One to go. Here we go.
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES season has come down to two drivers competing for one championship trophy, hardware known as the Astor Challenge Cup and the $1 million check that accompanies it. Alex Palou and Will Power are each aiming to hoist the trophy for a third time, with Palou also doing so last year.
SEE: Starting Lineup/Tire Choice
But today is a different day for a Nashville race. A year ago, 27 car-and-driver combinations roared through the streets around Nissan Stadium, which is home to the NFL’s Tennessee Titans. And that race was held the first week of August.
This time, the season finale is at Nashville Superspeedway, an oval track east of the city where the NTT INDYCAR SERIES last raced in 2008. Only three drivers in the current field – Scott Dixon, Power and Graham Rahal – drove in the race that day. Dixon won for the third consecutive time. Power finished 11th, Rahal 12th, but in terms of having a competitive advantage in this 206-lap race, that was a lifetime ago.
Today, Dixon, who is fifth in the standings, is no factor for his record-tying seventh series title, but Power is. He enters the race 33 points behind Palou, and under the right circumstances it can be a winner-take-all Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Presented by Gainbridge. Power can become the champion by winning the 206-lap race (3 p.m. ET, NBC, Universo, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network) so long as he leads the most laps and Palou doesn’t finish in the top nine.
Palou will win his second consecutive series title and third in four years if he scores 21 points in today’s race. But a poor qualifying effort – he posted the 15th-fastest two-lap average – plus starting nine positions deeper in the field due to an unapproved engine change has him lining up 24th in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. That spot is on the outside of the 12th row, where danger lurks. Heaven forbid the crowded field doesn’t get through Lap 1 cleanly.
Power isn’t completely where he needs to be – he must finish in the top three to have a chance at his third season title – but he can see it from there. Power will take the green flag from the fourth position in the No. 12 Verizon Business Team Penske Chevrolet.
That’s the championship drama on the line. But that’s not all that’s at stake today.
A handful of drivers are assured of starting their last race with their current teams. Put Alexander Rossi (No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet), Christian Lundgaard (No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) and Davis Malukas (No. 66 AutoNation/Arctic Wolf Honda of Meyer Shank Racing) in that group, and there are many other drivers whose futures have not yet been announced but are headed for a similar relocation.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist (No. 8 American Legion Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) has already secured the series’ Rookie of the Year honor, but he would like his first series race win. Andretti Global’s Louis Foster (No. 26 Copart/Novara Technologies machine) will be the INDY NXT by Firestone champion regardless of what happens in the season-ending Music City Grand Prix (11:50 a.m. ET, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network), but he seeks an eighth race victory this season.
Seven drivers have won NTT INDYCAR SERIES races this season, and today’s pole sitter, Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (No. 27 AutoNation Honda), desperately wants to add his name to that list. Same goes for Rossi, Lundgaard and Malukas, among others.
The race features two options of Firestone Firehawk tires, and each car must be shod at least two sets of the red-sidewalled alternates. The strategy of tire usage will be an interesting part of the strategy in play. Romain Grosjean (No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet) started mixing things up by qualifying on the primary tires, thereby saving two sets of new reds for the race. The field is nearly split on starting the race on the different compounds.
With a pronounced bump lurking between Turns 3 and 4, which sent Kirkwood into a spin into the wall in Saturday’s final practice, everyone will be jockeying to get to the low line in that section of the 1.33-mile concrete oval. As Kirkwood and two Arrow McLaren drivers learned Saturday, being too far off the low line is a problem. Rookie Nolan Siegel crashed the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet in practice after hitting the bump, Rossi nearly lost his car in qualifying. Other drivers had tense moments there, as well.
Josef Newgarden will start second, and the driver of the No. 2 Hitachi Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet has won 10 of the past 17 oval races, including the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge each of the past two years. Newgarden was born and raised in nearby Hendersonville, but he has never raced on this oval. Obviously, he has company in that.
Much is at stake in the season’s final race, the 17th checkered flag of the season. The big trophy is the big prize left. Will it be Palou or Power? We’re about to find out.