Story and photos by Tim Adams
NTT IndyCar Series Rev Group Grand Prix Presented by American Medical Response. Wow, that was quite a mouthful. The Rev Group was the presenting sponsor of this year’s IndyCar race at Road America in a tribute to first responders, Fire, EMS, and Police. IndyCar was joined as usual by the Road to Indy series support racers in USF2000, Indy Pro 2000, and Indy Lights, as well as the Mazda MX-5 and Radical Cup racers.
The Wisconsin weather was amazing with comfortable temperatures all weekend, and in a coincidence of impeccable timing, no rain until about fifteen minutes after the IndyCar race ended.
Coming into the race at Road America, Alexander Rossi was a little miffed. In the previous four races he had finished second in three of them, one of them being oh so close to winning his second Indianapolis 500. He also had to continue to answer questions if he was going to resign with Andretti Racing. Rossi is this year’s biggest so-called free agent in IndyCar. In qualifying however Rossi would be upstaged by a teenager. Colton Herta driving for Harding Steinbrenner Racing, took the pole becoming the youngest pole winner in IndyCar history. Rossi was second with the usual suspects from Penske Racing, Will Power, and Josef Newgarden third and fourth. Fan favorite Graham Rahal rounded out the top five.
On race day Rossi clearly made up for the frustrations of the previous four races and his qualifying effort. At the race start Herta and Rossi were side by side coming down the front straight into turn 1, by the time they exited turn 3 it was over. Rossi was in the lead and never looked back, winning by 30 seconds. The race was 55 laps, Rossi lead 54 of them! The only time he lost the lead was for one lap during the last round of pit stops. It was complete domination. In a real rarity the race was caution free.
As usual there was a very large crowd on hand to enjoy all the races during the race weekend. After the split between CART and the IRL Road America was abandoned as a race on the schedule. They are firmly back as one of the premier tracks to watch IndyCar. The television ratings also were very, very good. Excluding the Indianapolis 500, it was the most watched IndyCar race on NBC.
In the months following the race Alexander Rossi did indeed resign with Andretti Racing, and McLaren Racing announced that it is returning to IndyCar racing full time teaming up with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. The leader of their IndyCar effort will be former Indy 500 winner Gil de Ferran.
If you enjoy open wheel racing and want to experience it at one of America’s most beautiful tracks, make your reservations now for the third weekend in June at Road America in Elkhart Lake Wisconsin.
