This week we are at the immense Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Round 9 of IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge. This weekend, CSM fields two Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Evo cars again. We do have a driver change in Morgan’s #2 car. With Gordon feeling under the weather, Zach Veach will partner this weekend. Ismaeel Ellahi and Ayrton Houk remain together in the #3.
Hello, Race Fans!
Friday, September 18
Thursday was load-in and track walk at the track, followed by the Street Fest a few blocks away in Speedway. Boy, was it HOT! All day it was 95 degrees and super humid, and hardly any air moving. It was sweltering for all. Today is SO much better. It’s cloudy, breezy and only about 80 degrees, but still just as humid. Still, it's the kind of weather that drains energy.
It’s a big weekend here at Indy. This is CSM's home race and it's home for Ayrton too so there are a whole lot of friends and family around for the experience. We even have a few friends in for the weekend too. Even though there is almost always something on the track and we are enveloped in the sound of race cars running practice sessions today, it's part of the background and we can still converse without shouting.
Practice 1 for us finished up just before lunch. Naturally, Zach went first and got the bulk of the session as he needed to get up to speed on this car. If you were watching live timing, you probably noticed that it said Morgan was in the car to start and then the #2 wasn’t scored at all in the middle part of the session. We were having a transponder issue that got corrected when we did the driver change. All the times did get captured (even if some laps still have the wrong name on the time card) and they look pretty good. Morgan was 11th and Zach’s best was only 0.321 seconds behind, good for 20th. Zach got it figured out very quickly. They are both happy with the session.
For this session, John turned over his lollipop duties to others while he was back in the paddock handling the lunch preparation. Even though everything is marked off for the lollipop job - where to stand and how far to extend the pole - it's not a given that the board will be in exactly the right place on the first stop. But that's what practice is for. Work out the kinks now so we don't have them in the race. While he was missed in the pit box, John managed to pull off jambalaya for 40 people for today’s lunch to everyone's delight. It was delicious and lots of folks came back for seconds. There was some leftover in the bottom of the overflowing stock pot, but not much. Super yummy!
Practice 2: Well friends, the sun has set on this very pleasant late summer day in Indianapolis. It was quite a long one! And a pretty good one too. The clouds held all day, keeping temperatures lower, and the breeze kept the humidity tolerable.
The sun put in a muted appearance for Practice 2, briefly. Shadows were already long at 5:50 in the evening when the session went green, but it was still rather toasty and humid. Morgan took the lead stint this afternoon and ran the first 23 minutes. We were thrilled to see the #2 jump up into 2nd place on his 9th lap. It lasted only one lap, but we stayed in 3rd through to the end of the session.
Looking at the combined results from both sessions, we have the 4th best time on the day. The stunning thing is that there are 27 drivers within one single second - it's going to be a closely grouped grid tomorrow. Both our guys ran solid times for their track conditions and set ups. It bodes well for tomorrow’s efforts.
Finishing up so late in the day, the sun has set before we depart and we are back at it very early in the morning. Qualifying begins at 8:00 with the TCR cars and we in the GS cars go at 8:20. As usual, we only get 15 minutes to put in the best possible attempt. Zach will be in the seat for that and therefore also will start the race. Catch that on Peacock TV or YouTube at 2:30. If you have any pull with the weather gods, ask them to keep it cool, cloudy and breezy, would you? Until tomorrow!
Saturday, September 19
Sunrise this morning was more of a brightening of the sky than the blazing ball of fire climbing upward. We’d been here fully an hour ahead of that point in the quiet darkness. There was plenty of bustle already, with the crew here and ready to dive in when the garages opened at 6:00. While we were lucky enough to have an easy time parking - early arrival plus IMSA hangtag netted us a spot in the second row of the infield parking, for Zach it was much harder. Lacking a hangtag, it took half an hour to find a parking lot. Fortunately, he'd allowed plenty of time and was on the pit lane, suited and totally prepared when it was time for qualifying to start.
Qualifying: The sun was fully up by our green flag at 8:20, but the clouds still had it covered. With the air still hanging on to the overnight lows in the 70’s, conditions were pretty great, despite the 90% humidity and a dew point that seemed to be skin temperature. Zach, in his second day in this car, was fully on and ready to rock.
It always takes a couple of laps to bring the tires into their happy operating range. While they are cold, the tires don't grip well and the brakes need more distance, but when you heat them gradually, they start working perfectly. Once there, then it’s time to push!! And push he did. Zach put in the fastest 1st sector time of the session. He was 0.2 off in sector 2 and 0.1 off in sector 3. That’s a gap to the pole of a mere 0.321 second, and more surprising, it's only 0.081 off second place. And we are 8th! He did a fantastic job!!
This is an incredibly tightly grouped field. There are seven more cars behind us still within one second of the pole time. Another second covers 24 cars. That should make for an interesting and very close race to watch this afternoon. Perhaps a bit nerve wracking too.
The Pit Box: We have a nice spacious pit box this weekend. It’s essentially at the foot of the big pylon showing the running order and adjacent to the exit at pit center. It’s right in the middle of everything and has an enormous Jumbotron overhead. It's nice to be the first box you reach upon entering the pit lane from the paddock and it'a about half way down the lane. Because we don't have a box upstream of us, the car is unobstructed entering the box. It's also a wind crossroads so there's good airflow all the time.
Fan Walk: We were able to stop at the box on the way to our grid spot and put down all the extra things we carry. That was helpful because the 8th spot was a long, long way down pit lane - keep going past start/finish, past the last pit box, then a little further still and there you'll find our car. Looking at the 5/8 mile front straight, we are no where near the final turn, nor near even the brake zone for Turn 1. This place is absolutely gigantic!
The truly dedicated fans made the trek all the way to this end of the grid. There was no shortage of them either! It's always fun to help a new fan better understand the race that's about to unfold. Sometimes we get to see the same fans from the year before too. But it isn't long before it's time to clear the grid, get Zach into the car and have the opening ceremonies. It's has to be a fast walk back down the pit lane to get clear before the call to start the engines.
Zach had a safe start, maintaining position through the first half of the lap. He picked up the first pass coming out of Turn 7. The guys ahead fought each other quite hard during the opening laps and Zach wisely elected to watch rather than engage in those battles. Despite their aggression, it was a car further back that brought out the first yellow flag on Lap 8 just over 11 minutes down when it got stuck in the tires at Turn 7. They didn't even make a lap before the yellow returned for a car with an apparent mechanical failure. On the next try at the green flag, Zach retained 7th again. We hoped it would settle down for some green running, but no. The yellow was back for a third time at 25 minutes in and only 15 laps completed. This one came out for three cars ahead of us tangling at Turn 6. Zach read the incident perfectly, taking the wide line cleanly around the mess, moving into 5th. All cars continued, but there was a large debris field scattered across the track.
All of these were short yellows with the pits remaining closed. Each of them lasted only one or two laps, but the cadence of the race gets disrupted with the constant go and slow. It's tough on the driver to oscillate between racing and waiting. All that yellow does reduce fuel use and that can impact strategy, making it possible extend the first stint beyond the minimum 40 minute drive time requirement. The pits only opened during yellow flag time once the clock hit 30 minutes, just before the green returned. That is too early to do a driver change without requiring another one later on.
We were once more back to green 32 minutes in and 17 laps done. On the restart, Zach ran side-by-side through the first complex of turns, completing the pass for 4th by Turn 6. He was handed 3rd when the car in that spot took its drive through penalty. The top three worked on building a gap to the cars behind over the next several laps - finally, there's a good race rhythm found.
At the 40-minute mark, a few teams took the opportunity to do their driver changes, even though it's still green. That committed them to a 2-stop strategy, especially if there isn't much more yellow flag time to come. That included the lead car - and Zach is in 2nd! That's on pure pace and awesome! It felt so good to have the car running so well. The top two had a good gap to the cars behind and were running well. We chose to hang on for a while longer before doing our full service stop.
It's a good call because the 4th yellow came out at 48 minutes and 28 laps. This time, it was a car stuck in the gravel at Turn 4. Once the pits opened for the GS cars, we grabbed the opportunity even though there was still a lot of time left. Our stop was ok, but the bad bit was the car coming into the box in front of us clipping the spent right front tire. That would earn a penalty for contacting pit equipment - If the officials catch it. It cost us some time but no crew was hurt. By now, it has gotten quite hot in the car. Pit cycles are completed, it's time to go green with an hour and seven minutes to go and Morgan was in 12th.
Morgan jumped into the car, locked in and ready to run. He's coming to be a master at restarts and this one was no exception. By the end of the first green lap, he had snatched two positions. Another lap, another spot. For seven laps he did that, turning decent times all along, even in heavy traffic with interior temperatures continuing to rise. Lap 40 was the best lap of the race. He owned 3rd place and was still chasing. We knew there was a real shot at a podium finish with this pace and performance.
That happiness faltered on the next lap, the right front tire got a puncture and he had to bring it in on short notice to get it changed. We added enough fuel to make it the remaining 48 minutes and rejoined in 15th. Now the strategy had been altered. We'd done two stops and could make it to the end. But - how many other cars ahead of us would need another? Did they save enough fuel and tire under the early yellows and pit late enough to get there too? The field had strung out a bit now, the TCR cars were mixed into the running order on the track, and most of the other GS cars had already made what they hoped were their final stops. The best thing that could happen for us was that it stayed green all the way to the end.
Morgan kept making up more spots and staying clean. It was working well - for a while. In the last 30 minutes it was very, very hot in the car - the kind of heat that most of us would find impossible to tolerate. Morgan let us know how bad it was and we tried to get some help to correct the cooling problems, to no avail. All that could be offered was encouragement and support on the radio to help Morgan persevere. Our anxiety was nothing to the baking agony in the car.
With 15-20 minutes remaining, Morgan was running 7th, but four of the cars ahead would need to stop again, making his battle one for the final podium step. If he could keep his focus, hold the spot, and it continued green, we would have a fantastic finish. There was hope!
Our hearts sank when we got that nasty yellow flag again. One of the cars ran out of fuel and didn't get itself clear of the course. With this yellow, most of the cars on fumes ahead would save just enough to get to the checker and our chances for a podium vanished. And with raindrops beginning to fall, now we just wanted it to stay yellow and freeze the field with us in 6th.
We didn't get that luck either. Instead, it went green to begin the last lap of the race. Everyone was desperate now to make whatever passes they could, willing to take bigger risks. In that last lap, Morgan got hit in the rear, knocking him off the track and costing six positions, ultimately landing us in 12th. It definitely was not the desired result given the raw pace in the car, but we managed to survive the day. In post-race, a penalty for a pass under yellow was applied to another car and we ended up in 11th.
Next Up: Road Atlanta
There is only a week now to reset ourselves. Road Atlanta will be the final race in the 2026 season. It's one of the fast tracks with twisty bits and high commitment corners. We look forward to the return to this beautiful circuit.
A (long and important) Word About Heat...
You know by now how important the weather is to the performance of the race cars. Heat affects engine, tire, and braking capacities and even a cloud shading one corner can make a difference to how the car will work there. It's a big enough deal that I make note of it for you pretty much every session. On Thursday, it was sunny, over 90 degrees, 80% humidity, and virtually no wind. Friday was cooler - cloudy, low 80's, but more humid - 85%, and increasing air movement. Saturday was partly cloudy, 90 degrees +/-2, 58% humidity and a little wind.
I'll lead off with immense thanks and recognition for the corner workers and pit officials and all those others who are on their feet in the sun all day long. They are in high risk areas, covered head to toe, baking in the hot weather. They stay vigilant as they look out for the drivers while they compete and keep an eye on all the people in the pit lane.
Heat is hard on the crews too. For them, it's like wearing a heavy, hot, wet blanket all day. Black is the wardrobe color choice for most because it hides the dirt so well - and racing is a rather dirty business. The crew are in constant motion all day, all weekend. It begins on load-in day with setting up the hospitality and work spaces and ends 3-5 days later when it's all torn down and packed away again. At Indy, the garage, where the car resides and most of the work happens, is distant from the trailer where parts and lockers and food are located. There are countless passes across the nearly quarter mile of hot asphalt between them every day. It's almost another quarter mile to the pit box.
When it comes time for the race, all the guys going over the wall are dressed in full fire suits, leather shoes, gloves, helmet and goggles - very similar to the driver's gear. Tire changers carry a lot of weight with them when they jump down off the wall and run to service the car - about 50 pounds of tire and 15 pounds of air wrench and hose. The tires coming off are smoking hot, as are the brakes, and that, along with the adrenaline rush of a pit stop, just amplifies the heat effects. Staying properly hydrated takes a deliberate effort to achieve.
Now it's time to delve into the effects of the heat inside the car. You know how hot your car is when you get into it in the parking lot on a sunny summer day. It's like that - baseline, and now you spend 80 minutes driving 150 miles an hour in heavy traffic on a twisty track, making hundreds of decisions every lap. While you do this, you are encased head to toe in layers of fireproof fabric, leather shoes, gloves, and a helmet with the visor closed. Worse, you can't open the window and there are no fans to move air inside the car. While your car does technically have air conditioning, when it works, the temperature in the cockpit only comes down to 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit. You probably have a system that runs cool water through tubes sewn into your fireproof undershirt - but if it fails, that water is at ambient temperature and it's better just to turn it off. Effectively, the car just keeps getting hotter than that sunny parking lot made it for the entire time you race it. It is a torturous environment.
It gets really, really hard to stay focused on the job of just driving the circuit. But this isn't just driving - it's racing. You have to be precise and consistent, attack and defend, vying to advance your position on the road. Plan and execute your strategy for handling traffic, keep an eye on the time remaining, calculate your fuel use and tire degradation, communicate with your pit. You sweat so much that pounds of weight are transferred to your suit, and it's wringing wet by the end. Exhausting doesn't even come close to what this is.
Being aware of your condition and taking the time to prepare and protect yourself is important because heat can be sneaky. It can take you down hard and fast. Proper preparation matters. Between events, training to build stamina and tolerance to heat make it a little less brutal. For race day, good sleep the night before, diet, hydration, and electrolytes before the race improve resistance to heat. Recovery matters just as much because you'll be back in that driver's seat in a matter of days.
Check out the Schedules.
Photo credits to Sasha Guinot, Jason Ramirez, Beth Burkhard.
