Move over, kids, the adults are back in charge. Scott Dixon’s historic win today moves him into second place in the championship, six points behind Will Power. It is going to be fun watching these 40 year olds duke it out the last three races of the year.

Dixon also pased Mario Andretti to take sole possession of second place on the Indycar career victory list with 53. I was sad that I missed his record tying win in Toronto last month, but seeing him move into second place alone more than made up for missing the Toronto race.

The track underwent some changrs since last year’s caution filled race. The result was even more caution laps and another totally unnecessary red flag with four laps to go. Indycar was lucky that another caution didn’t occur in the funal two green laps. The odds certainly favored that outcome.

Missed Opportunities

There missed career best finishes. Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas were both headed for their best results of their rookie campaigns until they collided in turn 9 on lap 63. Kirkwood has had difficulty completing races this season, but Malkukas has bee coming on strong.

Christian Lundgaard was in line for his second straight podium but faded to eighth as he had no push to pass left on the last restart.

Marcus Ericsson had worked his way from 18th spot to get ahead of Power and at one time closed to within three points of the points leader. It all went away as his car stopped with two laps to go. He is third in points, 12 behind Power.

RLL Continues Improvement

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has come to life the last two weeks.

Lundgaard was in contention for his second consecutive podium until he rab out of push to pass at the end. He finished eighth. Meanwhile Jack Harvey finished 10th. The team has ahd two top 10 finishers for two consecutive weeks.

What Else Can Be Done?

The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix made changes to the track afetr the 2021 race to eliminate some of the problems we saw last year. The resuklt was even more cautions. Last year I thought it was the track design. Improvements. This year, I’m thinking it was not the track. I will have to look at last year’s race summary to see if any of the same drivers were involved in incidents last year.

Indycar can’t keep having nearly 50% of an event run under caution.

Final Thoughts

Much of the very large crowd stayed through the rain delay and many stayed for the entire race. Grandstands 4 and 5 were completely filled for the whole race.

The event was much improved in many ways, which I will discuss in my wrap up tomorrow afternoon. There are still a few things to tweak. I realize it takes several years for an event of this type to get things right. The Nashville group made very good progress in their second year.

Thanks for following along this weekend.