Honda Indy Toronto Preview

Teammates Josef Newgarden and Luca Filippi go nose-to-tail entering Turn 1 during the Honda Indy Toronto. [Photo by: Shawn Gritzmacher]

Josef Newgarden steamrolled the Verizon Indy Car field last week on the tight 7/8-mile oval at the Iowa Speedway.

This week Newgarden moves north of the border to the Honda Indy Toronto street race; an event he won in 2015, scoring a 1-2 sweep for Ed Carpenter Racing with then teammate Luca Filippi.

Newgarden, who comes to Toronto as the defending race champion, hopes to make it two-in-a-row here in Maple Leaf land.
Filippi returns to the series this week with Dale Coyne Racing, replacing Gabby Chaves, while Newgarden hopes to score his fourth career win.

Toronto has been the scene of Indy car races since 1986 when Bobby Rahal defeated Danny Sullivan in a CART-sanctioned race on the 1.75-mile temporary street course.

CART (1986-2003), Champ Car (2004-2007) and IRL/Indy Car (2009-2016) have run 31 events on the 11-turn, flat circuit near the city’s Exhibition Place.

There were two races in two days in 2013 and two races on the same day in 2014, however 2015 saw the event revert to a traditional single-race format.

Newgarden’s Iowa victory vaulted him into second place in the championship chase, 73 points behind leader Simon Pagenaud who finished fourth last Sunday night. Will Power (-75), Scott Dixon (-88) and Helio Castroneves (-91) trail the leaders.

With a double-points race coming up at the season’s final race in Sonoma, and with over half of the races already completed, one has to wonder just how many drivers will be in contention for the championship when that final race rolls around in September.

A quick look at the point standings finds some big name drivers and teams outside of the Top 10 and not having very good seasons with just six events remaining.

Drivers for AJ Foyt’s Honda team find themselves in 15th (Sato) and 20th (Hawksworth). Andretti Autosport’s Marco Andretti is 16th and Hunter-Reay is in 12th. Hinchcliffe is 13th for Schmidt Peterson with five finishes of 14th or below. Conor Daly is in 18th for Dale Coyne and Montoya is struggling in 11th for Penske after winning at St. Pete in March to open the season.

Big name drivers, big name teams and less than shining results. Several of these drivers are past series’ champions or former Indy 500 winners. Rather than watching the point leaders fight for the win beginning at Toronto, it might be more interesting to watch these underachievers battle each other for their 2017 jobs.

Chevrolet captured the top eight finishing spots in Toronto last year and comes from Iowa having taken seven of the top 10 positions there. Chevy leads Honda in the Engine Manufacturers’ Championship fight 1,312 points to 1,000 after 10 races.

NOTES:
• Sunday’s Toronto event will be Race 11 of 16 in the series and will run for 85 laps (149.175 miles).
• There were 32 caution laps during the 2011 Toronto race, but just 11 in 2001.
• Eighteen cars were on the lead-lap at the end of the 2015 race, but only two in 1989, ’90 and ’92.
• Al Unser Jr. won the 1990 race with a 38.10 second margin over Michael Andretti.
• Juan Pablo Montoya came to Toronto in 2015 with a 27-point lead in the championship chase; a lead that would disappear by the season finale at Sonoma where he lost the crown to winner Scott Dixon in a tie-breaker.
• Twenty-two cars are entered with Filippi being the only new face.
• TV: Qualifying, NBCSN, Saturday, July 16, 1:30 p.m. ET. Race, Sunday, CNBC-Live-3:00 p.m. ET / Replay-5:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN.

QUOTES:
• Max Chilton, Gallagher Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet: “I’m excited to finally get to race at the track I’ve heard so much about. I missed it last year due to my work commitments with Nissan racing at Le Mans. But I have Dario (Franchitti-team driver coach) as my mentor and he just reminded me that he qualified on the pole as a rookie here (2009), so the pressure is on.”
• Graham Rahal, Rousseau Metals/RLL Honda: “Toronto is a special race for all of us. I think the Canadian fans love and respect what we do and come out and support us in big numbers. It would be great to win in Toronto, but doing it 30 years after Dad (Bobby) won would certainly be cool as well.”
• Luca Filippi, IMPCO ComfortPac/ Dale Coyne Racing Honda: “I’m happy to be back. I love Indy Car racing and I can’t afford to stay away from it. Last year I finished second (here) and I want to confirm that strong result.”
• Josef Newgarden, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet: “I can’t wait to get back to Toronto. It’s such a wonderful place to race Indy cars. I always enjoy the love we get from the fans, the atmosphere we get to race in and the great race track with the history that it has. It worked out really well for us last year, getting the 1-2 finish for the team. We have a really strong package to come back with and will have two really good chances to do well with Spencer (Pigot) and myself.”

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

Related Posts

• 
  Sebring 2024
• 
  Giuseppe Victorious
• 
  Car or Driver