts his money where his mouth is.
Time will tell whether Indycar recognizes and acts on the issue the new universal aero kit produced at Indy. For now we look forward to Detroit to see whether Honda can take it to Chevy on their home turf.
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