Postcards from the Paddock - Sebring to COTA to IMS

Where has the Month of May gone? It feels like I just wrote my most recent Postcards from the Paddock but since that time I've been to Sebring for SRO America, covered the Sonsio GP and four days of Indy 500 practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and snuck in a trip to COTA for SRO. This will probably be a shorter entry since I'm currently in the throes of my Indy 500 prep but the past few weeks have been memorable and certainly worth chronicling.

After returning home from Monaco at the beginning of the month, I had a day at home to recharge the batteries before heading down to Sebring for a weekend of GT racing. The highlight of the weekend was the growth in the entry list, specifically in Fanatec GT World Challenge America where DXDT was on site with its new Corvette and RS1 made its return after missing Sebring. The Corvette wasn't strictly additive - drivers Bryan Sellers and Scott Smithson had started the season at Sonoma in a Mercedes - but it was a fantastic new story to see the car in SRO trim for the first time.

Some of the best racing of the weekend was in the GT America series. George Kurtz came into the weekend as motivated as I've seen him after missing the Long Beach races, knowing only wins would get him in championship contention. His pair of victories were remarkable but behind him the battles between rookie Justin Rothberg and veteran Johnny O'Connell for the final podium places were outstanding.

Check out a clip of the action here: https://twitter.com/AutosportsSki/status/1786812647570125283

All in all, it was a fun and largely clean weekend at Sebring which is important since the teams had under two weeks to prepare for the next round at Circuit of The Americas.

After Sebring my focus shifted to the Sonsio GP on the IMS road course. After nearly three weeks on the road, I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and covering races at my home track. GP in Indy is a strange event in that the “500” is already looming large in everyone's minds. The fact that we are racing at the same facility and the teams are using the same garages they'll be using all month reiterates how close we are to the biggest race of the season and yet there's this other event first that can't be overlooked. It's a strange dynamic. Everyone knows they have a job to do at the GP but they'd really rather just get on to the big one.

Panoramic view of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Turn 2

The early years of the event were dominated by Team Penske which won five of the first six races on the IMS road course. In recent years, however, this has proven to be a great track for Chip Ganassi Racing. With Alex Palou's win this year, Ganassi drivers have now won the last three IndyCar races at the track. Will Power and Simon Pagenaud both used their Indy GP wins to springboard into Indy 500 success in 2018 and 2019 respectively but they remain the only drivers to sweep the Month of May at Indianapolis.

From the minute the checkered flag falls on the GP the entire paddock switches its focus to the Indy 500. Practice on the oval was due to start on Tuesday but rain meant that we only had roughly 20 minutes of on-track activity on Day 1 of practice. Unfortunately the rain carried into the morning of Wednesday as well, so I spent most of the day waiting for the weather to clear up. Finally by the end of the day we did get to sneak in a few hours of practice and mercifully Mother Nature cooperated and gave us close to a full day of running on Thursday.

On Friday it was time to jump on a plane again and head off to Austin, Texas for the next stop on the SRO America calendar. After debuting their Corvette Z06 GT3.R at Sebring, DXDT came to COTA loaded for bear with an additional Pro class entry featuring GM factory driver Tommy Milner and up-and-comer Alec Udell. The car has been racing extensively this year in its first season with entries from the factory Pratt Miller team in IMSA in addition to customer entries for AWA Racing (IMSA) and TF Sport (FIA WEC).

Coming into the weekend the car had yet to see victory lane in any of its previous starts but that changed last weekend in Texas. Milner and Udell scored the first global win for the car in Race 1 on Saturday and backed it up with another victory on Sunday. The DXDT team is relatively new - this is its tenth season - but has been on a steady rise over the past few years. Team owner David Askew stepped out of the car last year to concentrate on securing the deal to represent GM in SRO competition and he deserves plenty of credit for the work and investment he has put into his team. It was very gratifying to see them find success in such a meaningful way over the weekend.

Elsewhere in Fanatec GT, ST Racing's Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen are looking more and more like the championship favorites heading into the summer break and the addition of AF Corse, and specifically its pro driver Riccardo Agostini, appears to have given us another star of the future. His pace on debut, good enough to take the overall pole on Saturday, was eye opening.

The highlight of the COTA weekend was a three hour endurance race, the first of its kind for Pirelli GT4 America. As expected, several teams that were new to this style of racing faltered with errors in the pits or on track. The race format didn't allow for much in the way of strategy, so execution needed to be close to perfect. This was doubly true in a race that saw just one full course caution in the three hours of racing, meaning there weren't many mulligans to be found to help alleviate any mistakes.

In the end, Random Vandals Racing had the right combination of pace and execution to take a well-deserved overall win and double championship points with drivers Kenton Koch and Kevin Boehm. The fun-loving team added an Am class victory too with Kris Wilson and team owner Paul Sparta, while Tyler McQuarrie and James Walker, Jr. made it a BMW sweep of the three classes with a win in Pro-Am.

The enduro on Saturday meant a lighter workload on Sunday, so I did my best to follow along with Indy 500 qualifying in between our SRO broadcasts knowing I'd be back at IMS for practice the next day. As ever, qualifying at the Speedway delivered on drama. From Team Penske's sweep of the front row to the heroics of rookie Nolan Siegel crashing in a failed last-gasp attempt to make the show, it sounded like a captivating two days as I listened in to the drama on my way to the airport at the end of the day in Austin.

By Monday morning I was back at IMS for two more hours of practice coverage for IndyCar Radio which thankfully were not affected by weather. Just a few days remain before the biggest day of my year. This will be my seventh year covering the Greatest Spectacle in Racing for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network and the anticipation for race day is no less today than it was before my first in 2018. There's no telling how the 500 miles will play out but one thing is certain: someone's life will change forever on race day. I'm thrilled and privileged to be there to help tell that story along with my excellent IndyCar Radio teammates. I hope you tune us in!