Josef Newgarden Goes Back To Back At Indy

All month I called my shot saying Scott Mclaughlin was going to win the pole and race. I will settle for 1/2 this time. Josef Newgarden was fast all month long, and when the time came to make the move, he was the one on top. Big shout out to Pato O' Ward by the way. When he went sailing into Turn1 passing Josef Newgarden on the last lap, I thought it was over. Josef had a tail wind going into turn 3 and that allowed for a massive run back on Pato and he cleared him on the outside mid corner. I was in turn 3 and then saw it on the broadcast, NBC did not fill in that crowd noise, you could hear them loud and clear over the sound of the race cars.

Pato will soon be an Indy 500 winner. It took Josef 12 years to win the race and now he is a two time winner. It's insane to think it actually took Josef 12 years. That's the same distance Sam Hanks and Tony Kanaan went. When they had their stints of losing, it felt like forever. I don't know if it's because we have gotten older or it felt like forever it's because Tony could've won more than 4 times in those 12 years, but Josef's rookie year feels like 2 years ago it seems. Now he's in his mid 30's in his prime.

Penske's Achilles heel these last 10 years in the DW12 era have always been qualifying. We see time and time again they're fast on race day, but when it was qualifying weekend they were always mid pack. They turned up that performance this year. A complete Penske front row lockout. Only twice has a team locked out the front row. Both being Penske and the last was 1988. The Yellow Submarine led the field to the Green both times, but this time the Yellow Submarine did not win, it was the other Shell car.