The predicted morning storms never arrived and the morning
of the 101st Indy 500 race dawned bright and sunny.
We had allocated seating, so there was no urgency in getting
into the IMS. We walked over for 1130am
and found our seats just behind pit row, with an amazing view of Alonso on the
grid and into last years winner Rossi’s pit. As an added bonus, we were also in
the shade for the start of proceedings and, unbelievably, there were empty
seats all around us, giving us plenty of room to move around. The build-up was
impressive, there were dedications to those serving in the military past and
present and several live musical performances including, of course, the
national anthem.
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| Our view of the pits with the start/finish straight behind - The stands were a little busier than for practise on Friday |
The whole field do four laps behind a pace car, gradually
getting faster to help heat up the tyres and then it is a rolling start when
the lights go green. Hopefully, this video of the start of the race will work for you and give you a sense of the atmosphere and volume!
The race started
cleanly but Alonso dropped from 5th to 9th place. Hardly an ideal start, but he started making
his way back through the field gradually. Here's proof he was in the lead on laps 37 and 53:
Suddenly, there was an horrific crash on lap 53 of 200.
Scott Dixon, who was the pole-sitter, was launched into the air in his car when
he was unable to avoid crashing into Jay Howard, the Basildon Boy’s disabled
vehicle. Dixon flipped over and crashed
into the safety barriers but, amazingly, managed to walk away from the
carnage. However, they had to suspend
the race to clear the debris from the track which took about half an hour.
After the re-start all of the drivers were coming in for pit stops, so we got a good view:
Once the race re-started, there were more crashes and
incidents, causing numerous yellow flags and delays. But this, in combination with hundreds of
passes, made the race very entertaining. The leader changed more than forty
times during the course of the race. In fact, the event set a new record for
the most drivers to lead the race, 15 out of the 33 competing were in the lead
at some point!
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| Alonso in the lead again at lap 130! |
We were supporting Alonso and cheering for all of the Brits
left in the race. It had been looking
good for the Spaniard. Each time there was a re-start he took a little while to
get up to pace so we were hoping for stop to the incidents. Eventually, the stops took their toll and
with only 20 laps left, Alonso’s engine failed.
Disaster! It was unfortunate
because we wanted to prove the guys next to us wrong – who specifically said
they didn’t want an F1 driver on the Indy podium (cheek). Simon ran down to the fence and got this video of Alonso walking past after the end of his race:
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| Brit Max Chilton was in the lead at lap 139, among others! |
With Alonso out, we turned our attention to Brit Max Chilton
who had benefited from the repeated breaks and ended up in first place behind
the safety car with only 12 laps to go.
Could he keep the lead for the last few laps?
Sadly not, he came in fourth narrowly missing a spot on the
podium. But there was a brand new winner and an ex-F1 driver, interestingly
enough, in Takuma Sato of Japan. A
worthy winner, it came down to the final few laps with intense competition.
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| Finishing order |
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| Takuma Sato being taken for his victory lap - he looks happy enough - well, he is the first ever Asian winner of the Indy 500 |
Our seats had put us in a great position to be able to stand
by Gasoline alley where all of the cars and drivers come past after the end of
the race:
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| You heard all about him yesterday - the gentleman in the white shirt is legendary driver, AJ Foyt |
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| Alexander Rossi, last year's winner walks dejectedly back to the garages after missing out on two-in-a-row |
The venue put out a severe weather warning – those storms
that had conveniently stayed away for the entire race were going to catch us
now. I wasn't sure if the announcement was just a way to get everyone to leave...
We were back in the RV well before the thunderstorms but the
additional torrential rain was doing no favours for those trying to leave the
venue tonight. We watched out of the
window as people all around us got stuck in
the mud as the majority of people tried to leave.
Why are they in such a rush? It’s
a Public Holiday tomorrow, Memorial Day, they could have stayed another night!
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| Karri tests how deep the water has got.... |
Eventually the rain stopped, but the ground looked like it
couldn’t get any wetter. It reminded me of Glastonbury Festival last year. It was that bad! But we weren’t going to let
that stop us enjoying our last night of Indianapolis carnage where we?! Maybe
it was a little more sedate than the previous evening but we had to try and
finish the barrels of cocktails made by our neighbours. They couldn’t do it alone.
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