Who else saw the Indy 500 yesterday? What a wild finish! It was a clean race for the most part, no crashes for the first 92 laps (of 200). That’s when the first yellow came out. Through 184 laps there were 2-3 yellows for minor crashes. Pretty clean race. Up until that point.
In the final 16 laps there were three red flags. Count ‘em, three. The final red left only two laps in the race. Lap 199 formed the cars up, and then lap 200 went green. Green and white, really, the first time that has ever happened. One wild and crazy racing lap to finish the race under green. It was wild.
CNN reports that in the last 16 laps there were the three red flags, and 52 lead changes among 14 different cars. Truly wild!
In the end, Nashville TN native Josef Newgarden won his first Indy 500. And team owner (and track owner) Roger Penske won his 19th. I’m going to watch those last 20 laps again later today.
I watched it. But had been up and drinking since like 630am watching the Monoco GRand Prix, so I was kinda a tired and fell asleep with like 60 laps left. I did wake up in time to see the first red flag (though I missed what caused it (though I did see the replay)).
The very end I was reminded me of the horrible end of the 2021 F1 season. As in that GP, I think the 500 should have ended under yellow instead of bending over backwards to finish green. Not as familiar with Indycar rules to know how much outrage I should feel however. And ultimately I don’t really care as much about Indycar as F1, so whatever.
It was nice to see newgarden win his first, but I think it would have been cooler to see Ericsson get two in a row.
Watching the tire come off Kirkwood’s car and go over the fence was pretty scary. It did hit a lady’s car, heard Penske is going to replace it with a new car. Exciting finish, watching Newgarden go into the crowd was nice.
That was very scary. I was relieved to see that it missed the grandstand. I’m pretty sure that IndyCar is investigating why its tether did not hold. I hope they are, anyway.
I am very excited that IndyCar is now using Shell’s renewable racing fuel. It uses sugarcane waste to produce ethanol. Shell claims the race fuel used in IndyCar racing is 100% renewable and fully meets the government’s standard, 40 CFR 80 M – Renewable Fuel Standard (link here), and results in a 60% reduction in emissions. That’s a good thing.