Views on St. Pete
The first race with the new aero kits is in the books and what have we learned? We learned that the kits produce a lot more debris, which surprises nobody. However, what was more of a problem? The new kits being fragile, or the fact that for the first 50 laps or so, the drivers were racing like their brains were still on vacation? I choose the latter. I don't care what cars they were driving, there was going to be a lot of cautions early on regardless. The driving at times looked very amateur, but once the drivers realized that they were not in bumper cars, the action and quality got a whole lot better. The new setups didn't create a boring race, and I think that no matter how much of an advantage Chevy or Honda has, half the field will always have that advantage. The fact that it looks like Penske is far and away ahead of everyone else might be a concern, but at least the Captain chose this as the season to have four drivers in his stable. At the very least we should always have a battle for the lead as we saw with Power and JPM. I for one don't expect Penske to keep the advantage for the duration of the season. At least not over the rest of the Chevy teams.
We have had only one race and in all honesty, I thought it would be worse than it was. I enjoyed the race, and I look forward to see what unfolds at a natural road course when the series competes at NOLA for the first time. I also look forward to the month of May to see what the speedway kits look like. As dominant as Penske was at St. Pete, I have a feeling that Ganassi and possibly KV racing will have something to say a week from Sunday. As for Honda, the fact that they don't have as many quality teams and drivers, and the fact that they seem to be off the pace of the Chevy teams, could mean it could take a few races to catch up. I do expect them to be competitive once again at Indy. I think they will have things figured out for the biggest race of the year, and they have two drivers in Marco and RHR that can can certainly deliver at the world's greatest 2.5 mile track.
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