Rounds 11 & 12: Iowa Speedway, Newton, Iowa. July 23-24.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Newgarden into the wall at Turn 4. Blimey!

[gert]

Left rear tire blew or left rear suspension failure?

I don't think he *just crashed*

[gert]

Originally Posted by gert

Left rear tire blew or left rear suspension failure?

I don't think he *just crashed*

Right rear problem, probably. Left front was in the air...

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by gert

Left rear tire blew or left rear suspension failure?

I don't think he *just crashed*

Something definitely went at the left rear quarter of the car.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Pato O'Ward, second yesterday, so he has been in contention and now the win, with luck going his way.

[NaBUru38]

I'm very disappointed that NBC barely mentioned or showed O'Ward.

For much of the race, they kept focused on Newgarden and Power lapping cars. O'Ward was 3rd, but they pretty much ignored him.

When Newgarden crashed and O'Ward overtook Newgarden, they stopped talking about the leaders at all, and focused on JJ, Sato and Malukas.

Only with 4 laps to go they remembered to show O'Ward leading the race.

[joeb]

I had to watch on delay, but thought it was a pretty good race overall. Terrible luck for Josef, we don't see many failures on Penske cars. I would have liked to see what had happened with a full green race, I'm not sure if anyone except the top three would have been on the lead lap.

This really shakes up the championship, Pato had a great weekend with a second and first. Power and Ericsson also had decent runs. The rest of this season is going to be fun for the top six or seven contenders.

On the event side of things, the stands looked pretty full, and I was informed by my dad that Hy-Vee actually constructed additional bleachers for this event, so the attendance was quite high. They also seem to do a good job promoting the event by having the concerts along with it, and I know some people might think that's a distraction from the racing but if it gets people watching then it can't be a bad thing.

The racing was interesting to me because there was such a disparity in Pace between the cars from top to bottom. Maybe the short lap makes that difference even more relevant than other tracks, but it seems like some people could just go and others were stuck going slow. And I heard Jimmy Johnson was in this race.... But seriously if Ericsson loses this championship by a few points after getting passed by his teammate that's going to look pretty bad.

sent during haircut

[mstets]

Originally Posted by joeb

I had to watch on delay, but thought it was a pretty good race overall. Terrible luck for Josef, we don't see many failures on Penske cars. I would have liked to see what had happened with a full green race, I'm not sure if anyone except the top three would have been on the lead lap.

This really shakes up the championship, Pato had a great weekend with a second and first. Power and Ericsson also had decent runs. The rest of this season is going to be fun for the top six or seven contenders.

On the event side of things, the stands looked pretty full, and I was informed by my dad that Hy-Vee actually constructed additional bleachers for this event, so the attendance was quite high. They also seem to do a good job promoting the event by having the concerts along with it, and I know some people might think that's a distraction from the racing but if it gets people watching then it can't be a bad thing.

The racing was interesting to me because there was such a disparity in Pace between the cars from top to bottom. Maybe the short lap makes that difference even more relevant than other tracks, but it seems like some people could just go and others were stuck going slow. And I heard Jimmy Johnson was in this race.... But seriously if Ericsson loses this championship by a few points after getting passed by his teammate that's going to look pretty bad.

sent during haircut

NBC reported that both races were sold out but there looked to be a fair amount of empty seats in the grandstands. But it looked like a good crowd on both days.



I was also surprised at how quickly the leaders caught the tail end of the field today compared to yesterday. Hard to really compare due to absence of early yellows on Sunday. But it sure seemed that the front runners were lapping much quicker on Sunday than on Saturday, compared to the 2nd half of the field. Seems odd as I would have expected the lap times to be closer given the air temp was 20 degrees cooler on Sunday.



JJ only scored 2 more points than Marcus. He raced hard all weekend and deserved the place. Hope that it doesn't come down to Marcus losing the championship by 2 points or less but you can't fault JJ for getting his best result so far even at the expense of a team mate.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Result Race 2:

A different race from Saturday and I didn't think quite as enthralling but good none the less, the extra 50 laps dictating a more drawn out strategy and only two cautions.

That was a good weekend for Pato O'Ward and it would have been an even better weekend for Newgarden and Penske, if it hadn't been for his excursion into the wall.


With 5 races left in the season, the top six driver's standings are as follows:

Marcus Ericsson 405
Will Power 395
Josef Newgarden 369
Scott Dixon 368
Pato O'ward 367
Alex Palou 358

Engine manufacturer standings

Chevrolet 922
Honda 842

[NaBUru38]

It seems that Hy-Vee has been burning some cash to expand.

[broadrun96]

More they have cash reserves to invest in building and expanding their market share. They are known in the industry as a slower more cautious but thoughtful expansion company.

[rwintle]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

More they have cash reserves to invest in building and expanding their market share. They are known in the industry as a slower more cautious but thoughtful expansion company.

Definitely showing the rest of the IndyCar venues/promoters how to do sponsorship right. Big name concerts before and after, massive branding everywhere, plus I'm sure a lot of other niceties provided that didn't appear on TV. One aspect I really like about IndyCar is the regional sponsorship - even if it's just a one-off livery on a car for a company's home race.