Some quick thoughts tonight and a more detailed analysis tomorrow.

Last night I created this tableau for our pre race party.

I had no idea how prophetic this turned out to be.

Let’s start at the end. Felix Rosenqvist went outside of David Malukas on the front stretch. He didn’t follow the “snake” move Malukas used, and a s a result, we have the closest finish in 500 history.

“Unreal; I still don’t believe it,” Rosenqvist said. “It kind of worked out the right way when I got back to third, and then I just had to flat-out lap on the high line, and it stuck,” Rosenqvist said. “It was just the coolest way you can finish and win an Indy 500.”

The record 70 lead changes isn’t impressive when most of them were allowed by the leader to save fuel.

I have seen heartbroken runners-up before, but FDavid Malukas’s heart rending post race interview captured the agony of coming oh so close to winning the biggest race of the all.

The race was playing out a fuel strategy affair, and the last 25 laps would have been a crazy scramble anyway.

I normally don’t care for red flags within the last 10 laps of a race, but I could see some justification for throwing one for Collet’s accident. That was one of the loudest hits I have ever heard. This race needed to finish under green, although I expected a different intriguing ending.

I wasn’t as thrilled with red flag for moisture. In turn 2 we only felt a few sprinkles which lasted just about a minute. For a while I thought IndyCar was having the cars run under yellow just to tick off laps and stay within the television window.

It’s not unusual for a washout forecast to turn out to be completely wrong. I remember several races in the 80s and 90s with a gloom and doom forecast which were run under sunny skies.

Fans cannot ask for much more from a race than we saw today. The race had multiple fuel strategies brought about by yellows outsid normal pit windows, an exciting down to the wire finish, a jubilant winner, and a distraught, heartbroken runner up.

I will have more on today’s race tomorrow afternoon. Congratulations to Felix Rosenqvist on a great race and a thrilling finish.