NTT IndyCar Series: Gallagher Grand Prix Preview

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the site for the Gallagher Grand Prix. [Media Credit-Penske Entertainment: Walt Kuhn]

by Paul Gohde

IndyCar fans as well as NASCAR followers are drawn to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during mid-summer each year for this three-race Gallagher Grand Prix that features the open wheelers as well as the NASCAR Xfinity series on Saturday and the premier Cup series on Sunday; all running on the IMS infield/oval road course. Originally what was meant to be a new oval track NASCAR event in 1994, to perhaps challenge the Indy 500, the race actually out-drew the 500 in those early years as popular Jeff Gordon took the inaugural. But falling attendance in later years, at a track designed for open wheelers, caused the Speedway to move the weekend to the road/oval course and bring the NTT IndyCar Series in to appeal to another segment of fans.

Race Facts: This will be the 13th IndyCar Series race run on the IMS road course. The 2.439-mile, 14-turn course weaves from a starting line going in the opposite direction of the 500, plunging into the winding infield portion, and back onto the oval between the oval’s Turn 1-2. The Saturday afternoon weekend opener goes for 85 laps (207.3 Miles). Will Power, the 2021 race winner, set the qualifying record of 1:07.704 (129.687mph) back in 2017.

Recent Race History: Will Power led last year’s race for 56/85 laps for Team Penske Chevrolet, with Indy rookie Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta trailing. Future series’ champion Alex Palou dropped out with mechanical problems on lap 68. Pole-winner Pato O’Ward was fifth.

2022 Season So Far: Driver points after 12 events:  1) Marcus Ericsson, 403 pts,1 win…2) Will Power, 395,1…3) Josef Newgarden, 369,4…4) Scott Dixon, 369,1…5) Pato O’Ward, 367,2…Other race winners: Scott McLaughlin, 2… Colton Herta, 1.

Engine Manufacturers Points: Chevrolet, 1018 pts./9 wins…Honda, 904/3.

Race Entries: 25 cars are entered for Saturday’s opening race. AJ Foyt’s car #11 is still missing from the grid for Tatiana Calderone due to lack of sponsorship dollars, which may mark the end of that car running on both the road course portion of the remaining schedule and the upcoming oval race (with JR Hildebrand driving) near St Louis…Twenty-eight cars participated in this event in 2021…Super-sub Santino Ferrucci is preparing to take over for Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden while the team awaits the results of Newgarden’s injury sustained in a crash while leading last Sunday’s 300-mile oval track race at Iowa Speedway last weekend.

Notes: TV: NBC network, Noon ET, Saturday, …Six entered drivers (Dixon, Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Power, Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato) have participated in every Indy road course race…Past winners at the Indy road course who are entered Saturday include: Colton Herta, Rinus VeeKay, Dixon, Newgarden, Pagenaud and Will Power…The legal battle over which team Chip Ganassi or Team McLaren holds the rights to driver Alex Palou will be (hopefully) settled in court soon as Ganassi has recently filed a lawsuit regarding the driving services of the young Spaniard. Some say he might have to sit out the 2023 season if he is contracted to Team McLaren, while others think he may even have to skip the rest of the 2022 races. Hopefully the courts can straighten out the legal tangle.

Our Take: The Indianapolis Speedway has presented events on its infield/oval road course for F1, NASCAR, INDYCAR and vintage cars over the course of several years in the hopes of scheduling a variety of events other than on the iconic 2.5-mile oval track. Purists were up in arms when the original Brickyard NASCAR Winston Cup race played to a packed house back in 1994. They were outraged that the traditional Indy 500 somehow might be marginalized in some way by the bigger, slower stock cars. Just the opposite happened in the early days as NASCAR enjoyed its run of overwhelming popularity. When F1 left the track and the stock cars faded a bit in fan’s enthusiasm, the track scheduled the Indy cars for two events per year to utilize the infield circuit. Early may, mid-summer and even fall events did little to perk up attendance despite uniqueness at the beginning. The road course plays well for the open wheelers and the stockers, despite some curb problems last year. The public perception of the race, however, centers in part on seeing almost vacant main straight grandstands on TV as fans at the track view the races from grassy infield berms. Will the 500 ever be run on the road course? Never! But for the near future, and until the track owners are able to bring back F1 to the road course (which is now unlikely to happen soon, what with F1 now racing three times a year in the US), fans need to support the road course events, wander around on its berms and the variety of turns to get close to the action; whether IndyCar or NASCAR.

“They Said It’: Jimmie Johnson, #48 Chip Ganassi Honda: “I’m looking forward to this Indy weekend. This is the place I have the most experience and lap time. I’m coming off a great weekend in Iowa (an oval) and look forward to be building on that for the road course this weekend. I’m hoping to have a ‘career best’. Also looking forward to seeing all my NASCAR friends.”

Next Race: Sunday, August 7, Nashville Street Race

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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