The Wide World of Dirt

Havoc wreaked in the Motor City last weekend pushes the NTT IndyCar Series west over Lake Michigan to the welcoming azure waters of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Visiting downtown Detroit for just the second time since 1990, the titans of American open-wheel race rushed around the General Motors Renaissance Center for 100 laps of close-quarters racing.

And, my oh my, were the quarters close.

During Saturday’s practice session, Andretti teammates Kyle Kirkwood and Colton Herta slowed before entering turn 5, no doubt setting up for flying laps.

Unbeknownst to them, Santino Ferrucci rushed up behind the two drivers and chose to go to the inside of Kirkwood into the tight left-hander, making contact with the Californian and leading to a pit road confrontation between the two.

Ferrucci fumed in front of the cameras while Kirkwood laughed heartily at the notion he had done anything wrong.

The flagship Foyt driver implied Herta and Kirkwood were “boyfriend teammates” in an interview, for which he later offered a half-hearted apology.

Pole sitter Colton Herta guided the field to green after showers marred the morning leading up to the event, and calamity met the contenders immediately with Will Power’s #12 Penske Chevy sliding backwards into the tire barriers.

The incident collected a number of other cars, though all involved were able to proceed with little damage.

Restarting on lap 4, Herta pulled away with the advantage until a caution emerged on lap 16 for Santino Ferrucci ramming through the gearbox of Helio Castroneves’ AutoNation Honda and blocking the path for bystander Kyffin Simpson to escape.

Storms developed in the distance while Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin worked his way to second, but in his pursuit of Herta’s Honda, the throne-bearer of the Thirsty 3s lost traction into turn 1, bashing into the tire barrier, and tossing his podium chances.

For lack of a better way of saying this, that caution is when all manner of Hell broke loose and was thrust into violent motion.

McLaughlin’s car became wedged into the tire barriers, requiring a bit more time to extricate the Chevy that extended the caution for eight laps. Not only did this incident erase Scotty Mac’s great drive, it jumbled up the leaderboard.

A number of drivers noticed the incoming weather and dove onto the pit lane for wet tires while a few stayed out on slicks. As the caution continued, the rain petered out, leaving a host of drivers on wet tires about to go green on a drying race track.

Predictably, this ended poorly.

Will Power (primary tires) lobbed his machine up the inside of Romain Grosjean (rain tires) and Rinus VeeKay (alternate tires), ending with VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Chevy backwards against the wall of turn 3a.

IndyCar deemed Power the cause for the caution, reprimanding the two-time champion with his third of four total penalties. Meanwhile, Kyle Kirkwood snuck by Christian Lundgaard on the restart and put himself in the lead.

Colton Herta made sure the field wouldn’t make it another lap without a yellow flag when his Gainbridge Honda licked the stamp and sent it into the turn 5 where he pushed the envelope (and his car) just a little too hard, ending up in the tires.

Going back to green, Lundgaard mashed the throttle down the straight before losing grip on the entry to turn 3, ramping onto the nose of Romain Grosjean’s JUNCOS Hollinger Chevy and halting Ganassi rookies Linus Lundqvist and Marcus Armstrong.

The race’s sixth restart ensued where, miraculously, Kyle Kirkwood and the field managed elude a caution at turn 3 between Theo Pourchaire and Agustin Canapino (more on that later) to click off three laps of green-flag competition.

Only to then bring out the day’s seventh caution for a turn 5 tangle between McLaughlin and Sting Ray Robb.

Under this caution, Alex Palou assumed the lead with teammate Scott Dixon poised like a coiled rattlesnake beneath a fallen cactus.

Fearing a fuel mileage mishap, Palou brought the #10 DHL Honda to the pits for tires and a full tank of fuel, guaranteeing an all-out run to the finish.

That run lasted all of about 1000 feet.

Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden traversed through a promising day that was foiled at practically every single turn on this course, even where there wasn’t a corner.

A former winner in Detroit, Newgarden qualified 5th and maintained his top-5 standing until the rain came, sending him to the rear of the field.

Tim Cindric’s quality strategy put the two-time series champ in position for a great result, lining up 5th for the lap 70 restart; it was all for naught when the oval oracle spun in turn 3 where he held an impromptu meeting with unsuspecting Palou.

Track officials swept up the eighth caution with haste, allowing the race to resume on lap 74 with Dixon in the lead followed by teammate Armstrong and Kirkwood.

Kirkwood burned his tires by poking and prodding Armstrong for the better part of 10 laps, providing an opportunity to Marcus Ericsson.

The 2022 Indy 500 champ swiped third from Kirkwood and set his sights on the rookie Armstrong, passing by as the remaining laps entered the low single digits.

Ganassi gave Dixon a well-handling race car for Detroit, and the Iceman froze out the competition with another fuel-saving masterclass, a sequel to his Long Beach triumph from back in April.

Combined with Palou’s misfortune, Dixon overtook the titleholder in the championship standings, stretching his lead out to 18 points over his teammate.

Team Penske’s poor showing dropped McLaughlin and Newgarden down to 8th and 10th in the standings respectively while rugged veteran Power muscled out a gutsy 6th-place result after his two accidents and four penalties.

In all, the Chevrolet Grand Prix of Detroit featured eight cautions that slowed the field for 47 of the race’s 100 laps, nearly half of the race behind the pace car.

The racing came to an end, but the drama from the track followed the IndyCar Series into the week as the aforementioned clash between Canapino and Pourchaire bled over into social media.

One of the most cowardly, spineless actions one can take is to threaten death upon another person, and it seems Theo Pourchaire has been on the receiving end of death threats from fans of Canapino.

The Argentinian was found to be liking tweets making fun of Pourchaire and the abuse he was suffering. He decided to address Pourchaire’s claims in a tweet.

Canapino failed to unlike the tweets from earlier in the week bashing his rival, thus leading to much negative feedback. JUNCOS Hollinger announced on Friday that Canapino is taking “a leave of absence” for this weekend’s race.

Another driver joining Canapino is David Malukas. The young American signed a deal with Meyer Shank Racing to take over the #66 Honda at Laguna Seca later in June.

Malukas’ opportunity with McLaren dried up after suffering a wrist injury while mountain biking in the offseason, and with this new opportunity at MSR, Malukas might be in a great position to repair his reputation in a quality ride.

So with the D heavy in our rearview mirror, the series makes its way to Wisco to rip around the 4.048-mile slalom known as Road America.

Entering Sheboygan County for the ninth straight year, Road America remains one of the most thrilling stops on the IndyCar calendar, offering multiple straights and hard braking zones to promote abundant overtaking opportunities.

The crown jewel of the Midwest United States, Road America opened its gates on September 10, 1955 when they hosted their first event, an SCCA event known as the Road America 500.

Since then, the circuit brought in a number of different series to pad out their calendar, including IMSA, USRRC, Grand-Am, ALMS, Stadium Super Trucks, MotoAmerica, FR Americas, and NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series.

IndyCar embarked on their first trip around the gargantuan course when the series was known as CART in 1982, visiting the track every year save for one (2005) until the series reunited with the IRL in 2008.

As a result, many of the recordholders at the track find themselves long-retired as the wins record for this event is shared between a trio legends: Emerson Fittipaldi as well as Mario and Michael Andretti each holding three wins apiece.

IndyCar reconnected with their Cheese State road course fanbase for 2016 after abandoning the Milwaukee Mile, and a second triumvirate have earned a pair of wins since then: Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, and Alex Palou.

Rolling uphill on the frontstretch forces drivers and cars to push as hard as possible to get the lap started, flying by the start-finish line until braking into the tight, fast right of turn 1.

Some of the elevation gain from the front straight gets leveled off by turns 2 & 3 shuttling the field down before revving their engines down Moraine Sweep, under the Sargento Bridge, and into the hardest turn on the track: the dreaded turn 5.

A tight left-hander requires the titans of these screaming metal machines to slow them to a whisper before roaring back up to speed on corner exit.

From there, the uphill left of turn 6 sends drivers into Hurry Downs where a quick right drops drivers down into another tight left in turn 8.

Commonly found on a playground, Road America’s take on “the carousel” consists of a winding, nearly eternal right-hand turn from the exit of the Speedville Bridge all the way to a short straight preceding Road America’s most famous corner: The Kink.

The right-hander demands bravery from competitors making a pass exiting the carousel, either breaking out into a high-stakes game of chicken or one driver choosing to give an inch.

Accelerating through kettle bottoms, cars whip back to the left to set themselves up for turn 12 aka Canada Corner. Like turn 5 before it, sand traps form a buffer to claim the unfortunate souls that overshoot Canada Corner.

What lays beyond there are the final two bends: turn 13, a treacherous uphill left that ebbs back down into the right-hand turn 14. From there, throttles will be mashed until flag stand finally appears over the horizon.

With a tour of the track behind us now, let’s move over to the weather and fast facts.

The Weather & Fast Facts

Sunday looks like it’ll be a great day for racing as the Sun will beam down at a moderate 71 degrees with little to no cloud cover. This lines right up with the 10-year averages that list the high at 72 degrees with no rain during race day since 2014.

Two trips to Road America ended without caution, but each of the last five visits were multi-yellow affairs with the final caution typically falling with about 15 laps to go.

Not known much as a track where the lead changes hands, the National Park of Speed sees the top spot swapped seven times in the average race while seeing nearly 200 green-flag passes for position every race.

The XPel Grand Prix of Road America airs on NBC and Peacock at 3:30pm ET for 221 miles and 55 laps around the famous Wisconsin road course.

Not a single race at the track has exceeded two hours; I expect that to continue this season with a race-end time projected to be around an hour and 50 minutes.

Without any further ado, let’s head over to the next section where I dissect the betting lines from the fine folks at DraftKings.

The Odds

Chip Ganassi’s Alex Palou (+300) tops out as the favorite going into the small town of Plymouth, WI to join racing royalty as a three-time winner at Road America.

The two-time champion comes is the race’s defending winner, the fourth top-10 of his career at Road America. Aiming to put himself at the top of the points again, the 25-year-old might achieve this by winning his third race at RA in his sixth try.

Andretti Global wunderkind Colton Herta (+300) stands neck-and-neck with Palou as favorites to claim victory this weekend. The Honda hotshoe knows how to whip around the 4.048-mile course, never finishing worse than 8th in six starts.

In the midst of a widely-publicized winless streak, Herta recoups confidence behind the wheel every week, and with a front-row starting spot, the Californian can silence his doubters in one fell swoop.

Rounding out the top-3 favorites is Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden (+800). The bastion of Team Penske locked himself into the Firestone Fast 6 before careening into the outside wall after slipping on a curb on entry to the Kink.

Last week’s tribulations in Detroit and Saturday’s wreck load up the American star with adversity, and the 13th-year racer plots to bounce back at the National Park of Speed.

Writer’s Pick

Last week’s selection for the writer was Kyle Kirkwood. The Andretti driver led his fair share of laps, but his tires faded in the closing stages, giving way to teammate Marcus Ericsson to finish 4th in Detroit.

My writer’s pick for this week is Colton Herta.

Frustrated after last week’s result, the sixth-year wheelman wants to prove his worth as a bona-fide title contender and Formula 1 prospect, and nothing will help him achieve both goals than landing a win today.

Herta has a penchant for finishing 5th in Wisconsin, scoring four finishes in that position in six attempts, but he nearly broke the curse years ago when he finished runner-up to Palou in the 2021 running of the XPel Grand Prix.

Putting the team on his back, Herta looks to snare his first victory of 2024 and kick off a successful summer in the best way possible.

(Top Photo Credit: Jeffrey Phelps/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)