NASHVILLE — The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix is the equivalent to INDYCAR for what the likes of Daytona or Talladega are to NASCAR. Why?

The series races also on the streets of St. Pete, Long Beach, Detroit and Toronto and none of their races look like this one.

The two races so far run on these city streets were messy ones. Out of the 160 combined race laps turned, 43% of them were under caution periods with 38% of the cars being loaded back on the haulers early after crashes.

The inaugural race saw 9 cautions for 33 laps. Last year’s was one less yellow (8) but more caution laps (36).

St. Pete this year had five cautions for 26 laps (26%) and last year one caution for eight laps (8%). Long Beach had just two cautions for seven laps (8%) this April and four for 14 (16.4%) last year. Detroit had seven cautions for 32 laps (32%) this year but last year on Belle Isle it was one caution but for no laps as it happened at the end. Toronto last year was four cautions for 15 laps (17.6%) and three for 16 laps (18.7%) last month.

Why is this one so vastly different?

A tight street course is customary no matter where you’re racing. St. Pete (1.8-miles) has slippery due to new paving, Long Beach (1.968-miles) is Long Beach, Detroit (2.5-miles) is just as tight and just as bumpy, if not worse, than Nashville while Toronto (1.786-miles) is your typical street circuit too.

Nashville is also bigger than 3 of the other four at 2.1-miles too, so why the carnage?

Is it due to the nature of this track. 10 cars were listed as DNF a year ago due to “contact” but more like upwards of 14 or more cars collected damage at some point during the race. A season low 15 cars saw the checkered flag.

“Other than that, it’s not terrible to have a crazy race every now and again,” noted Colton Herta. “And this might be INDYCAR, some of the races are snoozers and some of them are really amazing, and some of them are amazing for this reason, because there’s cars going off all the time, you never know who is going to win.”

Sloppy? Sure. Fun. Absolutely. The drivers liked it and hope the fans did too.

“Obviously, there was a lot of cautions and the red flag, and it’s not ideal, but I don’t know from a fan standpoint,” said Alex Palou.

“As long as they had fun watching it, it’s one of those things that I think the atmosphere here in Nashville and the race event itself, it’s amazing. So as long as the fans are happy, I think it’s good if we continue here.”

We all thought Detroit was going to be that way but proved otherwise. Can the drivers finally find a rhythm and sing the right tune in Nashville?

 “I can’t,” Herta said on if this year will be any different than the first two years. “I don’t know if it will be. Yeah, obviously the first two races it caused a lot of chaos. INDYCAR is always trying to look for ways to make the racing better. They feel that this is a good way to do that.

“I’m hoping this new restart zone fixes a lot of the problems we’ve had in the past and it’s a little bit more of a normal race.

“You don’t want a full green flag race because that makes it stale for the racing. We definitely want to do better than eight or nine cautions than it has been the last few years.

“I’m hoping it works out. I’m not sure really if it will or it will not. I guess we’ll see.”

See we will. However, one thing that we will see is the smoke coming out of the strategists ears on the pit stands trying to call this 80 lap affair.

Due to all this chaos, it makes planning for this race as difficult as they come.

“I’m not really too sure. It seems like the fastest way to win this race is crash your car in the first lap, do six pit stops, then pit with six to go and stay out (smiling),” Herta said.

Marcus Ericsson got airborne in the inaugural race and still came back to win. Last year, Scott Dixon pit early for lengthy stops to get his car repaired. He nearly fell a lap down. He’d rebound to win.

“I don’t know. It’s a crazy one,” Herta continued. “Obviously it’s very different to any other race that we go to. But we always plan for the most normal race possible, then obviously strategies change. In this one, they really change.

“It’s hard to know what a good strategy and bad strategy is depending on what’s happening.”

Will Power agreed. I mean if you’re leading, you’re in constant fear that a caution could come out at any given moment and screw you. It’s unlike most other races to where you want to be leading and having control of how this race dictates. Here, you can’t.

“Yeah, you would expect there’s going to be a yellow. Just expect it,” he said. “I mean, it’s unfortunate if you’re leading, but just know that’s going to be the deal.

“There’s just really nothing you can do. It’s just like luck of the draw when it’s like that, when it’s that crazy.

“Just one sort of yellow, yeah, you could try to play it safe. Man, you could start last and win it maybe the way it’s been easy. Maybe it goes completely normal. I thought that’s what would happen last year. Just didn’t. Surprised me. Just didn’t.”

One thing that they do know is that the primary tire may be the preferred one and timing the stints around the luck of cautions will be the winning tire move at least.

“Tires have been a bit softer this year, so it’s almost taking the soft tires out of play a bit,” said Power. “Sort of get them on, get rid of them. Whether you do that in the first stint, middle or last stint, depending on your risk level. If you’re starting way back there, you might start on them. If it goes yellow, get straight off them, pit, take them…

“I mean, yeah, it’s kind of made the strategies mixed up. Been interesting, yeah.

 “I mean, I think it’s really important for us to have degradation. Just makes the racing better. They can make a tire that lasts forever, because they’re really good at what they do. I think they’re bringing a really good combination right now.”

Herta agreed with Power’s assessment.

“Typically no. The street courses have typically gone more towards just try to run the black tires as often as possible. The reds seem to have some pretty good deg,” he said.

“It’s hard for me to comment on it just because I never got a run on the red tires. I’m not really sure what their tendencies are. But I can’t imagine it being too different than years previous.”