Indy in St. Louis. I'm not certain why I thought it was in Illinois. 500 miles on a 1.25 mile track. Penske secured the front row in qualifying. Veekay qualified 18th, but felt he had a good car for the race.
Race was interesting. Penske apparently has angered the luck gods with their many many cases of being caught cheating. Will Power suffers a sidewall failure on his front right tire. Louis Foster bumps the wall, then snaps across the track. Palou banked to the right, Newgarden to the left (should always follow Palou!) and Newgarden smacks into Foster in a rather bad looking crash that both drivers walked away from. McLaughlin was going well until something in the rear suspension (I believe) broke. So Penske has zero cars finishing, leaving the field to all the rest of the teams.
Malukas had a great first 2/3 of the race, but then faded. Veekay kept slowly creeping up the field. Ferruci's and Herta's cars are apparently a couple now after some close quarter snuggling that rubbed away the sidewall coloring on Herta's front left. The guy of the race was Rasmussen, who just wouldn't stay back. Climbed up into the top 5 from 20th or so, penalyzed for bad pit behavior and the dude just comes back through the field. He has guts out there on the oval.
A late yellow went in Dixon's favor, and almost Veekay's, which put Dixon at the front of the field (weird seeing the entire field get waved around Dixon). The Ganassis however weren't up to the task, being out powered by... well everyone else (AJ Foyt, Andretti, ECR, Dale freaking Coyne). So Dixon faded, but not too badly. Fuel was the last question. Illot and Rosenquist pitted the most recently, and it was unclear if they could make it the distance. They held out as much as they could but no more yellows forced them into the pits. O'Ward and Kirkwood would be the final two to fight it out with Kirkwood taking his third win of the year. This year was supposed to be Herta's, but while he is suffering a little less bad luck, Kirkwood has been the only other winner in lieu of Palou. Palou finished 8th for his worst finish that didn't involved being crashed out of the race. Veekay finished a strong 7th (ahead of Rossi) while Rasmussen got a podium.
Meanwhile in Mexico City, Katherine Legge is showing why she needs to pick a platform and stick with it. If she can't be competitive in Mexico City in the wet, what is she doing there? She has a sponsor, but either her car sucks or she just can't manage this type of car. She has legit racing cred, but she is bouncing all over the place and she isn't sticking the landing anywhere. van Gisbergen won the race while McDowell finished 5th even after the boneheaded move by his team to stick to wets... on a drying track. Allmendinger's role in the race was as pinball bumper with Kyle Busch being the pinball. Allmendinger fell back to 30 or 32nd a couple times and nonchalantly worked his way back up the field. Finished 13th with a bruised car.
