So, our long national racing nightmare is over, and NASCAR and IndyCar got back to racing. Long-time listeners to the show know I have an affinity for Watkins Glen International, so I was happy to see NASCAR back in action, all three top series, running there…still wish they would use “The Boot” to run the complete race course, but that’s another story.
Then there’s IndyCar in Nashville. They used a very scenic street course path, which went over the Korean Veteran’s Memorial Bridge, and Cumberland River, with the nice scenery of downtown and Broadway in many of the camera shots that NBC used in their coverage of the event.
There was the situation of trying to get the race going. The first ten laps were marred by over half of them being under caution. The driver who actually led the most laps of the event was not the winner, Marcus Ericsson, but the pacecar driver, former IndyCar driver Oriol Servia, who made sure to use the C8 Corvette Stingray for all it was worth.
This is not a massive problem, as the racing was quite good, Colton Herta was the class of the field until he locked up his brakes with five laps to go and hit a tire barrier, and then the wall, ending his bid for the win. Good to see Ericsson getting his second win this year, the first coming in Detroit, and besting his six-time champion teammate Scott Dixon to do it.
But, for next year, and for the “Big Machine Music City Grand Prix” I certainly hope there is a next year, the course, while overall good, needs to be widened a bit as it goes over by Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans. It was just too tight through that section. Not much can be done at the other end of the bridge, unless they lengthened the course, which might not be an all-together horrible idea either, by only a block or so, should do it.
Nashville, other than stringing SMI along when it comes to the historic Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, is doing a fine job of becoming a racing hub, so, tweak the course just a bit to create a better race circuit, and you’ve got a winner.
Along with that and Dover Motorsports un-mothballing Nashville Superspeedway, and things in the capitol of the Volunteer State will rival that of any state in the country.
If they’re only reading this.