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The May Hangover Part 2

The May Hangover Part 2

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi May 29, 2025 38 min
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About this episode

The hosts dive into the highs and lows of the 109th Indianapolis 500, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from race day, including intense moments like a fuel fire in the pits and gearbox failure ending a promising run. They reflect on the thrilling but chaotic race finish, the impressive drive by Alex Palou, and the emotional impact of Scott Dixon's record-breaking start. The episode also highlights the incredible production efforts by Fox and the growing momentum of IndyCar, while addressing fan interactions and some controversial moments during the event.

Topics: indianapolis 500 race day gearbox failure and pit fire alex palou's performance scott dixon record start race strategy and yellows fan interactions and autograph challenges fox broadcast production race finish controversies driver mental toughness indycar momentum and attendance
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This is, is off track.
Coughing up the blackest. It is disgusting.
Yummy. Oh, dude.
Hello. And welcome to the Hangover 500 part two.
You can leave that in there.
Yeah. I, I was hoping he was
gonna, I sound like <inaudible>.
You're coughing up a bunch. <inaudible>.
Yeah. Tim always just looks like
<inaudible>.
Yeah, good for us. Good for us. We're killing it guys.
Um, all right. Susan is, we're on fire. This is shut up.
Hey, Timbo. I just want you
to know, you know, we're kidding, right? We really love you.
I mean, I'll take it, but sometimes it doesn't feel that way.
No, I know . I Know.
No, I know. It's the last time I'm gonna say
it. I'm gonna go back to
Fun of each other.
That's friends too. Got an massively worded email about Tim,
um, sent to my website, which is, which is pretty funny. What,
Did you not share this with the group? I don't think I saw this.
No, I Didn't. He told me
about it, but I haven't seen it.
Do you wanna read it out to the crowd or is it ? It's pretty bad.
Really? Yeah. Alright, let's not read it out to the crowd.
I love my fans. . Oh yeah.
I did get one fan, um, who asked you to sign a hat to, uh, commit to Burning the Hat, so, yeah.
Oh yeah. She's no longer a fan. Yeah.
Yeah, dude, I met her. I met her in, uh, barber. Yeah.
Great people. Great people.
Do we ever get any follow up from the, the young lady that was at the live show that got you to autograph her person and claimed she was gonna get that tattooed?
Did we ever get a follow on That?
We have not. And for the love of God, if you're listening,
don't do that, ma Don't have to explain to people for the rest of your life.
Okay. So there's this podcast
and this guy that nobody really likes, and he doesn't really talk all that much.
Um, he's, he's not his name. Not on the show. .
Yeah. It's, it's really, it's really,
you wouldn't wanna do that or get a massive cigar on your bicep for really no good reason. Nobody
Here has a cigar in their bicep.
It's, I have a pipe on my bicep .
Um, yeah, you also brought up the, you also brought up the great point of having to go home and explain to your girlfriend why some other woman has your name tattooed on her body, , which for that reason, I kind of wanted her to do it.
That was gonna be a funny thing that To watch you Have To dance.
Yeah. My agreement was like, I,
it would be funny if I then got this random woman's signature tattooed on my arm, but then I did imagine that.
I did imagine having to have that conversation.
I'm like, no, no, no. I just met her. Uh, yeah, ,
It's not what you think. I don't even know her.
It's so much dumber than you think.
It's so much worse. Uh, cool.
Well, yeah, ma'am, if you're listening, please, uh, uh, send me, uh, send him a message at, at ask off track and let us know if you did in fact go through with it.
Um, please, please don't. I've done it. Um, okay.
Indy 500, let's start at the top.
How was, how did you sleep?
I, I slept good.
Um, I was, I was woken a little bit too early, um, because bless his heart, my bus driver, uh, so listen, so Kelly and, and, and Ben stayed at home.
Um, my dad and, and company stayed at a hotel.
And because Kelly and I and Ben were separated, um, we, there's only two spots to park out in front of the bus.
Right. And so she was gonna be coming,
my dad was gonna be coming.
I also couldn't have a car there, so my dad dropped me off.
Um, so there was no cars in front of the bus.
So at about 4 45 in the morning when I guess my bus driver arrived, he didn't realize that anyone was there, um, because there was no cars in front, even though, where else would I be?
So he came on and I was awake.
So that was a little bit sad, but it's okay.
'cause I would've been woken up anyways by the cannon.
And this year I actually was awake and outside for the cannon and the fireworks, which was kind of nice.
It was kind of cool to see that in person instead of just a video of it.
So, I don't know. I'm trying
to find the silver linings here.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
That's a very un unusual thing to do.
And I, and I respect it, um, because it was An honest mistake. He didn't mean to. Yeah,
No, no, for sure.
Um, but, you know, my opinion on the, the fireworks, the cannon is the cannon.
I get that. The fireworks.
I will say, I will say they, they must have listened to someone's bitching because the fireworks the past, like two or three years have been like a good 92nd program.
At least. At least they were like 20 seconds this year.
All right. This is my first time, one being up in time
and two, not being hungover.
Uh, so I, I could hear them all going off from, uh, from my mom's place.
It was kind of nice. Oh,
That's cool.
That's interesting. Uh, okay,
so you slept okay, just not long enough.
And then you got to see the candidates, which was great.
Um, and then was your race morning all business?
Or did you have any, did you have to like, do any meet and greets or Had to do a lot of meet and greets?
Had to do a lot of media hits, but listen, it's part of it.
Um, I, I love, I love, I'm just, I'm, I, I, Sunday morning of the Indy 500 is so cool that like, none of it really matters.
Um, I will say a couple fans really upset me.
Um, and I mean this in, in the nicest way, but like, we're, we're there all month, you know, where we are, you know, you know, practice days and we're there for the autograph session on Legends Day, and we're always out and about, right?
When it's like 40 minutes before driver intros and we're scooting around to trucks to change or to go to the bus to get loved ones or to do X, Y, and Z.
And we apologize that we can't stop to sign something 'cause we don't have time.
And then to get the fuck you is really uncalled for, because it's like, really?
Oh, it's, it's just like we need to tone down a little bit of the entitlement.
Like Yeah. Yeah. We, we have stuff to do.
And I'm sorry I'm not gonna be late for those things because you need a starting grid signed.
Yeah. So like, that's all, that's all I have to say.
Just read the room a little bit, um, if, if you're in that situation.
But that being said, uh, Sunday morning, race day morning is, is the best, um, is the best day.
I think it's better than Christmas.
You know, that episode we had with Joey a couple weeks ago, he compared it to Christmas.
I think it's better than Christmas.
I love every second of it.
Um, so yeah, it was, it was pretty chill.
I watched F1 kids for the first time.
I didn't even know that was a thing.
Um, yeah, based on ESPN two. I thought that was pretty cool.
I honestly preferred it to the main broadcast just 'cause the graphics were funny. , .
Wait, so it's like what they do with the NFL.
They have a kids broadcast of F1. Yeah.
Pretty cool. Pretty cool. I mean, it,
it took an incredibly horrible and boring race and made it slightly funny and humorous.
Uh, but we're not here to talk about F1.
Um, and then, yeah, did the, did the walkout didn't, didn't take Baby Ben on the walk out.
'cause that was just gonna be too much.
Um, and sat in the green room that was sweaty and overcrowded.
Uh, mostly because Patto had like 68 people there. Um, .
And then we did driver intros, which are the highlight of being an indie car driver every single year.
You feel like a superstar, which is awesome.
And that's thanks to the sellout crowd that was there.
Um, and then the grid also 10 outta 10. Amazing.
Um, and I had the, the worst, I don't wanna say worst moment, I had some of the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life.
About 25 minutes after, um, all of the, the flyovers and the national anthem and everything Care to care to elaborate.
Dude, I had to pee. I had to pee so bad. Oh.
And I tried, I literally even unzipped my suit and put, I, I repositioned things so that like, I wasn't peeing on my leg.
I tried to do it and I couldn't do it.
I still couldn't do it. I tried to, I I had you in my head.
I was like, . You sometimes just James
saying sometimes you just gotta do it.
You have to do it. It's okay.
You, you, you're, you're gonna be, this is a bad situation.
Like if you crash, it's bad. Yeah.
You're not gonna be able to focus, blah, blah.
So I was, I was actively trying to pee on the grid and I couldn't do it.
And let me tell you something, James.
I have never experienced so many bumps at the Indy 500 during the parade and pay laps.
My right leg was shaking. I was trembling.
I was in so much pain. It was dude, horrifying.
I know that you made the Indy 500, you, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway feel like Detroit with all the bar Toronto Bus.
Dude. It was, I've never, I've never, I literally, once all
of the chaos happened, which we'll talk about in a minute, I got back to the bus and I apologized to Kelly for giving her a hard time during pregnancy about having to pee so much.
'cause I was like, this is karma coming back to bite me in the ass. .
It sucked.
So, so once we'll get back to it, but once the green flag dropped, did you just, did you just, your mind just forgot?
I mean, I, it was thinking about it less, but I still felt it.
And like, let me tell you, like, all I wanted to do was get going.
And like, I was like, when Scott had his issue, I was like, bro, I don't need more apps under yellow. I'm after,
We're already 20 minutes late getting going.
It was like 40, um, whatever.
So I I, I just have to say like, I, I don't, I don't think it was from over hydration.
Like, I think it's, it's the fact that it was a cold day, so you weren't really sweating.
You've got the nerves and the anxiety and everything.
And when you're just sitting there and there's like, there's nothing for you to think about and you're just sitting in the race car.
Like, it was, it was tough.
It was a mental, it was a mental toughness challenge.
Well, we know that you weren't the only one struggling based on the, uh, the banquet speeches.
Uh, well, Connor Daley had to, had to pull one out.
Dude, I talked to, I talked to Lucas.
He was, he was dying. Felix was dying. Ed was dying.
Like there was a lot of people, like in the future, we can't, I think we need to rethink about that process because I, I do have a serious question in terms of some of the procedures that happen.
So obviously Indianapolis, motor Speedway, IndyCar, they take, you know, moisture incredibly seriously.
Like this is like any spots of rain.
It's yellow for conditions, this sort of thing.
The track drying process is the best in the world.
You know that when you go out there and ship it at 230 miles an hour, there is zero concern that there's any sort of moisture anywhere at all.
Yes. And that is just a given.
I really need you or someone to explain to me why we had to have air titans around the entire track, but then the front straight were just like, nah, it's good.
Is it because there were, the cars were all on the track.
Yes. That is why. But like, does
that mean it doesn't need to be dried?
No, I think, I think I'm, and this is, this is just complete speculation, right?
Yeah. I'm just, yeah, I have no idea. I'm assuming that
'cause based on the amount of rain, 'cause we were obviously, you know, we're on air at this point.
We're, we have a whole schedule that is scheduled to the minute based on X, Y, Z and we're now like in chaos 'cause it's delayed.
But I was looking out the window at the ground outside the booth and the amount of rain on the front strait was not a lot.
It was enough obviously, to have the delay. Certainly.
Um, but the way I see it was they were probably just waiting for the front rate to dry naturally.
And then out of an abundance of caution figured while we're down, let's just have the titans in the corners making sure everything's good.
But they didn't go. That's a
Great, that's a great argument.
You know, and like, Hey, we're sitting here anyway.
Let's just, 'cause it's also like, maybe it was raining way more in three.
Yep. And so they needed it there. That's a very good point.
You know, I guess, I guess the question stems from the fact that, do we think it is at all possible that what happened to Scott is a result of the front straight not being completely dry?
I'm just speculation here.
I don't know because I watched the onboard.
I'm sure you watched the onboard.
It's not like it was a big Buda throttle with some wheel spin.
I don't know, I'm maybe he just screwed up.
That's also possible. But like, it, it just, it, it seemed,
it seemed weird, right?
I mean, it's, it's cold, right?
It was the second coldest or third coldest 500.
Coldest 500 since the puls sitter spun right on the back strait. But
Yeah.
But he didn't spank in the back strait.
No. Yeah. Fair. I
Mean, that's a great point.
That's a great point. I don't know, I don't know the answer
to that and I don't think we'll ever know the answer to that.
No, I, but let's get to that heartbreaking Wow, dude.
Wow. And he said it best, like he wouldn't wish
that on his worst enemy.
Yeah. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
Like, I felt so sad for him.
I felt so sad driving by and seeing him like his head in his hands.
Like, just, there's no words for that.
There's not, man. It was, it was crushing,
like looking at the pictures, you know, watching him just in the grass there.
And, and I, I give a lot of credit to the safety team too.
'cause, you know, there was a member of the safety team kind of crouched down there beside 'em, not rushing them.
You know, they're like, we're still fronting the car out.
You, you take your time, man.
Like, it, it sounds so corny, but unless you've done it, unless you've done this race and know what this race means from inside the car, it's so hard to explain to people what that feeling must be like.
I mean, crashing out of it at any face of the race is devastating.
Right. Well,
I remember you saying after you didn't qualify, you're like, I've watched plenty of races after crashing early.
Right. Like, once it gets going, you know, I've, I've had
that experience, but to not be there for the start is a different level. Yeah, yeah.
And like, yeah, I mean there's the, you know, there's the year Connor burnt to the ground before the, the start happened.
That's one thing. But when it was like something
that could just be rooted down to a small mistake or misjudgment or whatever on your part, like, oh man.
But you know what? He handled it really well.
I thought his interview was really good.
I thought his speech at the banquet was really good.
He's already back to the levity side of things.
So, you know, it's one of those deals.
You, you cry yourself to sleep.
You have a Coors Light about it, and then you get on with your, with your year, you know?
Yeah. Um, so, okay, so that was
before the green flag happened.
Um, then the green flag happened and Marco's Day was done pretty early, which is super sad for him on year 20, um, of, of doing five hundreds a situation that was kind of out of his control.
I don't blame Jack either.
Like it was just one of those Yeah. The car one
Spot Jack, Jack moved and there's just nowhere to go for sure.
Robert Schwarzman did a great job, uh, leading the field to green.
I mean, when you think about the fact that he, uh, he obviously first time on Pole, first time on a Noval, uh, first time at the 500, probably fifth time he's ever done a rolling start.
Like he, he did the all of that very well. He, um, yeah.
So props to him. Uh, can we talk about, taking a step back
for a second, how sick having two black hawks over the field, was that the shoppers?
That was, that was the coolest thing I've ever, I've ever seen.
That lap was insane. Yeah.
And this is what I was alluding to on the, the live show thing was having the helicopters there, and I gotta, I'm, I'm gonna call him out.
This was the, this was something that Eric Shanks really wanted to see and Wouldn't I idea?
He made some, made some calls and made it happen.
And dude, it was awesome.
Can we have that every year? How's at no point though?
Did somebody be like, uh, look, I thought it was awesome.
It was so cool. Felt like a pretty high risk move if
something goes wrong with those Blackhawks that low.
Nah, dude. They're Blackhawks
Worth the risk. Okay.
Yeah, It's like the most capable helicopter on earth.
It was so cool. It was Very
Cool. It was so cool.
So yes. So that was outrageously awesome.
And then, uh, okay.
And then, dude, I don't remember, I can't even keep track of who crashed when because we just had so many incidents after that.
Hmm. Um, why don't, why don't you walk us through your
start and then Yeah.
Um, ultimately End.
Yeah. So we, uh, I mean there's not a whole lot
of details other than, um, when it went yellow for conditions, I think, um, we were at 20 odd laps, uh, in the stint.
So over half tanks.
So a lot of people took that yellow, um, ECR went all in on the, the staying out strategy, which was, I mean, brave, uh, to do it with all three cars.
Um, the reason for it was, yes, we were past half tanks, but a lot of those laps were under yellow.
So even though we were past half tanks from a lap count standpoint, we weren't really past half tanks.
We were kind of add half tanks.
So it was a, it was a a a y in the road, which always happens at the Indy 500.
Um, and it was working, it was working really well for us because there was a couple, there was a couple takers that went with us.
So, um, when you do that strategy, the biggest fear is you're kinda left alone.
Um, and you don't have a tow.
And so you're a, not going that fast, and b, you're not saving that much fuel.
Um, but it was obviously the three ECR cars, uh, Jack Harvey Devlin, um, were playing ball as well.
And a couple, maybe one or two others, I forget who.
Um, and so we were actually, at the time, Pata was, was kind of the leader.
Um, and so we were referencing everything based on, on what the five car was doing from a, from a pace standpoint.
And we were, I mean, we were doing two 20 twos kind of all working together, saving fuel.
And he was back there doing kind of two seventeens, two eighteens.
So, um, we were gonna have a, a pretty sizable assu.
I mean, you, you never know how yellows are gonna fall.
And ultimately the way the yellows fell, um, that strategy blew up.
That doesn't mean that that would've happened if we stayed in it.
'cause I think this, the yellow for my car slash reus was a problem for that strategy.
Anyways, long story short, in the moment, um, it was coming to us really well.
And, and, and, and the sad part is like the car was, was really good.
Um, so it was certainly one of those days that you look back on and, and you feel sad because, um, you didn't get to see how it played out and, and you had a, a pretty good, uh, uh, you know, feeling of, of the car underneath you and, and you kinda do what you needed to do with it.
So, uh, what ultimately happened was, um, a snap ring in the gearbox, uh, failed, which meant that the final drive gear, um, was moving back and forth and ultimately eating a hole in the gearbox.
Um, which started to leak oil and lose gearbox pressure.
And the gearbox temp was obviously pegged because of that.
And so they kind of gave me a heads up that the gearbox temp was, was super high, like two laps before anything bad started to happen.
And, um, I was like, all right, well, let me know what we need to do.
Like, it still was running fine and everything seemed to be behaving as it was.
Um, and then the lap before I came in and turned four, like I had a, a big like, snap of overseer.
That was pretty random. Um, so I kinda reported that
and they, they called me in, um, turns out the thing was pissing oil all over the rear axle and, and tires and, and that sort of thing.
Um, and so we came in and pretty much knew the day was done.
Um, but in case it was a situation where like an oil plug was had come off and it just needed to be topped up with oil.
Like we went through the process of, um, doing a tire change and refueling the car in case it was a, a fast fix.
Right. And which is pretty standard,
standard operating procedure when you don't know what the exact issue is.
Um, and where things got a little bit outta hand was apparently there, there, so there's a vent tube that is on top of the main fuel hose.
Um, and that was not, uh, attached.
And so my fueler mike, uh, by hand, 'cause when you plug the red eye in, it's obviously flowing at a pretty high rate of force.
Um, so he tried to just manually hold the vent hose on, um, but when it, it's a pressure fill, and so when it vents, it's quite a lot of pressure that that puts the excess fuel kind of back in the tank.
And so it blew it off even though he had his hand on it.
And then obviously hot fuel, um, on a hot car, or sorry, fuel on a hot car, um, is, is a recipe for things to ignite.
And it did. Um, fortunately, uh, everyone was fine.
It was obviously a, a scary moment, especially for Mike for for a second there.
Um, but he got away with it with very kind of minor burns on his hands.
Um, and, and he, he was cleared from the medical center and all good.
And, um, I actually saw him that we're recording this on Tuesday.
So I saw him Monday at the shop, and then he's back working, preparing for Detroit.
Um, so just a really sad sequence of events for the whole team.
Um, but that's motor sports. That is, that is what it is.
Um, and, and it certainly hits a little bit harder or closer to home when, um, a someone almost gets injured and b you had a really good car.
Yeah, it was our day.
It was a tough one, man.
I mean, you guys were, you guys were rolling really well, and I, I remember we saw the smoke and we're like, damn.
And then, um, when, when they had, when we were looking at the back of the car and in the background you could see Mike pull out and I saw how much fuel came out when he pulled.
And I was like, oh, that's not good.
I'm like, maybe they shouldn't take the engine cover off yet.
Didn't even matter. They didn't even get
a chance to do that before things.
But scary stuff, man. Dude.
Also just pro to Mike Miller, the dude was fighting the fire with his ha he had a fire extinguisher trying to put the car out while his hands were on fire.
Mm-hmm . And then when he was finally like, okay,
I should probably deal with my hands being on fire, he like turned around to pit wall to like get somebody else to put his hands out.
The fire extinguisher fell off pit wall.
And so he just calmly bent down, picked it back up, and just like with one hand sprayed his own hand and then sprayed his other hand like g move, man.
It was pretty, uh, pretty cool. Um, all right.
Look, it's a 500 mile race.
A lot of stuff happened, but we're gonna, you watched it.
If you're listening to this, you probably Watch. Yeah. Let's fast forward to the
End.
Let's fast forward to the end.
I wanna cover a couple things.
Well, no, before we even get there.
Do you know who was behind you on track when your engine was blown up?
Yeah, I sure do. Your gearbox blowing up. Yeah.
Little guy by the name of Alex Palolo.
So Alex Pal's driving around in an oil field, gets through it at one point in the race, Alex Palolo made it four.
He made it four wide on the outside into turn, one did not lift, came out second of the four, one of the highest risk moves I've ever seen on another restart.
He was behind Ed and Ed. I don't know what happened to Ed.
Something weird happened to Ed.
'cause in the middle of one on a restart just completely slid up into the second lane.
Like it was not looking for air, it wasn't like a, and, and Palolo was rolling.
He was, he, he must have had to hit the brakes, which often leads to a spin if you're doing it in the middle of a corner in an indie car.
Also got so close behind Ed's car, he would've had approximately eight pounds of down force left on the thing and didn't move, kept it going like how he didn't crash there.
What I'm trying to say is Blow had a very, very action packed event filled day and avoided disaster in the most Scott Dixon esque way, like three times at least that we caught before even getting to the fight.
At the end, I want to give a huge shout out to Ryan Hunter, Ray and DRR because Ryan Hunter Ray, I'm sorry, he, Ryan Hunter Ray was gonna win the Indy 500.
He was gonna win the Indy 500 with a, with a car that was a pit stop practice car as of Friday.
And that team pulled that thing outta the shop, got it back, you know, got it together.
The first lap that car ever did at speed was lap one.
Well, not lap one of the race, the first green lap of the race.
They got a bit off strategy.
And it was gonna play out that on that last stop, hunter Ray was gonna come out ahead of not just the other cars.
He would've come out ahead of Dev and Louis Foster and he would've driven away from them as the rest of the guys got stuck behind them.
He would've driven away and he would've won that race by five seconds and he'd be a two time mini 500 champion.
That's obviously not what happened.
That's not how racing works.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Cani and Polo, but we said this a million times.
Dixon's one of, he's got one of the best quotes about the 500, which is you and the team have to do everything perfect just to have a sh even doing everything perfect doesn't guarantee you anything.
Right. That's just to have a shot.
Unfortunately, Ryan did not have things go perfect.
The team ran him a lap too long, from what I understand.
And the car kind of ran outta fuel as it came to Pit Lane on that last stop.
So it stalled. They couldn't get it started again.
And dude, I can't even imagine, can't even imagine.
But just huge pro to him and the team for that, that effort.
It was gonna be like an ultimate fairytale kind of story.
But instead we go back to basically it's four cars.
It was Erickson comes out in front after the last stops with the most fuel and the best tires.
You had Paolo, you had Lucas, and you had Patto.
And these guys were set up for a pretty interesting race, except we had two cars that were almost a lap down that did nothing wrong.
I want to just put this out there. They did nothing wrong.
There's no rule or precedent for them doing anything.
But what they did, however, they ruined an awesome finish to the Indy 500 battling for 19th Place or whatever.
It was totally their right to do it.
It's not their responsibility to put on a good end of the race, but objectively speaking, ruined an awesome finish to the Indy 500.
They did. They did. Um,
I I don't think it would've changed the result.
I I know that's impossible to say because Correct.
He's just at this point, Alex and the 10 car are inevitable.
Um, and so I think that he's, and this is no disrespect to Marcus or David or Patto.
He's smarter than the other three.
He's more capable than the other three and would've found a way to still be the guy.
Um, because the situation that presented itself and the move that was ultimately for the lead was so like, was so, I don't even know that, I don't even know that he made that decision.
It was just one of those situations where a, an op a glimpse of something presented itself and it was instinct that took over. Yeah. Like, I don't
Think, yeah, it wasn't even like an opportunity.
No. Yeah. It just, it just, it just happened.
It was inevitable. It just happened. It just happened.
Exactly. So that's why I think that yes, I agree with
what you're saying about Louie and Dev, but it, it, it was what it was gonna be. Um,
Right.
But I would've rather seen 14 laps of cars trading the lead and having a great race. Hundred
Percent.
Yes. I do have to bring up a comment that was made
after the race by Patto.
Um, everyone, it's on my list. Everyone knows that.
I I love that kid.
Um, got a lot of time for him, um, saying that Marcus choked, uh, is a, is a little off base, um, especially when he wasn't even in that fight, right?
I mean, there was a car between him and Marcus.
So, I mean, that's, that's a tough thing to say.
And also the move that happened, like there's no chance Marcus would've seen that coming.
Like no, I I, when I watched it back on the broadcast, I was like, wait a second.
Like, did Marcus did his car?
Like did he have an over boost? Did he hit a ter?
Like it was one of those things where it was so late and it was just so decisive that like Marcus wouldn't have seen that was, that was akin to like being passed in the short shoot.
Like it's something that was like so random and he wouldn't have been expecting it. He just, he,
He didn't, he faded right to open the corner and in the moment of opening the corner, PLO just fired it in there, right?
Like it was unbelievable. And I, I watched it
Back, wait a hundred, wait, know, 186 laps prior to that point when however many laps he's done at the 500, however many laps you do during the month of May, you're used to the rhythm and the cadence and yes, we all know it changes with 20 to go like that.
That is, there's a very different level of driving that occurs and we've all been a part of it, right?
But like, that wasn't a cadence change.
That was just some random move that again, only I think someone like him would've made because it just was an instinctual, opportunistic thing.
And so Marcus didn't choke, Marcus didn't do anything wrong.
I feel bad for Marcus because ultimately, like he could have covered that in, in hindsight, but you would've never have thought to do that.
Exactly right. And like, I, I watched it back.
I'm like, again, from the onboard, that's the one, like from the, from outside, you're like, oh yeah, he opened it up and he fires it in.
Like why did, why didn't he just like defend it more?
But when you watch it from the onboard, and again, as someone you've, when you've done it and you know it, you're like, dude, you weren't even look like you weren't even there.
No. You looked in your mirror before you opened up.
You're like, we're good and you open up to go.
And he just left this Ah, man. Crazy.
I, and I agree with you. I don't know if it would've changed
the outcome, obviously, but having those four guys all swapping positions at the front would've been a great show either way.
The uh, yeah, the inevitability of polo prevailed.
Um, and was, it was a, it was an impressive drive, man.
It was a hell of a drive.
It was a hell of a team effort and five outta the first six races.
Like what the, what the <inaudible> is that, what, Six outta first seven if you include the, the turtle race at the zoo.
I did hear that he beat you in the turtle race at the zoo and you were very upset.
Oh, I mean, I'm like, I mean, I wasn't upset.
I was just like, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah,
That tracks, that tracks. So, yeah.
Uh, hypothetical, let's say that those guys weren't there.
It had been a bunch of lead changes and somehow Marcus pulls it out.
Mm-hmm . Did they take the win
away ? We'll never know.
Thank God we never have to know the answer to that question.
That was 81 that they did, that they gave Mario the win the day after and then changed their mind.
They gave Mario the win and then it got the, I think the result changed like five months later or something. It was like September. He still has
The ring, right? ,
I heard a rumor that he threw it into the lake at his lake house in anger, Uh, super related, what'd it go Scuba diving in Mario's Lake . Um,
So this is, this has been a long episode, long two episodes.
Um, a couple, a couple final thoughts, and I'm sure you have a couple as well, James.
Um, amazing that we got back to a sellout, you know, so, so many times, um, since the hundredth, you know, Doug would reference, you know, ticket sales are on track to be higher than ever before, except for the Indy 500 or the hundredth running of the Indy 500.
And we finally got to the point where we matched that.
Um, which is just, it, it shows, I told a lot of people this, like, it shows the appetite for the sport.
It shows the, the interest level is continuing to rise.
Um, so thank you to all those that showed up.
Um, Fox Un unbelievable.
Like what, what they did for the entire pre-race.
I felt like I was watching the Super Bowl.
I felt like I was watching the college football playoffs college game day.
Like it was an incredible production, um, from start to finish.
Not that I watched the race, but I'm saying all of the lead up stuff.
Um, so hats off to you and your team James.
Um, and a couple other, a couple other things that are not positive.
Uh, we already talked about the Patto thing.
Uh, Kyle Larson, bro, not cool. Um, don't love that.
Uh, whether it was you saying it or not is irrelevant, but a thumbs up.
Mm, tough look.
Um, and yeah, uh, I think the hundred ninth running was potentially, potentially the best one I've ever been a part of.
It's hard for me to really remember 2016, um, just 'cause it was all new, so I didn't have anything to compare it to.
But 109 for me was certainly better than 101 through 108 in terms of the entire event and the feel of the event and, and everything that went on.
So, uh, I'm super proud to be a part of it.
And those are, those are the things that I have to say.
Yeah, I I echo that last point.
Um, there was, there was an energy this year that was different.
The every day was busier.
You know, opening day was busier fast. Friday was busier.
Qualifying weekend was busier.
Carb day was, carb day is always busy.
Um, and obviously the race being a sellout was, um, just, it was awesome.
Um, so I completely agree with you a lot more young people, you know, on some of those days as well, which I, I, you know, you love to see.
Um, it does feel like the sport's got a lot of momentum right now, and the series has a lot of momentum right now.
Um, like I, I agree on all, all your points.
The Larson thing was disappointing, um, and unnecessary and, you know, um, I don't, yeah, I don't really want to get into it 'cause that's an entire do an entire half episode on that.
Um, and I am gonna echo your points on Fox, man.
I think, uh, I, I want to give a huge round of applause to, to Buxton because, you know, he came into this month feeling the weight of what the Indie 500 means to the, the people that race in it, the people that work it, and the fans that show up for it or tune in to watch it.
And he really, he really carried that all month.
He carried that all winter with all the research that he did and everything.
And, and he really carried it all month.
But I thought he did an awesome job.
Uh, t Bell, Georgia, Kevin, Jamie, everybody on air, and then obviously all the, all the extra people that we had in.
But that's just for the whole month, you know, that were there pounding out practice shows and, and putting on 40 plus hours of television for everybody.
It's a huge effort. Everyone behind the scenes at Fox,
right from the top, you know, producer Pam and and director Mitch, those are two of the, the toughest jobs in the sport.
And they both did their first five hundreds.
And, uh, Jacob, Brad and, and Eric up at the top running a good ship.
The pre-race show man was incredible. I'm with you.
Like, I was blown away at the production value, the quality, what we talked about, um, that brick by Brick mini feature Oh my God, Thing.
Like, I wanna see the movie now.
Like, I want that to become a full length feature film.
Like, had goosebumps. They didn't let us
watch it before the broadcast. I,
I finally felt like IndyCar was like cool to watch.
Yes. Like everything about it was just like, this is,
this is the coolest sport in the world and it's what we've all been begging for for so long, Right?
And, uh, and so yeah, just super, super proud of the Fox team.
Um, yes, we had some, there were some technical issues that happened during the race.
I, I know a lot of you saw them 'cause we heard about it.
We know about it. We are not happy about it.
We're gonna keep working on that stuff.
But I thought overall, uh, it was a great broadcast and, uh, and it was genuinely <crosstalk> very well watched broadcast And a very we'll get, yeah.
And we'll get to that. So thank you
for everybody that tuned in.
7 million viewers average eight point Beat, the Daytona 500, Yeah.
Eight point, was it three four peak in the last couple laps of the race?
Yep. Amazing. First
or third time in 30 years, we've beat the Daytona 500, which is massive.
Massive. So again, just, just incredible momentum.
Let's keep it rolling. I do wanna know one last thing.
We, in my, we did not in my opinion cover the, or sorry, we did not cover this in the Prera show, and it was an oversight on my part and on everyone's part.
Um, I don't think we gave enough attention and gravity to the fact that Scott Dixon broke the all time start record by taking the green flag on Sunday.
408 IndyCar starts passing Mario Andretti unbelievable feat, man.
And Scott's 44. Mario retired at 54.
I'm not saying he's gonna be doing this for another 10 years, but at the same time I'm not, not saying that if He doesn't win another 500 in the next five, he's gonna be doing it for another 10.
He's gonna be keeping going. Yeah.
So just huge shout out to Scotty for just being him and everything he's accomplished.
And this is another cool milestone to add to the, uh, to the trophy case.
I'm sure we're missing a ton, but we're outta time.
And, uh, just again, thanks to everybody for May, thanks to everybody that came to the live shows.
Thanks everybody for listening to the show.
Still running into a crazy amount of people that listen to this, which is wild to me.
Hazel really thought it was funny and people who were asking me for pictures, so that was cool.
There you go. And they would know
who Hazel is, which is they Did, which Shows what thought was cool In my busts, in my best Doug Bull's impression.
363 days until the hundred 10th running of the Indianapolis 500.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
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