San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
INDY 500 BUZZING AGAIN; LARGE CROWD EXPECTED
The milk is on ice, celebrities are in the house and Indianapolis Motor Speedway is buzzing again both with the roar of engines and the largest crowd at a sporting event since the start of the pandemic.
The Indianapolis 500 will welcome a sold-out 135,000 spectators today — nine months after the race ran without fans for the first time in its 105-year history — and drop the green flag on a packed house and a party not seen since early 2020.
“We’re just excited to be opening up America,” said Roger Penske, who bought Indianapolis in January 2020, roughly two months before the pandemic shut down the country.
The speedway has 240,000 permanent grandstand seats and space in the infield and suites to accommodate nearly 400,000 on race day. But Penske couldn’t open the gates until October, when only 10,000 a day were permitted into the landmark facility over a three-day weekend for an Indycar race.
Americans are eager to return to some sort of normalcy. They want their traditions and their sports back, none more so than “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” which withstood world wars, the Great Depression and the now the pandemic.
Through vaccinations, more than 90,000 done at the speedway, Penske got the clearance to at last permit 40
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percent attendance.
“The good news is, it’s started to roll here and I think with opening America we can be the premiere event,” he said. “It’s an honor for us to even be in a position to execute something like that. We’re going to continue to fine tune it. I would do the same transaction again. I just see the benefits on a longer term basis. I really want to run as big as my anticipation and not my exception.”
And so it is with expectation and not anticipation that six-time Indycar champion Scott Dixon starts from the pole today for the fourth time at the Indy 500. Dixon is considered the best driver of his generation and trails Mario Andretti by only one victory for second on Indycar’s all-time wins list. He has just one Indy 500 victory, in 2008, and three runner-up finishes.
“It’s the biggest race in the world and the most difficult race in the world. I feel very lucky and privileged to have won it once but that also drives you into a deeper will to want to win it again,” Dixon said. “Would I trade some championships for 500 wins? Maybe. I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot of emphasis on Indycar championships but the Indy 500 is the Indy 500.”
Dixon and the four Chip Ganassi Racing entries are the most consistent at Indianapolis leading into the 500. The group includes Tony Kanaan, who at 46 is the oldest driver in the field, and Alex Palou, who wrecked in Saturday qualifying but rebounded Sunday to qualify sixth alongside Kanaan.
This season has seen a changing of the guard with five different winners through the first five races of the season, four of them 24 years or younger. Three are first time winners and Dixon is the only veteran so far to represent in the win column.
He starts on the front row alongside Colton Herta, a 21year-old four-race winner who earlier this month earned a two-year contract extension from Andretti Autosport, and Rinus Veekay, at 20 the youngest front-row starter in race history.
Veekay earned his first career win earlier this month on Indy’s road course and the Borat-loving Dutchman said the victory has allowed him to show more of his playful personality.
The impressive youth group includes Pato O’ward, the 22-year-old Mexican who has shot to popularity with Arrow Mclaren SP and is teammates in the 500 with two-time race winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who hasn’t raced Indy since 2017.
Nobody knows what’s up with the Team Penske cars after a questionable qualifying effort. Will Power won in 2018 and Simon Pagenuad won in 2019, but Power barely qualified for the race.