2016 Indycar Indianapolis GP

after a few weeks off, Indycar Heads into the Month of May!

Simon Pagenaud has Dominated the early portion of the season, Winning the last 2 races and having finished no worse than 2nd so far.
BUt before we can Celebrate the 100th Running of the Indy 500, Indyacar must Raced the Infield Road Course for the 3rd Time!

Entry List: http://d1b8ufspcmikd1.cloudfront.net/~/media/Files/2016/IndyCarSeries/05-GPI/indycar-entrylist.pdf?vs=1&d=20160511T174915

Simon Pagenaud will be on pole once again for tomorrow's race.

Is this guy on a roll or what? He's definitely the man to beat right now.

Line-up looks way out of the norm, might be an intriguing race tomorrow.

Pretty excited for this one and the wonderful month of May. I wonder if Helio can make his way through the field.

At least it will be challenging to miss Simon Pagenaud's car

2016 Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis Review

First impression: Disappointed.

Why? Because this race sucked.

We had the typical lap 1, turn 1 shenanigans that seem to happen in this race every year, but beyond that, this race was extremely boring. With very little in the way of passing, and not much in the way of strategy, this race was about as straightforward as it gets, which is typically not a bad thing, but in this case, it could've used something to spice it up. A shame, considering the first two runnings of this race were pretty good.

Helluva job by Graham Rahal. Started in the back due to a penalty, and drove his way up into a top 5 finish. He really seems to have broken out of that stigma of being a really crash-happy, crappy driver, because the past two years, we've seen his driving really improve.

But right now, this season has become the Simon Pagenaud show. After some growing pains last year, Pagenaud and the #22 team are RED... FREAKING... HOT right now. Seriously, 5 straight top 2 finishes? Back-to-back poles? Three straight victories? If he keeps up this pace, he is a champion in waiting. Granted we still have a long way to go, but right now, it's gonna be tough stopping the Pagenaud freight train right now.

Star of the Race: Simon Pagenaud. Just explained why.

Reject of the Race: The race itself. It sucked balls.

FINAL RATING: Easily the worst race of the year, IMO. A 2/10 is the best I can give it. Sorry, guys.

But next up, the hyep meter is about to burst. Why?



Need I say more?

Race was meh. I blame pagenaud.

Thanks god the best race of the year is next

PackerMan71 wrote:But next up, the hyep meter is about to burst. Why?



Need I say more?

*fanboy squeeing intensifies*

Race was pretty good, lots of hard racing throughout the field and was pretty fun all around.

Pagenaud is on fire this year, can't believe this was the same dude that just couldn't catch a break last year with Penske.

PackerMan71 wrote:We had the typical lap 1, turn 1 shenanigans that seem to happen in this race every year, but beyond that, this race was extremely boring. With very little in the way of passing, and not much in the way of strategy, this race was about as straightforward as it gets, which is typically not a bad thing, but in this case, it could've used something to spice it up. A shame, considering the first two runnings of this race were pretty good.

As far as I know, no one ever did pass Simon Pagenaud (and he never passed anyone on-track, either), but there was a lot of hard racing throughout the rest of the field. Kimball vs. Hinchcliffe, Rahal vs. everybody in the lower half of the top 10, and Rossi vs. Power to name a few were all fun to watch (Rossi and Power never exactly battled, but watching Rossi hound Power with such crazy racing lines before Power drove off of the track and out of his way was very fun for me to see). We even saw some clean side-by-side racing through the esses!

Not to say that you shouldn't think that the race was boring if that is what you thought, but I think that "it sucked balls" is a bit unfair. Even when the leader runs away with the win, when there's action/storylines to follow through the rest of the field then I'm at least somewhat satisfied.

Anyway, as I mentioned, it was great to see so many passes/pass attempts, and without the wheel-bumping and wing-smashing that seem to result from that type of racing too often in this series, too. From lap 2 and onward it was a rather clean race. It was also nice to see Rahal make up so much ground and to see Daly lead a fair number of laps during that one run (not to mention that he pulled away from Castroneves while doing so). Hinchcliffe, and Kimball had fantastic races of their own, running up in the top 5 for pretty much the entire way.

Yeah, I quite enjoyed this race - was worried it'd be a snoozefest like last year, but there was some good racing. Certainly not a classic, but worth remembering for seeing Conor Daly run so well. Hopefully Coyne will get more opportunities to pull pit strategy hax like that with him in the future.

SpeedDemon37 wrote:

PackerMan71 wrote:We had the typical lap 1, turn 1 shenanigans that seem to happen in this race every year, but beyond that, this race was extremely boring. With very little in the way of passing, and not much in the way of strategy, this race was about as straightforward as it gets, which is typically not a bad thing, but in this case, it could've used something to spice it up. A shame, considering the first two runnings of this race were pretty good.

As far as I know, no one ever did pass Simon Pagenaud (and he never passed anyone on-track, either), but there was a lot of hard racing throughout the rest of the field. Kimball vs. Hinchcliffe, Rahal vs. everybody in the lower half of the top 10, and Rossi vs. Power to name a few were all fun to watch (Rossi and Power never exactly battled, but watching Rossi hound Power with such crazy racing lines before Power drove off of the track and out of his way was very fun for me to see). We even saw some clean side-by-side racing through the esses!

Not to say that you shouldn't think that the race was boring if that is what you thought, but I think that "it sucked balls" is a bit unfair. Even when the leader runs away with the win, when there's action/storylines to follow through the rest of the field then I'm at least somewhat satisfied.

Anyway, as I mentioned, it was great to see so many passes/pass attempts, and without the wheel-bumping and wing-smashing that seem to result from that type of racing too often in this series, too. From lap 2 and onward it was a rather clean race. It was also nice to see Rahal make up so much ground and to see Daly lead a fair number of laps during that one run (not to mention that he pulled away from Castroneves while doing so). Hinchcliffe, and Kimball had fantastic races of their own, running up in the top 5 for pretty much the entire way.

Yes, it was a clean race, and yes, it was cool that Conor Daly led some laps in his home race, and Rahal did a good job as well, but from my perspective, I didn't really see many of the pass attempts and hard racing that some people have been mentioning, at least until the end of the race. Of course, the fact that the race winner was never in doubt after the final pit stop might have had something to do with it as well.

And I'm sorry that you think my comment about the race is a "bit unfair", but that's just how I felt. Maybe it's because of the lofty standards that IndyCar has set for themselves in the past couple of years in terms of the on-track product, but I just didn't feel like this race lived up to those standards or my own.

But to each their own. If you enjoyed this race, awesome. I wish I could've had that same enjoyment.

But the 500 is right around the corner, and with it being the 100th running, all I can say is...

HYEP!!!

PackerMan71 wrote:And I'm sorry that you think my comment about the race is a "bit unfair", but that's just how I felt. Maybe it's because of the lofty standards that IndyCar has set for themselves in the past couple of years in terms of the on-track product, but I just didn't feel like this race lived up to those standards or my own.

But to each their own. If you enjoyed this race, awesome. I wish I could've had that same enjoyment.

All is well! I know that we all have our own standards (and that mine are probably a lot lower than the average race fan ). But I'm glad that we can discuss differing perspectives respectfully.

And of course I think that everyone here can agree that the next two weeks for IndyCar (and the world of motorsports, in general) are going to be nothing short of spectacular!