We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
And that’s when we saw Josef Newgarden upside down on the main straight of World Wide Technology Raceway during Sunday’s (June 15) Bommarito Automotive Group 500.
Yeah, it was a bit jarring to see a cutaway promo for the five-time Gateway winner as the FOX broadcast was transitioning to commercial and then see the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet sliding on the roll hoop after contact with Louis Foster.
But let’s look further into what was one of the biggest highlights from Sunday night’s race.
Newgarden was leading and was coming around turn 4 to complete the 130th lap when Foster brushed the wall in front of the No. 2 car.
Foster, who was running in 10th place at the time, had no control over the car after the initial brushes with the wall damaged the suspension on the right side of the No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda.
After seeing Foster’s car against the wall for several seconds, Newgarden made the decision to go to the inside of the straightaway toward the driver’s left side of the track. At the same time, Foster’s out-of-control car drifted toward the inside wall.
It wasn’t a matter of if Foster and Newgarden would collide; it was a matter of when.
Upon their collision, Newgarden’s car spun upside down with the rear end of the car sliding along the top of the SAFER barrier along the inside of the straightaway before coming to a rest just before the start/finish line.
Almost immediately, the AMR Safety Team swarmed over Newgarden’s car to extricate the Tennessee native from his ca,r which they did after slowly overturning the car back to a normal orientation.
The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner climbed from the car and was seen and released from the IndyCar medical unit, declining interviews after leaving the medical unit.
Let’s look a bit closer at this accident. Foster ran the high line and then ran into the marbles in turn 4. From the time he hit the wall until the time race control called for the yellow flag, 6 seconds had elapsed.
Will Power had a similar incident early in the race and the yellow came out just over 2 seconds after his initial impact with the turn 4 wall.
How was there such a delay in calling the caution with Foster’s impact? If the yellow was out with the same time frame as the earlier incident with Power, then there’s a real possibility that Foster would have been the only car involved.
While watching the replay of the accident with a stopwatch open on my smartphone, I was able to time about 2.3 seconds of activity between Foster’s initial impact and when a yellow would have come out in the same time frame for Power’s accident.
Had the yellow come out in that moment, Newgarden would have had a couple of seconds more to slow down as he was near the turn 4 exit just before the start of the painted curb on the inside of the track.
Foster still would have spun down the track, but it’s less likely that Newgarden would have hit him because Newgarden would have arrived at the scene a bit later.
Late in the race, David Malukas brushed the wall in turn 4 after trying to pass Kyle Kirkwood on the outside in the corner. Race control instantly called for the caution despite the contact being minor, because of what happened in the Newgarden and Foster incident.
It was good for the stewards to get the race under control with an immediate yellow. It was a shame that that wasn’t the case during the Newgarden and Foster incident.
But it has to be said that not every bit of wall contact is the same. Foster’s wall contact was heavy, but the stewards have to judge whether or not to throw a yellow in split-second intervals, and on an oval, a split second can mean the difference between a massive crash and wreck avoidance.
Race control has a hard job to do and not a lot of time to do that job. Anyone else in that position might have frozen when tasked with calling a caution based on what is seen in real time.
Racing can make it extremely difficult to get everything right. We need to remember that from time to time, myself included.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.