Barber in the Rain

It could have been a great weekend for IndyCar. A Sunday afternoon race with very little head-to-head TV competition, on a beautiful road course in Alabama, with drivers still fuming from the last event. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other ideas. Still, fans were treated to a good race with more than one unpredictable turn of events, amd some good passing thrown in as well.

You never like to say the top story was the weather, because that usually means something bad happened. But the rain was the story of the race for a number of reasons. The lengthy rain delay closed a normally open TV window and forced race control to make this a timed event rather than one with a set number of laps. Timed races are nothing new, and they are certainly done with great success in other motorsports. Scott Dixon was critical of the decision because it forced teams to revisit the strategy they had originally planned. I think the rain forced all teams to alter their original strategy, so at least that leveled the playing field a bit.

The rain also separated the rookies from the veterans, and showed that experience in the rain does matter. Mikhail Aleshin spun twice (once with the help of Sebastien Bourdais--more on that later), and his late crash forced the race to end under caution. Carlos Munoz spun during a caution, as he had difficulty adjusting to his new red tires on a slick track. He would later re-enter the race but exit shortly thereafter with mechanical issues. Carlos Huertas also spun off the track. Only Jack Hawksworth seemed to avoid trouble, which further cements how impressive he has been so far this year. But all in all, it was not a good day for the rookies.

I'll be honest, I completely expected Will Power to run away with the race. He had the pole and quickly started distancing himself from the rest of the pack. But he proved, as runner-up Marco Andretti noted, that he is human and does occasionally make mistakes. It's still amazing that he managed to avoid crashing into the wall of tires and was able to drive back onto the track, losing only a few seconds to Hunter-Reay. He wound up finishing fifth, which is a great result considering what happened or what could have been.

Speaking of Marco, how impressive was he? He made a wickedly good pass on Power and might have challenged Hunter-Reay for the lead had there been one final restart. He proved he can compete with the big boys and beat them. But Tony Kanaan might have had the drive of the day, finishing ninth after starting last.

Race control will have some more explaining to do after they opted to penalize Bourdais for punting Aleshin when it was still wet. Bourdais' move looked no more egregious than some of the non-calls at Long Beach, so it's difficult to follow or predict the thinking at this point. There's no denying that Bourdais made contact with Aleshin, but was it "unavoidable?" Especially considering the wet conditions? I'm not convinced of that.

I did not want the race to end under caution, but I understand why it did and I can accept that. Once the decision is made to run a timed, 1:40 race, you can't change that. Teams developed their strategies around that set endpoint, and I think it added an extra layer of intrigue (it at least allowed Sebastian Saavedra to lead a few laps!). Fans had to be disappointed but that's racing. There are always a thousand "what if's" after each race, such as "what if Aleshin hadn't crashed?" Well if Aleshin hadn't crashed Hunter-Reay would likely still have won, by more than a 5-second margin it would seem. Four minutes doesn't seem like a long time to clean up a wreck when it happens in the middle of the race, but at the end it can feel like an eternity. You want to egg the safety crew on and tell them to hustle, but safety should be the priority and that takes time to do it right. The real story was that the race needed to conclude so that NBC Sports Network could start its scheduled (and important) playoff hockey game on time. The outcry they would receive from hockey fans would far outweigh the number of complaints from IndyCar fans, so that decision was understandable. If we don't want our races to be dictated by television, then perhaps we should consider going to pay-per-view. That would certainly eliminate the ridiculous amount of commercials we saw during the race--and almost all without side-by-side action!

Despite the outcome of the race being influenced by outside factors, Ryan Hunter-Reay was the star of Barber Motorsports Park once again. Once Will Power went offroading, RHR roared past and never looked back. He clearly had a superior car all weekend, and capped off a strong qualifying effort with a repeat win at Barber. What a nice way to rebound from his mishap at Long Beach.