Time Warp Thursday: Watkins Glen 2016

Before we begin, I’d like to give a huge thank you to loyal reader Alex for commissioning this classic race review. If you’d like me to watch your favorite race next, head on over to my Ko-fi and place your order. Thanks again, Alex!

———

Today’s theme music: “All You Are Is History” by State Champs

It’s Time Warp Thursday once again, and this time, we’re heading back to September 4th, 2016, when the summer of Pokémon Go was winding down, the Chicago Cubs were gearing up for their iconic curse-breaking October, and everyone was miserable because the news was full of beloved celebrities dying and obnoxious fascists rising to power. (Seriously, how this became the big nostalgia year of the 2010s is beyond me.) Meanwhile, in the IndyCar Series, it had been a year of surprises, and this weekend was the latest in a string of them. Two weeks prior, thunderstorms had pushed the Pocono 500 to a Monday race. The week afterward, the series scrambled back to Texas Motor Speedway to complete a rain-suspended race that had sat in stasis since June. Finally, after the collapse of the intended seaside street race in Boston several months prior, Labor Day weekend instead saw the series make a surprise return to the iconic Watkins Glen in upstate New York, fresh off a repave the year prior.

Fortunately, once the IndyCar Grand Prix at the Glen got rolling, there were no further hitches, and those watching on NBCSN were treated to record-breaking speeds, a tour de force from one of the circuit’s all-time kings, and a pivotal moment in the National Championship fight. So before the war for the guitar in Nashville this weekend, let’s look back at the ups, downs, and all-arounds from the Empire State’s past and see what we unearth.

Dixon makes lightning strike twice

In a livery that brought back Chip Ganassi Racing’s lightning bolt livery of late ‘90s CART, Scott Dixon looked as unstoppable as any of the drivers involved in that dynasty. After starting from pole position for the 25th time in his career, Dixon had the #9 Chevrolet going so fast on the first two stints that you’d be forgiven for thinking he was actually The Flash. Nobody ever got ahead of him on anything other than pit strategy, and the gaps he pulled in his 50 out of 60 laps led had to be seen to be believed.

Things got a little trickier on the final stop, when Hélio Castroneves jumped Dixon off pit row, but the Iceman got an assist from teammate Tony Kanaan. The #10 was effectively out of it, having gone a lap down due to a broken tow link earlier in the race, so TK played the team game on the restart. Kanaan stayed out as most of the field pitted so he would be directly in front of Castroneves, waited until the caution was almost over, then pulled into the pit lane at the last corner. That threw off Hélio’s timing, allowing the Kiwi future knight to easily shoot past when the race went green. From there, it was a simple matter of mileage for the whole field, and if you’re in a fuel-saving contest with Dixon, you’ve already lost.

Thus, by a whopping 16 seconds, the Iceman came home for his second win of the year, his fourth at the Glen, and his 40th career win in American championship open-wheel. Dixon’s shot at consecutive National Championships may have officially ended just short of the finale at Sonoma, but he raged against that dying of the light and forced his elimination to be on tiebreakers rather than points. When his career finally ends and we look back on his greatest victories, this will surely be near the top of the list.

Newgarden solid for silver

Not long after this race, Josef Newgarden would make the seismic move to replace Juan Pablo Montoya at Team Penske and go from beloved underdog to one of the winningest drivers of the DW-12 era. At this point, though, we didn’t know that, and Newgarden was on the penultimate drive of his contract with Ed Carpenter. While not a threat for the win, he did run well throughout the day, and despite his frustration with having to hit fuel numbers down the end, he snagged 2nd on track when finally allowed to go for it and secured the fourth and final podium of what, at that time, was his best season in IndyCar. Given that, it’s not hard to see why he went supernova in the years that followed.

Castroneves makes a splash

If Dixon’s win hadn’t been pre-ordained by the racing gods, Hélio Castroneves might have pulled it off. Even with his pit crew releasing the #3 early on one stop despite Roger Penske’s personal instruction not to do so, the raw pace was there to compete, and the fuel gamble on the final stop may well have paid off if things went differently. But between Kanaan’s savvy interference, Dixon’s overwhelming speed, and a lack of any further yellows, Castroneves had to give up a two-second gap to splash and dash. Good fortune from there put him back on the podium, completing a Chevrolet sweep, and on the short end of a tiebreaker with Dixon for 3rd on the year.

Daly thrives off fuel chaos

In today’s state of play, the Honda and Chevrolet engines are generally considered about on par, with the Honda being slightly more efficient on fuel and the Manufacturers’ Cup coming down more to driver performance than the badge on their car. This was not the case ten years ago, when Chevy ran rampant and Honda only won two races all year. The discrepancy was on display once again here, but the scramble for everybody to try and make fuel numbers produced some curveballs. Chief among them was that Conor Daly, nearing the end of his first full-time season with Dale Coyne Racing, managed the best finish among Hondas. In fact, Coyne comprised two of the three Manufacturers’ Cup contributors, as Daly’s teammate, RC Enerson, came home 9th, the best finish of the Florida teen’s brief IndyCar career. Daly even could have made the podium had he not run out of fuel, but he was able to at least coast to the line in 4th.

Bourdais’s recovery day

As the green flag flew for the first time, future IMSA GTD champion Jack Hawksworth locked up into turn 1 and made it four wide. That obviously didn’t go, and while nobody wrecked out, multiple big guns had their trajectories thrown wildly off track, including Juan Pablo Montoya and Sébastien Bourdais, the latter of whom lost half a lap trying to get back facing the right way. However, he had the pace and the crew behind him to let the race come back to him, and with steady work and a little luck, Bourdais wheeled the KVSH #11 Chevrolet to 5th, which turned out to be the team’s final top-5 before its dissolution.

Pagenaud makes the cull of the century

Mathematically speaking, Simon Pagenaud entered his 100th career start with a whopping seven drivers still mathematically in the hunt to take his National Championship lead. Chief among them was red-hot teammate Will Power, who’d matched the Frenchman with four wins apiece and got to start on the front row while Pagenaud began in 7th. However, Pagenaud would take advantage of the opening chaos to rocket up to 4th almost immediately, soon overtook Power, and ran decently enough the rest of the way to finish where he started. By doing so, Pagenaud wiped everybody except Power out, paving the way for a championship-clinching drive two weeks later.

Miscellaneous Misfortunes: no Spin and Win, just winners who spin

The final stint got a bit slapstick out there, as despite the slower speed, we saw multiple incidents that could have easily ended the race under yellow involving legends of the sport. The first happened for Juan Pablo Montoya, who’d been on a bit of a yo-yo path around the order ever since his involvement in the opening chaos, and who spun and lost a ton of positions with just a few laps remaining. For all his winning ways at this track in NASCAR, his lone attempt in an open-wheeler was only good for 12th.

The second, and the scarier of the two, took place shortly after the white flag, when Takuma Sato spun and ended up driving the wrong way to try and find a place to turn around. Taku needed multiple attempts to get himself facing the other way, and were all very lucky he did, because it could have led to Scott Dixon colliding head-on with him at speed, possibly preventing Sato’s iconic Indy 500 win the next year.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: don’t touch Kimball, he plays pinball

The first and most bizarre DNF of the day went to Soviet-born Russian Mikhail Aleshin. He’d apparently used all his remaining luck on the year to get the pole and runner-up at Pocono, because towards the end of his 14th lap, the left rear tire violently exploded without warning, sending Aleshin spinning into the wall and debris flying everywhere. This worked out poorly for Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, who were caught out by the yellow, but great for Scott Dixon, who’d pitted right beforehand and immediately inherited the lead back.

Also riding a recent oval high was Graham Rahal, who at this point in time had a legitimate case as Honda’s best driver in the series. A week prior, he’d taken an electrifying victory at the finally-finished Texas 600, which remains his most recent oval win to date. This time, however, he wouldn’t be so lucky. In a heated battle for position with Charlie Kimball, Kimball stayed left out of turn 1 to allow Rahal practically the entire track. However, Rahal ignored all that room to his right, ran into Kimball’s side, and pinballed off into the tire barrier, bringing out the caution yet again on lap 19, and Rahal’s subsequent attempts to split the blame for the incident between the two drivers frankly rang hollow.

Kimball did, however, have more blame to shoulder in the other accident he was involved in. Will Power entered as the reigning local champion, having won IndyCar’s last visit to the Glen in 2010, and needed a good points day to keep up with his teammate and rival Pagenaud. However, Power slipped back into the lower-midpack, and in trying to hold off a hard-charging Kimball, he stayed left at a point where most drivers would’ve moved right to defend. Kimball, who was so far left he was in the grass, turned right to get stable again and hooked Power into a concrete wall, causing the final caution of the day and setting up the fuel-focused final stints everybody had to run. It was understandable once Kimball explained his thinking, but it was still a grisly scene, and Power was lucky to get away safely enough to run Sonoma.

Finally, we have something that wasn’t officially scored as a DNF, but was too dramatic and subsequently comedic not to mention. After Castroneves splashed and dashed, James Hinchcliffe looked on track to finish 2nd, and still had the podium in his grasp after Newgarden’s move. However, with just a few corners to go, the Schmidt Peterson #5 Honda ran out of fuel, and unlike Daly, Hinch didn’t have enough momentum in it to get the car to the line. After throwing his wheel away in disappointment, Hinchcliffe would technically reach the finish line, but only by waiting for Bourdais to come back around on the cooldown lap, climbing onto one of the sidepods, and taking a taxi ride into the pits.

Final Score: 8/10

Watching this race, the laps absolutely flew by, and not just because Dixon was clicking them off at such an absurd rate. The winner here was predictable, but there was enough going on behind him to keep things interesting, even after the strategy calculus completely changed on the final yellow and the race stopped being about laughing at how completely Dixon was leaving everybody in the dust. I can only imagine how much more gripping it would be if I’d been following this all in real time and had the chance to fully get caught up in the drama and suspense of that year’s title fight.