This weekend saw us warming the seats at the famed Milwaukee Mile for some small track race action after the madness that is the Indy 500. We will admit to allowing our focus to stray (which you'll see in a bit), the qualifying and race was action packed, though not as crashy as you'd expect on a one mile oval. With Marco Andretti pulling down his first pole spot at the tender age of 21, the field was set for a 225 lap run for post-Indy glory.
The remarkable thing about the Milwaukee Mile is how accessible everything is. Sitting in the bougie, upper-level seats at the start/finish line, we could see every corner of the track and all of the pits with ease. It was quite easy to see the flameout following Vitor Meira backing his car into turn two all the way across the field during qualifying (putting him at the back of the pack). Tracks this size feel extremely intimate compared to the sprawling superspeedways, so it's a refreshing change of pace.
The ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt 225 kicked off with cars going four wide into turn four and Helio Castroneves and Oriol Serva getting tangled up, resulting in a broken front wing. After Scott Dixon made short work of Marco on lap 41, the race was just an exercise in "how fast can Scott go?" At one point he opened up almost a quarter mile lead on whatever car was running number two at the time.
That all came to an end when Grahm Rahal decided to get friendly with turn four on lap 129, the resulting paced laps tightened up the field and set up a 1-2 battle between Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon for the next 94 laps. The game of cat and mouse finally came to an end with a multiple car tangle on lap 223 with Briscoe out front and finishing - in ever so anti-climactic style, under yellow.
Which of course we didn't see cause we weren't about to battle the crowds to make an escape so we left at lap 215. What? We love racing, but we're not about to sit in traffic all night.