2016 Kohler Grand Prix

American open-wheel racing makes its return to Road America; one of the greatest road courses in North America and arguably the world. The legendary 4.048-mile/6.515-km circuit was previously home to CART/Champ Car racing for a quarter of a century, but since the divided national championships reunited following the 2007 season, what we now call the Verizon IndyCar Series has not been back to Elkhart Lake. Accompanying the event over the course of the weekend will be support races from Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, U.S. F2000, and the Pirelli World Challenge.

The event has been greatly anticipated by almost everyone in IndyCar ever since the announcement came last August that the circuit would be present on the 2016 calendar. The drivers and teams have expressed a lot of excitement, but the race fans from Wisconsin and beyond have shown there support, as well. Road America has sold out camping reservations, and even opted to clear some unused areas for even more campsites to be set up.

The winner of the most recent national open-wheel race at the circuit, the 2007 Champ Car World Series race, also happens to be the only past winner of the event in the field this weekend; Sébastien Bourdais. However, after nine years and the introduction of a new generation of car, there's no telling who will be able to stand atop the podium. A lot of testing has been conducted at the circuit over the past 10 months, but every team and drivers will still have a lot to learn in regards to preparing for race conditions, and there are 22 of them will be taking the green flag.

For those who are unaware, J.R. Hildebrand will be piloting the Ed Carpenter Racing car #21 for at least this race and until Josef Newgarden recovers from the injuries that he sustained in a terrible crash between himself and Conor Daly at Texas Motor Speedway. Daly was unharmed and is present for the race.

I never got to watch Champ Car race here, but considering the nature of both the track and the current car, I'm personally anticipating a thrilling race!

SpeedDemon37 wrote:
For those who are unaware, J.R. Hildebrand will be piloting the Ed Carpenter Racing car #21 for at least this race and until Josef Newgarden recovers from the injuries that he sustained in a terrible crash between himself and Conor Daly at Texas Motor Speedway. Daly was unharmed and is present for the race.

Not so fast...Newgarden is really pushing to race this weekend and is trying to get cleared

Alta wrote:

SpeedDemon37 wrote:
For those who are unaware, J.R. Hildebrand will be piloting the Ed Carpenter Racing car #21 for at least this race and until Josef Newgarden recovers from the injuries that he sustained in a terrible crash between himself and Conor Daly at Texas Motor Speedway. Daly was unharmed and is present for the race.

Not so fast...Newgarden is really pushing to race this weekend and is trying to get cleared

Oh, I spoke too soon!

It was confirmed earlier today that Newgarden will partake in practice tomorrow, and will be evaluated afterwards to determine whether he is in good enough condition to race. I'm really surprised that he's getting back in the car this quickly!

Simon Pagenaud topped the charts in Free Practice 1, with Graham Rahal being the fastest in session #2. Rahal's FP2 lap time of 1:43.0224 was the fastest of the day. Carlos Muñoz and Tony Kanaan were the only two drivers to be ranked in the top 5 in both practice sessions.

There were a number of spins throughout the afternoon between several drivers and at a lot of different places on the course, but with the challenging nature of the track and the fact that the series hasn't been here since 2007, I wouldn't consider this to be very surprising.

http://www.indycar.com/News/2016/06/06-26-Road-America-practice-1
http://www.indycar.com/News/2016/06/06-24-Road-America-practice-2

Josef Newgarden ranked 10th in FP1 and 13th in FP2, and reported nothing more than a little pain in his right hand. IndyCar agrees that he his fit to drive and has officially cleared him to qualify the car tomorrow and to race on Sunday!

https://twitter.com/IndyCar/status/746481728655613952

Ugh, I can see why some people dislike the "push to pass" stuff now that my favorite driver was on the receiving end of it (Go me I guess). Damn it, so close.

Glad Will Power won

Great racing yesterday. Shout outs to Power, Kanaan, Rahal, and especially Newgarden for his drive coming off injuries.

Good race. Tracked looked racy as hell and made for some crazy passes

I know that late restarts tend to make the field go nuts, but I'm still suprised at how much more intense that the final six laps were than the rest of the event. That was a decent race for the first 40 laps but the ending was great!

Power, Kanaan, and Rahal had great races from start to finish. I personally would have liked to have seen Kanaan win over Power, but it was a great race, and, of course, it wouldn't be objective of me to say that any particular driver winning took anything away from it.

I feel really sorry for Conor Daly. Yet again he was punching well above his weight all weekend and was having another fabulous run, only to have his suspension fail with 11 laps to go. Considering that the failure occurred at the end of the frontstretch, I'd say that he's fairly lucky that the ensuing crash was pretty light.

And lots of credit given to Newgarden for toughing it out and earning an 8th-place finish from a 20th-place starting position. Definitely not something that every driver would have done.

2016 KOHLER GRAND PRIX REVIEW

Pretty good race.

The action started fast and furious before it began to settle down into a LONG green flag run, and at one point, I thought the race was gonna go caution free, which was pretty amazing considering so many people were going off track in practice. The fact that we had only one caution all day and that only due to a mechanical failure attributes to how much talent these IndyCar drivers have.

I was very surprised when Scott Dixon's engine failed early in the race. Even though he didn't lose too many points due to Pagenaud finishing 13th, I think Dixon's done as far as the championship's concerned.

Those final six laps were intense. Everybody racing like their lives depended on it, and Tony Kanaan giving Will Power a run for his money at the end was really fun to watch. It's easy to see why the track was full of people for this race. It was damn good.

Star of the Race: Josef Newgarden. Hands down. Anyone who can come from 20th to finish 8th with a broken right hand and collarbone is a hero in my book.

Reject of the Race: Scott Dixon's engine. May have just taken Dixon out of the championship hunt.

FINAL RATING: Damn good race, and easily lived up to the hype. I'll give it a 7.5/10. Easily one of the best races of the year so far.

Next up, we head to the cornfields of Iowa.

Daly proved he needs a ride with Ganassi or Penske. Well, he has proven that all year. But this race was icing on the cake!