NTT IndyCar Series: Honda Grand Prix of Alabama Preview

Josef Newgarden leads the series in 2022 with two victories out of the three races so far. [Credit: Penske Entertainment: Chris Jones]

by Paul Gohde

Opened originally as a motorcycle track in 2003, Barber Motorsports Park’s sweeping turns hosted Indy cars for the first time in 2010 with Helio Castroneves taking the inaugural win. Sunday’s race will be the track’s 12th with points-leader Josef Newgarden arriving in Alabama hoping to extend his current series winning streak to three after victories at Texas and Long Beach. Team Penske Chevrolet has dominated so far having won all three 2022 events, but Alex Palou and Will Power hope to stop that streak Sunday for Chip Ganassi Honda.

Race Facts: Barber truly is a park with a 2.3-mile, 17-turn permanent road course on its property. Sunday’s race will run for 90 laps (207 miles).  The Indy Lights Series will also compete Sunday, featuring a 35-lap, 55-minute event prior to the IndyCar run. Pato O’Ward holds the IndyCar qualifying mark set in 2021 at 1:05.501(126.409 mph). Newgarden (3), Power (2), Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud, Takuma Sato and Palou are the only previous Barber winners entered. No race was held here in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent Barber History: Palou won his first career IndyCar race here last year on his way to the series’ championship. Sato won here in 2019 for Bobby Rahal while Newgarden won for his third time in 2018. Scott Dixon has been on the podium in eight of his eleven starts here, including six as the runner-up. He has yet to win at Barber, however. Palou squeezed out a 0.416 sec. win over Dixon last year as favorite Newgarden spun on lap one, eliminating himself and Ryan Hunter-Reay. “I was most sad that I didn’t get to run the race. I felt good going into it,” he noted.

2022 IndyCar Season So Far: Series Standings after three races: 1) Newgarden (2 wins), 118 points…2) Scott McLaughlin (1), 113…3) Palou, 103…4) Power, 102…5) Dixon, 83…Manufacturer points after three events: Chevrolet (three wins), 274…Honda, 213.

Entries: The same 26 road/street course grid that competed earlier at Long Beach will try to qualify at Barber. Tatiana Calderone will be back for AJ Foyt Racing.

Notes: If Josef Newgarden wins Sunday, he, his team, and selected charities will win $1million from the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge for having won a race on all three types of tracks (oval, street and road) this season…Newgarden was the fastest of 32 drivers taking part in two days of testing at Indianapolis recently. His speed (229.519) was better than Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan. Jimmie Johnson was quickest of seven rookies participating at 227.900, while Juan Pablo Montoya was slowest overall at 223.980 …Matthew Brabham (Andretti Autosport) leads a field of 14 that will compete in the Road To Indy Lights race Sunday…TV: Race, Sunday, NBC network, 1:00 pm ET Live… Twenty-nine drivers have scored series’ points so far this year… IMS and IndyCar are holding their collective breaths that a 33^rd entry for the upcoming 500 will be found to keep the full-field number at its traditional number. Most assume that series/track owner Penske Corporation would “find” funds somewhere for that car to be entered.

Our Take: Momentum is building toward “Month of May” doings at Indianapolis. After Barber Sunday, teams move north and take up residence in Indy for several weeks of racing and events including the upcoming GMR road course race prior to the 500. Though that month is more like a couple of weeks these days, it is still the highlight of IndyCar’s season. That ‘tough to find” 33^rd race entry problem for the 500 comes more in line with the series’ upcoming chassis upgrade in 2024; with teams perhaps not willing to spend $$ on equipment now that will likely be outdated in just over 20 months. Single NTT series race entries have numbered a strong 24-26, but Indy is expensive, and owners can’t be blamed for holding back a bit on spending. The current season and the 2023 follow-up will be interesting to see which teams keep their entry numbers up now, and which ones continue to compete with new equipment come 2023/24.

They Said It: Jimmie Johnson, after a crash-filled weekend at the Long Beach race: “Barber this weekend is going to be a lot of fun for me. We started the season there last year (due to the Pandemic rescheduling) and I was trying to figure out everything that goes on with the IndyCar series (his first IndyCar race). We tested there two weeks ago, and my pace was much improved from my experience there last year. My hand is feeling pretty good (after sustaining a fractured right hand during the Long Beach weekend). I’m feeling that it’s probably 80% back. I’m excited for that (healing) because Barber is such a physical track.”

Next Race: GMR Grand Prix, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Saturday, May 14^th.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

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