Pole winner is a guy who is tough to beat this year.

Has Scott Dixon hit the age/performance wall ? The guy has been phenomenal for a very long time . But has he lost his edge ? The mistake he made yesterday in qualifying is an example . He's definitely NOT a backmarker but I wonder if he is still considered a threat to win ? To be clear I am and have been a fan of his .

He's a threat to win through sheer wile, but he's certainly lost a step to the younger guys in the series in terms of speed. The heavier car doesn't help either.

Dominant performance by the winner well done . Reenus Vekay was flying the last 15 laps well done for Dale Coyne racing . I think Dixon clawed his way to 12th . Not a bad race to watch , it's a beautiful venue .

Yawn.
Some good stuff in the field, Papaya early on for sure, but man, the front of these races this season has been just dull.
And Herta has yet another effort doomed by a bad stop. At least this time it wasn't the crew.

Excellent 'Dear Roger' piece by Derek Daly in Racer:

a-letter-to-roger-penske-color-confusion

Basically, Derek is calling for a return to consistent liveries for cars throughout the season. It really has become ridiculous. I spend the first half of many races trying to figure out who I'm watching because they have a different livery at every friggin race :( Look back to the 90's Golden Era. You always knew which team and which drivers were in the Marboro cars, the Target cars, the Kool cars, the Kmart cars, etc.

Saturday race at the imho boring IMS road course.

Can Palou be beaten?

Pray for rain! Racing is always good in the rain. I've had a long-standing proposal for Indycar and F1 - artificial rain makers for every race! :cool:

It'd be nice, but without tobacco and beer $$ to fund full season sponsorship, even the best teams need to spread it out. No one is coming up with the lions share of 3-6 mil to fund solo sponsorship, even on a Penske apparently.

A comment was made on another board that Dalys son would not still be in Indycar without rotating sponsors. Ole Derek didn’t fully think this one through.

Small teams always find sponsorships for the Indy 500. I remember seeing cars with the local plumbing company painted on the side of them.

Half the cars now have companies on them that I have to google to find out who they are.

The problem is not multiple sponsors, it's lack of consistent team identity. McLaren have done a reasonably good job of maintaining some sort of team identity, despite multiple sponsors, by incorporating the papaya orange on all of their cars. Maybe something could be done along those lines? The criticism by Daly is valid. The solution may take some out-of-the-box thinking. Maybe you either stick with a single livery (think, Herta and Gainbridge, the ECR cars this year, Prema, etc.) OR ... if you're going to change things up every race you are required to have at least 50% of your car painted/wrapped with a consistent color for the season.

Rahal finds a new way to blow it.

The race winner is on a roll ! How is he not in a F1 seat ? And Scott Dixon finished 5th !

He didn’t blow it, unless you think it was tire strategy.

Even the other top 5 cars were on the same strategy as Palou and they could not beat him.

I'm referring to his pit stop.

+1

Palou is the new Dixon. All they do is talk about how wonderful he is thru half the race. There are a lot of cars doing serious battle and are totally ignored. A few get 30 seconds of mention and then back to ignored.
The new racer announcer is worse than Leigh Diffey.

He didn't have the car to beat Palou. He gambled that he wouldn't need the best tires and plenty of Push To Pass at the end and lost. IMO it was his only shot anyway.

The cars are boring because the hybrid system is heavy and the cars don't handle as well. Drivers can't take the risk of getting out of control and not being able to pull it back. Indycar screwed themselves to be politically correct and push the hybrid.

Dixon is not winning because he can't use his fuel economy skills to get the front.

Back markers can't get out of sequence and hope for a yellow to get in a better position. They need Jimmy Johnson or Sato to take big risks and cause a yellow.

That stop did not lose him the race.