NTT IndyCar Series: The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Preview

By Paul Gohde
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Updated: April 15, 2021

2019 polesitter and race winner Takuma Sato returns to Barber Motorsports Park. © [Andy Clary/ Spacesuit Media]

by Paul Gohde

After surviving a 2020 season that was laced with changes, postponements and cancellations due to the pandemic, IndyCar has put together a strong schedule of 17 races for 2021 with venues such as Long Beach, Portland, Belle Isle and Laguna Seca returning to the fold along with a bit shaky Toronto event that depends more than the others on the next round of pandemic rules for Canadian entry. The Honda Grand Prix of Alabama trades places with St. Petersburg and is the season opener for the first time.

Six-time series champion Scott Dixon leads a strong roster of returning veterans that includes Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud. Next-generation returnees include Colton Herta, Pato O’Ward and Rinus VeeKay.

Whether IndyCar (as well as NASCAR, IMSA and others) can maintain its schedule without pandemic interruption will be something to watch as the season moves on.

Race facts: Barber is a 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural road course near Birmingham, Alabama that was originally built for motorcycle competition. Sunday’s 90-lap, 207-mile race will be the 11^th IndyCar race there, with the 2010 inaugural captured by Helio Castroneves.

Last Barber race: Indy cars last raced at Barber in 2019 (the 2020 race was cancelled by the pandemic) when pole-winner Takuma Sato took his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda for what looked to many like a joy ride, leading 74/90 laps while putting Scott Dixon in the runner-up spot here for the sixth time. Sato had one scare as an off-course adventure with five laps remaining got his attention. “It probably looked easy winning from the pole, but I wasn’t cruising,” explained the then 42-year-old veteran. “I was pushing hard, using push-to-pass the last 10 laps and I had a little moment there in turn eight.” Sato held off a charging Dixon for the 2.387-sec.win with Dixon, Sebastien Bourdais and Josef Newgarden trailing.

Upcoming season: As noted above, 17 races will fill the dance-card for IndyCar teams barring any intrusions from lingering pandemic issues. Nashville’s introduction to the schedule presents an interesting street-course challenge as the cars will race across a long bridge over the Cumberland River.

Entries: Twenty-four cars are scheduled to start Sunday’s NTT Series opener with one of the strongest fields to begin a season in recent years.

Beside NASCAR vet Jimmie Johnson’s first effort at open-wheel competition for Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, the usual entries are spiced with the likes of F1 refugee, Switzerland’s Romain Grosjean for Dale Coyne RWR Honda (both newcomers on a road course/street course-only schedule), and Team Penske Chevy’s full-season import, New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin…IndyCar certainly presents fans with an interesting mix of entries to begin the season.

Notes: TV…Saturday-Qualifying-NBCSN-(tape-delay)-10:00 pm (ET)…Sunday-Race coverage-NBC Network-2:00 pm–(live)…Five entered drivers: Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Power, Rahal and Sato, have won at Barber…Team Penske has won here six times with Andretti Autosport next with two…Santino Ferrucci has left open wheel racing to compete in NASCAR’s Xfinity series, but is entered in the Indianapolis 500 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan…

Our Take: With veterans Pagenaud, Power, Sato and Rahal facing a revved-up group of young bucks hoping to unseat Dixon from his annual (almost) top rung in the standings, anything can happen. O’Ward, Herta, VeeKay and Alex Palou are strong challengers for race wins. We’ll find out by Race 17 at Laguna Seca if any of those youngsters can find that magic balance of winning some races and finishing high in others, enough to cop a series’ championship. It will be an interesting season on several accounts.

“They said it”: Jay Frye, IndyCar President: “It’s hard to know where to start with our rookie class. There’s a seven-time rookie (Jimmie Johnson), a three-time champion (Scott McLaughlin) and a ten-year F1 veteran (Romain Grosjean). This might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing that we see something like this. They are great people on and off the track. They’ve taken this (the transition to IndyCar competition) very seriously and it’s going to be amazing to watch their progress over the course of the year…We’ve also got three Hall of Famers coming back (to race) one way or another. Tony (Kanaan), Helio (Castroneves) and Juan (Pablo Montoya). So that’s pretty cool…Our weekly car count (24 at the Barber opener) is remaining strong, and it’s going up, which bodes well for the 500. I think there’s going to be some real exciting news to come out of here shortly.”

Next Race: April 25…Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

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.”

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