By CHUCK POLLOCK, Sun Senior Sports Columnist
There’s something about a major auto race where the question isn’t whether in an Indy 500 the fastest car will win, but rather which one has enough fuel to finish.
Such was the case Sunday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an Indy 500 that featured a race record 70 lead changes and a dramatic finish where the leaders were nursing their gas-starved cars to a finish that was the closest in race history. It was 34-year-old Swede, Felix Rosenqvist, who edged 24-year-old American, David Malukas, by half a car length who won the race.
The event was encouragingly clean with four crashes — three of them single-car mishaps — Ed Carpenter, Josef Newgarden and Caio Collett — all in fateful Turn 2.
The other involved veteran Ryan Hunter-Reay and the field’s lone woman, Katherine Legge. More on that in a moment.
— OK, I can’t be a hypocrite.
Every time a driver has attempted the Indy 500/World 600 double in the same day, it has ignited my ire.
John Andretti, first in 1994, Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch and Robby Gordon have all attempted it. Stewart was easily the most successful, finishing sixth in the 1999 Indy 500 and fourth in that year’s World 600.
This year was Britain’s Legge’s (pronounced “leg”) first try and she didn’t have the best of cars, her Indycar started 26th and the NASCAR counterpart 37th in Charlotte.
Legge is the first woman to try the double, but my concern is always the same … facing the fatigue of possibility driving 1,100 miles at the highest level of competition against the world’s best drivers …what could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, Hunter-Ray, on lap 18, lost control on turn 2 and hit the outside wall. Legge, in an effort not to t-bone him, swerved to avoid that crash but hit the inside wall. Both cars were knocked from the race.
So, way earlier than she expected, Legge hopped into a helicopter for the trip to Charlotte where she took her place in the field for the World 600.
On lap 27, veteran Ed Carpenter tagged the outside wall in Turn 1 in a three-wide situation which ended his race day.
— If one of the commentators looked familiar, he should have. That was James Hinchcliffe who competed in 11 Indy 500s (2011-2021) with a best finish of sixth in 2012.
But it’s likely he’s more familiar to a national TV audience as the second-place finisher with Sharna Burgess in 2016’s Dancing with the Stars.
— I’m a not fashion expert but why was commentator Danica Patrick dressed as if she was going to a prom? Fellow analyst Jamie Little was much more tastefully attired.
— Stewart, during his driving days, was known as a contrary, irascible and argumentative personality.
But as a Fox Sports Indy 500 analyst Sunday afternoon, in a suit and tie wearing scholarly glasses, he was pleasant and insightful with a sense of humor.
— Legge lasted through 209 laps of the Wofrld 600 until her right front tire flew off. She was in 35th place in the 39-car field, 12 laps behind the leader.
As the race moved to its late stages, the possibility of rain threatened its conclusion.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
