Indy !!!!
 

Go GO Helio!

Talk about a red hot rotor, yikes !!!

Dixon looked like he was shot out of a cannon ! But a long ways to go . That brake rotor/wheel fire was nasty glad the driver is ok ............ he may need a change of underwear 😜

I'm a Helio fan, too (remember when his last name was still hyphenated?). But I'm not sure he's got the car to get him to P1 this year. My pre-race guess was Dixon.

Marco or bust.

Andretti too far back to win it is Dixon's race to win or lose .

Okay, then Sato.

Wow that was an ugly hit !!!

And congrats to Sato he drove a great race.

I was hoping for him to get the 4th but, Helio's days are done.

And what happened to Marco ? He just slowly and methodically worked his way to the rear. Just never had the pace .

Marco had a better car but the team did not have a better driver.
Uber is his future.

I would have preferred to see the race end under green flag laps - thought for sure they would throw a red flag to clean up the mess to let that happen.

Red flag would have meant over an hour (maybe 2) delay. I would have shut the race off and read the results later.

I tried to watch, and be interested, but a re-run of Homestead Rescue was on so....

His pit crew lost him 3 places on 2 consecutive pit stops. That's a big handicap being sent back to the middle of the pack. Who, if anyone, made up or advanced 10 cars by passing during racing laps? I'm talking about the first half of the field. Rossi doesn't count even if he did before he stuffed it.

Marco ran a good race and better than his finish would indicate. He did a good job. Maybe the issue is that he needs a new team.

Now that having been said, and I believe it, I'm also big on conspiracy. I remember the year of Richard Petty's retirement — his 'farewell' season as they call it. He won the pole at the Daytona 500 and promptly dropped back to middle pack by the 3rd or 4th lap. I'm sorry, but you can't tell me that NASCAR didn't overlook a big engine in during qualifying.

I'll leave my conspiracy thoughts there. Note that Mario drove the 2-seater again with who would you guess sitting behind him? Now, that seat is normally given out by some form of lottery and the preparations are not slight. There is no way in hell that a regular customer was headed for that seat and then told, "Hey, if you don't mind, Marco just won the pole 33 years after Mario did at 33 years of age (as the last car on the track). We need to put Michael in the back seat."

postscript: If I was Michael i would have said no way, put dad in the back!

Mario and Michael actually did a twitter duel about that, and Mario said no way.

I thought Marco drove a fine race. He did lose time in the pits, part of that may just be having that end stall, which isn't always an advantage. He claimed they lacked oomph on the restarts, and that was evident as well.

Not sure whether Sato had the fuel to finish if it went green, but it was a deserved win. No way NBC was going to wait the hour or so to fix the buffer.

I was there...the summer Firecracker 400. Richard actually led the first 5-6 laps.... 160K race fans on their feet goin' nutz :)

Then the race started :D

Yeah, I saw on the broadcast where about 8 guys on the safety team went over to the damaged attenuator and were attempting to push some tires back in place when they all walked away in unison. Race control had to have said, "Leave it, the race is done."

There was no way they were going to rebuild that buffer in any quick way shape or form, and the wreck proved that it was needed.
With the restarts being a free for all, especially that close to the end of the race, it would have been criminal to finish under green with the buffer in anything but perfect shape. That kid is lucky to be alive today after that hit.