IndyCar Series
Big show in Phoenix?
Buckle up. The 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series season is about to hit high gear. After a month-long hiatus following the season opener in St. Petersburg, IndyCar returns to the track this weekend at ISM Raceway and won’t slow down for a while.
The Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Grand Prix kicks off back-to-backto-back race weekends before the series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for oval testing. Then, before you know it, May will be here.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s still a lot of racing to be done before May, starting with this weekend’s race at Phoenix (Saturday, NBCSN, 9:30 p.m. ET). Last year’s race wasn’t exactly a non-stop thrill ride, as a trio of Penske cars led all but two laps en route to Simon Pagenaud’s victory. So will this year’s race be any more fun to watch? I think it might.
Here are five things I think as IndyCar heads to Phoenix.
1. This will be a better show than last year: OK, I’ll be honest. Of my five predictions for the race weekend, this is the one I’m least confident in, but it’s leading the way because it’s critically important. If this race doesn’t show marked improvement over the last couple of years, it might not survive. Word out of the Phoenix area is that the event isn’t generating a whole lot of buzz, and that’s a bad omen considering last year’s race didn’t draw a big crowd and the race was largely uneventful. However, Marco Andretti seems to think the
2018 Indy cars could change all of that. The Andretti-Herta Autosport driver, who will pilot a No. 98 car decked out in a throwback Oberto Beef Jerky livery honoring his grandfather, Mario Andretti, said he expects the race to feature a lot more on-track action this time. “I think the show won’t suffer anymore,” Marco Andretti said. “I think it’s going to be a really good race, a lot of passing now with how light the cars are. It should be fun.”
2. There is still lots of learning to do: If Indy cars in Phoenix sounds familiar, that’s because it is. They were there a couple of months ago for the series’ first open test of the new season. Because of that, the learning curve with the 2018 Indy cars shouldn’t be as steep as what we saw on the streets of St. Pete, but this is still the first oval race of the season and there will be mysteries to solve.
“At the test, you don’t get that good of an idea, because lots of people are on different parts of their test plans and no one tries that hard in traffic,” driver Scott Dixon said. “There’s still a lot of unknowns going into the race.”
3. The usual suspects fill out the fast Fast 6: Consider the St. Peter stunner — three rookies starting in the top five — a blip on the radar. It was raining; no one knew exactly what to expect from the high-degradation tires on a street course; and the veterans were having a tough time ridding themselves of old habits. But with no rain in the forecast and the experienced drivers more familiar with their surroundings after the preseason test, none of those factors should be in play this weekend. So expect a bit of normalcy to return to qualifying.
That is not an indictment of IndyCar’s talented rookie class but more a statement of confidence in the series’ established stars. While it was thrilling to see the young guns upend the status quo at the opener, you can bet the likes of Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, Josef Newgarden and Graham Rahal won’t let them make a habit of it.
4. A.J. Foyt Racing breaks through for its first top-10 of the season: It’s hard to see the season opener as anything but a success for the new-look team in the ABC Supply fire suits. Between Kanaan’s 11th-place finish and rookie Matheus Leist’s top-five starting spot, Foyt is well ahead of where it was at this time last year.
“Damn right they’re ahead of last year,” Kanaan said, or “A.J. would kill me. Listen, we all came in with the purpose of changing that, and I’m glad it’s worked so far. That was my promise to A.J., and I’d probably be out of the job with all of the effort and the money and the people we hired if it was not going to change anything.”
5. Will Power leaves the desert with a win: It’s too early in the year to break away from my preseason predictions, so I’ll stick with Power to pull down victory lane in the second race of the season. A run-in with lady luck cost him a win at Phoenix last year, but if he avoids a repeat encounter, there’s no reason to think he can’t pick up win No. 1 of his 2018 campaign. Not only is Power one of the fiercest oval competitors in the paddock, but Team Penske never takes long to rebound from a tough outing. After failing to put any of their drivers in the top five at St. Pete, look for at least two to finish there come Sunday night.