Today’s question: Alex Palou winning the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship and Colton Herta earning his first oval victory grabbed plenty of attention last Sunday at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Presented by Gainbridge. What else grabbed your eye at Nashville Superspeedway?
Curt Cavin: Let’s be honest in saying there were some who doubted how good the racing would be in the return to the Milwaukee Mile and Nashville Superspeedway, but those two ovals, plus World Wide Technology Raceway, offered some of the best action the series has seen in recent years. The four races held at those tracks in the stretch run combined to have 2,759 on-track passes, an average of nearly 689.8 per race, and it’s even more impressive when considering the total number of laps (966). Do the math: That’s nearly three passes for position per lap, and there were many memorable moments, including Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward dueling for the lead late in Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Presented by Gainbridge. Four different drivers representing three different teams won those races, too, and the final five races overall, including the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland, saw five different race winners, an incredible example of the elite talent behind the wheel. Bottom line: The final march to the championship was about everything one could have hoped for.
Eric Smith: The aspect that caught my attention the most was that we may be in for a changing of the guard. Yes, Scott Dixon, Will Power and Josef Newgarden combined for seven victories in 17 races this season, including marquee events at Long Beach (Dixon) and the Indianapolis 500 (Newgarden). Also, Newgarden finished third in the race at Nashville. But Dixon and Power finished 17th and 24th, respectively. Colton Herta (24 years old) won the race on a day that Alex Palou (27 years old) won his second consecutive championship and third in the last four years. Pato O’Ward (25 years old) finished second in the race to Herta. Another 25-year-old, Kyle Kirkwood, won NTT P1 Award honors Saturday and led the most laps by pacing the field for 67 of 206 laps Sunday while finishing fourth. Those weren’t fluke results. Herta had two wins, a career-high six podiums this season and nine top-six finishes in the final 11 races. O’Ward had two top-two finishes in the final three races to go with a runner-up finish in the “500.” Kirkwood had career high totals in top-five finishes (five) and top-10 finishes (13). While Dixon flashed championship potential at times and Power had the best shot to knock Palou off in the finale, both made too many mistakes to add another title to their highly decorated resumes. With how the final half of the season went, Nashville showed the “youth movement” may be here to stay for 2025.
Paul Kelly: For the last decade or longer, the NTT INDYCAR SERIES has featured a “big three” or “big four” teams consisting of a combination of Chip Ganassi Racing, Team Penske, Andretti Global and Arrow McLaren. Penske, Ganassi or Andretti drivers have won every single season title since the sport unified in 2008. Drivers from those teams combined to win all 17 races this season. But I’m getting the sense after Nashville that another team could crash that party in 2025 – AJ Foyt Racing. The team clearly has benefited from its technical partnership with Team Penske, as Santino Ferrucci drove a Foyt car into the top 10 in the final season standings for the first time since 2002 with Airton Dare. It feels like it’s a matter of “when,” not “if,” Santucci earns his first NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory. That win could come at his traditional stronghold of ovals or on a road course, as he won the NTT P1 Award at Portland on pure pace. Adding David Malukas to the team in 2025 creates a sneaky-good, all-American lineup for Super Tex. While it may be a stretch for Foyt’s team to topple Penske or Ganassi for the title, it won’t be a shock to see Ferrucci and Malukas battling with the big boys all season.