Indy 500

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dixontj93060

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Pretty entertaining race this year! A rookie, American and former F1 driver Alexander Rossi, takes the race with a fabulous fuel management strategy after his last pit stop on lap 164. Congrats to him and Andretti Racing!
 
Yeah, didn't see that coming! Looked like he was out of fuel just prior to the finish?
 
It seemed to me like he ran out of fuel just after the finish. Amazing that for all the passing action, the race was won on fuel strategy! I totally did not see that coming either.
 
The guys announcing the Coca-Cola 600 said he was doing 50 MPH across the finish line.
 
Here is a good article explaining how his team managed the last 16 laps including help he received from Bell and Hunter-Reay who were fast but out of contention due to earlier mishaps.

https://www.indystar.com/story/spor...-almost-impossible-indy-500-victory/84865556/

The one that felt slighted was Munoz who was on the same Andretti team and had one of the better races, but had to come in for a splash of fuel on lap 192 because he/his manager weren't milking the fuel.
 
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Last rookie win was 15 years ago, I forget who it was. Apparently he is an excellent driver, he's only been driving championship cars for 3months, good golly!
 
Last rookie win was 15 years ago, I forget who it was. Apparently he is an excellent driver, he's only been driving championship cars for 3months, good golly!

Helio Castroneves was the last rookie to win in 2001. As far as Alexander Rossi, he's only been in IndyCar a short time but spent some 5 years driving Formula One before that.
 
Helio Castroneves was the last rookie to win in 2001. As far as Alexander Rossi, he's only been in IndyCar a short time but spent some 5 years driving Formula One before that.
And the year before that is was Montoya in 2000. Before that you have to go back to 1966 (I looked it up :) )
 
Makes me wonder how far back you have to go to find a rookie winner.

1927 (George Sounders) if you don't count guys who drove F1 as being "rookies". You're not gonna get a seat in an Indy car now unless you're really really good. Back in the 90's, before the USAC-CART split some of the small teams put a lot of guys in cars that didn't belong there... amazingly enough they didn't manage to all get killed. It was the high-downforce ground effects era when the cars first started to have carbon fiber survival cells, so the cars drove a lot like slot cars... until you got out of the groove and into the marbles.

I love the interviews with Rossi afterwards, he was genuinely surprised that he had won. A brilliant team victory for Andretti Racing, executed perfectly by a skilled driver.
 
You're not gonna get a seat in an Indy car now unless you're really really good. Back in the 90's, before the USAC-CART split some of the small teams put a lot of guys in cars that didn't belong there... amazingly enough they didn't manage to all get killed.

Yeah...... some of those teams were choosing drivers whose biggest assets were a sponsorship package the driver had, rather than driving skill. More buying their way into the seat than truly earning their way into the seat ("Here's a guy that's 80% as good as the other guy but has 3 times the sponsorship money"). Some better drivers were left in the cold or kicked to the curb.

Unfortunately that happens in many forms of racing anyway, to this day. But it wasn't as blatant at a top level, with such often bad results, as it was then.

And yes I know , no Bucks, no Buck Rogers. But then also, a less competent Buck Rogers, less likely of a safe mission.....
 
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During the Cart Indi split there was a dentist sponsored by Crest tooth paste. But I forgot his name. Anny whoo glad I watched the race.
 
I read a brief interview with Rossi in which he said that during the last lap, the engine was sputtering and he was working the clutch just to keep it running.
 
I wonder how many times the winner had to be towed in? What a feeling that must have been, "I just won the Indy 500 and I can't even get back to the pit without some help!!"
 
Helio Castroneves was the last rookie to win in 2001. As far as Alexander Rossi, he's only been in IndyCar a short time but spent some 5 years driving Formula One before that.
Technically, Rossi is still an F1 driver; he's Manor's official third driver, and the word on the street is that Haryanto doesn't have enough money for the full season, so when his checks stop coming in, Rossi is (technically) in the seat. 'Course, as we all know, driver contracts are frequently written in shape-shifting ink.

Back to Rossi, and something that has been lost on a number of people: He didn't come up through the North American ladder. Everything he did post-karts (and possibly even his karting) was all in Europe ... This was his second oval race. Ever. First time he ever drove on an oval was in practice for Phoenix.

He's almost made up for all the dislike he earned from me when he drove a '67 Lotus 49 at COTA a few years ago...
 
Did he bend the car or...?
Fortunately, no.

There were a couple of issues. First, it just seems like he has no sense of the history of racing. Which, I guess, I shouldn't really fault him for; to him, cars are a tool, nothing more. Some drivers are like that.

The bigger issue was that it seems like he'd never driven a dog box with an h-shifter before. Pretty sure he didn't break anything, but it wasn't pretty.
 
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