Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis: Notes and Quotes

Graham Rahal grabbed the runner up spot and was the lead Honda driver.  [John Wiedemann Photo]

Chevrolet and Honda have fought a battle for IndyCar supremacy for more than three seasons now, and Chevy’s dominance has become even more apparent lately as both qualifying and racing results have fallen their way on a regular basis. Since Chevrolet rejoined the series in 2012 their teams have won 37 of the 57 races contested through this weekend’s Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis. With Honda as the established engine supplier in 2012, the year Chevy returned to the series, Chevy won 11 of the 15 events on the schedule. Last year, with 18 races contested, Chevy won 12. Things seem no different this season with Honda having a single win against four for Chevrolet. That’s a 65% winning percentage since 2012; one that’s hard to overcome.

Lately, this situation has taken a bit of a turn, however, as Graham Rahal’s past two series races have brought his Honda-powered car two runner-up finishes. What may make the team feel even better however isn’t that he was second, ahead of several Chevrolets, but had those races been a few laps longer, many feel he could have passed the winning car and gone ahead for the win.

“I have all the confidence in the world that Honda’s going to keep working hard and we’re going to get better Aero Kits and power and we’ll be able to challenge these (Chevy) guys even more, ”explained a hopeful Rahal. “I didn’t know we could beat the Chevy’s. To be the elite Honda team feels good. We moved from 17^th to 6^th and then to second.

“The last two weeks (at Barber and now Indy) we missed first by a combined three seconds. We’re carrying the banner, the flag, for Honda at the moment. I don’t know that there’s any secret to it. With the Honda there’s an inherent weakness: it likes to go sideways a lot.

“The biggest thing after Barber was to carry the momentum into May and now we need to carry that momentum into the ‘500’ and we’ve got that, so hopefully we can keep it going.”

NOTES:

• Milwaukee Brewers’ Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount attended the Grand Prix as a guest of car owner Bobby Rahal. The two became friends back when Rahal was an active driver and Yount was still playing for the Brew Crew. Yount was later involved as an owner in the Formula Atlantic series. “We’ve known Graham since he was a little guy, and he would tell us all about what was happening on the track when his dad was racing. Then, obviously, that has come to fruition for himself, and now we’re cheering for Graham and Pops.”
• Sometimes it’s a combination of location and opportunity that leads a company to become the sponsor of a racing event. In the case of Angie’s List, its location in Indianapolis combined with the Speedway searching for a title sponsor, brought the two together for a successful promotion. “We’re thrilled to be sponsoring the Grand Prix,” noted company founder Angie Hicks. “We’ve had our own events going on all day. Last year (when the race ran without a title sponsor) we bought tickets for a lot of our employees to come out. Then when the sponsorship opportunity came up, it was a natural.” But for a sponsor to be happy it takes activation for the company to be totally involved. “We brought thousands of service companies in from across the country to enjoy the race with us. We have had conferences with them for the last couple of days. We are thrilled that race time has expanded through the whole month of May again. Every year the Speedway offers a little more for the fans and their enjoyment.” Angie’s List was also the primary sponsor for the Curb-Agajanian Honda that finished 15^th for Gabby Chavez.
• Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee drove the Chevy Corvette Stingray Z51 pace car to start the race. Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Arie Luyendyk handled the car during the remainder of the race as he does at all Verizon IndyCar road and street course events. Luyendyk also acted as the coach for McAfee while he practiced his driving duties. “This was never on my bucket list, but it should have been. It should be on everyone’s bucket list to drive a racetrack with a racing legend.”
• Helio Castroneves made his 300^th career Indy car start in today’s Angie’s List Grand Prix. Good friend Tony Kanaan is scheduled to make his 300^th career Indy car start on May 24^th in the 500.

ONE MORE NOTE

During a post-race press conference, the discussion turned to the quality of the IMS road course and the status it’s achieved.

Question: “Yesterday Faustino and Will Power called the road course here the crown jewel of road courses. Do you believe it’s achieved that status?”

Juan Pablo Montoya: “When you’re on the pole, you can call it whatever you want. It’s a cool road course, you know what I mean?”

Graham Rahal: “(The) crown jewel is Road America, I think.”

JPM: “I’m with him. The problem is we don’t go there.”

Were you listening IndyCar?

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

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