Photo by Kyle McInnes

Today’s race was arguably one of the three best races on the IMS road course. The first turn move by Devlin DeFrancesco to take the lead from fifth was a thing of beauty. The crash six turns later set strategy in play that eventually decided the result. The last 30 laps were as exciting as any I’ve seen in the 500. Graham Rahal cut Scott Dixon’s lead from seven seconds to 0.04 seconds at the finish.

Overall, it was a great weekend for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Rahal won pole and finished second. Christian Lundgaard finished fourth. Rahal led the most laps. It is nice to see this team competitive again. I hope RLLR stays strong through the end of the season.

Linus Lundqvist had a solid day today for MSR, staring and finishing 12th. He ran in the top 10 quite a bit.

Alex Palou’s seventh place finish, his second worst of the year, actually increased his point lead as Dixon jumped ahead of Josef Newgarden. Palou takes a 101 point lead into the final three races of the year.

Newgarden had what was likely the worst Indycar weekend of his career. He was slow in practice, qualified 19th, missed the weigh in and lost 10 minutes in final practice; an unapproved engine change placed him six spots further back on the grid. Newgarden suffered the most damage in the turn seven pileup on lap1. He languished at the rea alld day, finishing 25th.

I don’t know what else to say about Scott Dixon. He was won at least one race every season for 19 straight years, added his 54th career win, moved into second place in the points, and again turned misfortune into a positive outcome. I firmly believe Dixon is an alchemist.

I will have a wrap up of the race up here in a day or two after I watch the replay. Thanks for following along the last two days.