Money debut from Sage Karam, 31st to 9th, leads six traditional Indy 500 rookies

By May 25, 2014, 5:54 PM EDT
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On Friday, 19-year-old Sage Karam dazzled the Indianapolis Motor Speedway crowd over a few feet on pit lane during the Carb Day Pit Stop Competition.

On Sunday, he did so in a dynamic charge through the field over 200 laps, 500 miles and 800 left-hand turns.

Karam, the 2013 Indy Lights champion of Nazareth, Pa., made his Verizon IndyCar Series debut in the series’ biggest race – the 98th Indianapolis 500 – from the final row of the field, in 31st place on the grid and ended ninth when all was said and done.

Throughout the race, despite his pit stop sequence seeing him pit anywhere from three to four laps sooner than the leaders, Karam began a methodical charge through the field of five spots into the 20s, then into the teens, and ultimately into the top-10.

“I knew qualifying wasn’t showing our true speed,” he said post-race. “I wanted to come to the front so badly. I came up to about eighth or ninth, then I caught the yellow at worst spot. Went a lap down and had to do it all over again.

“We ran out of time. But the car was on fire. It was awesome. I’m so blessed and honored. I hope this isn’t my last IndyCar race this year.”

One of Karam’s moves during the field was only for 18th place, but it was a move that even some of Indy’s legends wouldn’t have dared.

He tried, and succeeded, passing fellow rookie Mikhail Aleshin, the first Russian to race the Indianapolis 500, on the outside of Turn 1. Going into the race, I’d have expected Aleshin to try that move, not necessarily Karam.

But that’s the beauty of being a confident, but not cocky, 19-year-old fearless rookie. And he pulled it off in style.

“Dario (Franchitti) told me before the race that these cars, they could go on outside, two-wide. So I just went for it,” Karam said. “Maybe it was a little too aggressive too early, but I was on a mission to get to the front. And the car stuck.”

Karam is optimistic his performance today will lead to future IndyCar opportunities the rest of the year. He admitted this was the hardest race he’s driven.

He also impressed his boss for this race, Dennis Reinbold. Karam’s car was sponsored by Comfort Revolution, Big Machine Records and Brantley Gilbert, and entered by Dreyer & Reinbold Kingdom Racing in partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing.

“He was great to work with from Day 1,” Reinbold said post-race. “I’ve never seen a 19-year-old with his maturity level. He got faster and faster every lap, and yet he was so calm … I don’t think his heart rate got above a resting pulse. Outside, he’s a fun-loving 19-year-old, but he gets behind the wheel and starts doing big things.”

While Karam’s next race is the proverbial to-be-determined, and the top finishing rookie in the field was Kurt Busch, P6 in a one-off, here’s how the rest of the rookies fared:

  • KV Racing Technology’s James Davison ended P16, up from P28 on the grid, in the Always Evolving Racing-backed No. 33 Chevrolet. Davison admitted he lost ground to Alex Tagliani, Jacques Villeneuve and Sebastian Saavedra on the last restart but was otherwise pleased after a trouble-free run.
  • Same story for Dale Coyne’s Carlos Huertas, who in his first ever oval race was impressively anonymous – P17 from 21st on the grid, best of Coyne’s three cars, and completed all 200 laps.
  • Early season revelations Jack Hawksworth (BHA/BBM with Curb-Agajanian) and Aleshin (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) ended 20th and 21st. Hawksworth fought understeer while Aleshin lost ground on a pit stop, but led a lap during a pit sequence (Lap 32), his first in IndyCar competition.
  • It was a tough day at the office for A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ Martin Plowman, but in 23rd he made it seven rookie finishers after seven rookies started. Plowman finished four laps down and made contact with Josef Newgarden under a caution that took the young American out of the race.

Roger Penske vows new downtown Detroit GP will be bigger than the Super Bowl for city

By Jun 1, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
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DETROIT – He helped spearhead bringing the town a Super Bowl 17 years ago, but Roger Penske believes the reimagined Chevrolet Detroit GP is his greatest gift to the Motor City.

“It’s bigger than the Super Bowl from an impact within the city,” Penske told NBC Sports. “Maybe not with the sponsors and TV, but for the city of Detroit, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.

“We’ve got to give back individually and collectively, and I think we as a company in Michigan and in Detroit, it’s something we know how to do. It shows we’re committed. Someone needs to take that flag and run it down through town. And that’s what we’re trying to do as a company. We’re trying to give back to the city.”

After 30 years of being run on Belle Isle, the race course has been moved to a new nine-turn, 1.7-mile downtown layout that will be the centerpiece of an event weekend that is designed to promote a festival and community atmosphere.

There will be concerts in the adjacent Hart Plaza. Local businesses from Detroit’s seven districts have been invited to hawk their wares to new clientele. Boys and Girls Clubs from the city have designed murals that will line the track’s walls with images of diversity, inclusion and what Detroit means through the eyes of youth.

And in the biggest show of altruism, more than half the circuit will be open for free admission. The track is building 4-foot viewing platforms that can hold 150 people for watching the long Jefferson Avenue straightaway and other sections of the track.

Detroit GP chairman Bud Denker, a longtime key lieutenant across Penske’s various companies, has overseen more than $20 million invested in infrastructure.

The race is essentially Penske’s love letter to the city where he made much of his fame as one of Detroit’s most famous automotive icons, both as a captain of industry with a global dealership network and as a racing magnate (who just won his record 19th Indy 500 with Josef Newgarden breaking through for his first victory on the Brickyard oval).

During six decades in racing, Penske, 86, also has run many racetracks (most notably Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also speedways in Michigan, California and Pennsylvania), and much of that expertise has been applied in Detroit.

“And then the ability for us to reach out to our sponsor base, and then the business community, which Bud is tied in with the key executives in the city of Detroit, bringing them all together,” Penske said. “It makes a big difference.

“The Super Bowl is really about the people that fly in for the Super Bowl. It’s a big corporate event, and the tickets are expensive. And the TV is obviously the best in the world. What we’ve done is taken that same playbook but made it important to everyone in Detroit. Anyone that wants to can come to the race for free, can stand on a platform or they can buy a ticket and sit in the grandstands or be in a suite. It’s really multiple choice, but it is giving it to the city of Detroit. I think it’s important when you think of these big cities across the country today that are having a lot of these issues.”

Denker said the Detroit Grand Prix is hoping for “an amazingly attended event” but is unsure of crowd estimates with much of the track offering free viewing. The race easily could handle a crowd of at least 50,000 daily (which is what the Movement Music Festival draws in Hart Plaza) and probably tens of thousands more in a sprawling track footprint along the city’s riverwalk.

Penske is hoping for a larger crowd than Belle Isle, which was limited to about 30,000 fans daily because of off-site parking and restricted fan access at a track that was located in a public park.

The downtown course will have some unique features, including a “split” pit lane on an all-new concrete (part of $15 million spent on resurfaced roads, new barriers and catchfencing … as well as 252 manhole covers that were welded down).

A $5 million, 80,000-square-foot hospitality chalet will be located adjacent to the paddock and pit area. The two-story structure, which was imported from the 16th hole of the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, will offer 70 chalets (up from 23 suites at Belle Isle last year). It was built by InProduction, the same company that installed the popular HyVee-branded grandstands and suites at Iowa Speedway last year.

Penske said the state, city, county and General Motors each owned parts of the track, and their cooperation was needed to move streetlights and in changing apexes of corners. Denker has spent the past 18 months meeting with city council members who represent Detroit’s seven districts, along with Mayor Mike Duggan. Penske said the local support could include an appearance by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer.

Denker and Detroit GP  president Michael Montri were inspired to move the Detroit course downtown after attending the inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We saw what an impact it made on that city in August of 2021 and we came back from there and said boy could it ever work to bring it downtown in Detroit again,” Denker said. “We’ve really involved the whole community of Detroit, and the idea of bringing our city together is what the mayor and city council and our governor are so excited about. The dream we have is now coming to fruition.

“When you see the infrastructure downtown and the bridges over the roads we’ve built and the graphics, and everything is centered around the Renaissance Center as your backdrop, it’s just amazing.”