Author:3-Wide
8/18/2022 6:34:13 PM
Reply to: 2739573
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Greg (and others who were watching Nashville two weekends ago): Wondering what your thoughts were on Newgarden's move on Romain Grosjean in the closing laps at Nashville. I like Josef Newgarden, rarely puts a wheel wrong, and Grosjean has been a little bit of a pinball through much of the season, but I thought a penalty should have been called on Newgarden. He made a very late move and carried the momentum all the way to the outside of the track (wall)... only problem was that Grosjean was still there so Grosjean got body slammed into the wall, and Newgarden continued on in front of his cheering hometown fans. I also think that commentator Townsend Bell was doing everything he could to sweeten what had happened to maintain his good standing within the Newgarden Fan Club. Thought Hinchliffe was more honest in his description of the incident. (It seemed obvious that Bell had his mind made up before even seeing the replay, and then reluctantly backed down a little after 3 or 4 watches of it.) I also think that Newgarden had convinced himself it wasn't his fault, and then while watching the replay for the first time with the pit reporter, he kind of went from thinking that he had given Grosjean room, to "Welcome to Indycar".... to "It gets tight..."and "You’re going to want to be ahead of this guy at this type of moment, but yep, it’s tight street course racing.".... Then as if maybe realizing that nobody was buying what he was selling, he added, “Let me tell you what: I about got taken out six times myself. I probably need to have some discussion with some of the younger guys, but they’re aggressive." That last line sounded to me like he was changing his mind on the spot, from it wasn't his fault to, Grosjean had it coming to him... to that's just how you have to race in IndyCar. (But still no admission to him (Josef) being at fault.) If that's true, and that is really how you have to race now in Indycar, and the IndyCar officials are not going to call that "avoidable contact", then I'll probably end up a less frequent watcher as I'm just not interested in another smash'em up/wreck each other and blame it on _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (fill in the blank with anything) product like we're being offered currently from NASCAR (Cup, XFinity, Truck, ARCA). On the positive side, the Nasville event is just that... an "Event", and seems like a good thing for Indycar. I thought Dixon was really a surprise winner, but if I think about it, I probably shouldn't be that surprised. Thought the rookies were doing well, but all need to figure out how to finish. There were a lot of yellow laps again so hopefully that is something they can look to improve for next year, but overall, I enjoyed watching it. |