I love watching a track come alive on race morning. It’s fun seeing the energy build among the fans and teams.
Age and experience beat youth everytime.
Takuma Sato was unstoppable this weekend. He has won two of the last five races going back to Portland in 2018.
There were terrific battles throughout the day.
Josef Newgarden is doing the things needed to be champion. He fought hard from his 17th starting position to finish fourth. Herta’s issues allowed him to increase his point lead to 27 over Scott Dixon. I wouldn’t count Dixon out just yet.
Both Swedish rookies finished in the top 10. Marcus Ericsson was 7th and Felix Rosenqvist was 10th. It was a good recovery for Rosenqvist who had some off track excurions earlier in the weekend.
Even though Power has won twice here, he seems to have some sort of problem during the race. It’s odd to see a driver who has had a lot of success at a track run into so much difficulty the last few years.
Jack Harvey had another good run but it looked like pit strategy kept him from a third straight top 10, Still MSR is doing well this young season.
The crowd was still a good size, but seemed a little down from the last two years.
Baby Steps
Dragonspeed and driver Ben Hanley have shown a gain in speed since St. Pete. After today they have just three races remaining in their short first season. It looks like they are on a good path to a decent pace.
They were not the last car running today.
Look for my full race report tomorrow on Wildfire Sports. Thanks for following along this weekend.
Photo: Sato’s crew celebrates after the checkered flag.
The Pit Window by Mike Silver 