Less than a week after completing the double-header weekend in damp Detroit, IndyCar teams will tackle the second oval track event of the season Saturday night at the Texas Motor Speedway. High banks at Texas have made for frighteningly fast racing in the past and everyone still has the crashes from a few weeks ago at Indianapolis fresh in their mind.
In advance of the race the series has mandated changes to the cars’ body work in an effort to keep them on the track should they spin.
Modifications to the rear bumper guards will be added before the cars hit the track. The bumpers will now be closed off and not allow airflow through the body piece and in an attempt to decrease the chances of a car lifting in the air should it spin. Hopefully we won’t have to find out if the change does what’s intended.
Despite a strong effort by sub Conor Daly it will be former Texas winner Ryan Briscoe back in the #5 car for James Hinchcliffe this weekend. Daly told me it looks good for him to return the following weekend in Toronto.
Earlier this week I also exchanged messages with Hinchcliffe who said he’s making slow progress, but is getting better. No decision has been made yet about whether he’ll be able to attend his hometown race in Toronto.
It’s a bit repetitive, but several of the Penske drivers have to be considered the favorites this weekend. Juan Pablo Montoya leads the overall point standings and captured the Indy 500, the last oval event. Will Power took pole at Texas a year ago setting a new two lap qualifying record and won in 2011. He also ran second to Montoya at Indy. Helio Castroneves is a four-time winner on the one-and-a-half mile oval, his most recent win coming in 2013.
Being the favorite team does not however guarantee success. In eight races this year we’ve seen seven different winners including two first time series winners. One of them was Josef Newgarden with Carpenter Fisher Racing. Teammate Ed Carpenter won this race last year so expect positive results from both.
Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan are both former winners and also have the Chevrolet power plant that has shown to be superior this season.
Dixon has one victory this year at Long Beach where he moved into fifth spot in all time series wins. He sits third in the championship and made a memorable charge up the standings in the second half of 2013 to capture his most recent series title.
Worth keeping an eye on as well is Graham Rahal who has been the best of the Honda runners in recent events scoring three podium finishes in the last five races. The other is Marco Andretti who used great strategy to claim a runner-up spot in the first Detroit race and charged back to a top-five result in the second half of the double dip. He’s also the only driver in the series to complete every racing lap so far this season. Marco’s capabilities have never been in doubt on the ovals and perhaps this weekend he once again pushes himself toward the front of the field.