NASHVILLE — “You don’t have one,” Scott McLaughlin said regarding planning for Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix (12 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). For the second consecutive year, McLaughlin will lead the field to green on the tight confines of the 2.17-mile Music City street circuit.

“A really satisfying qualifying session, probably the best of my INDYCAR career, to be honest,” he said after scoring his first pole in the last 14 starts.

In fact, the start of the 13th race of the 17 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season slate, looks a bit like last year’s. McLaughlin first. Scott Dixon coming from 12th (he started 14th last year). Marcus Ericsson is rolling off from 20th (he started 18th in the previous 2 years). Will Power is 7th (he was 8th last year). Romain Grosjean is 6th (he was 5th and 2nd the last 2 years).

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McLaughlin is hopeful the racing though, looks nothing like the ones of the past here.

The final Big Machine Music Grand Prix on this current layout will come to an end on Sunday. A race dubbed in “Crashville” has been the equivalent to INDYCAR for what the likes of Daytona or Talladega are to NASCAR. Why?

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 and will this year’s be any better than last?

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.”

Starting position hasn’t mattered much here. In fact, this is a race that even with an early incident you can make up for it later.

“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),” Colton Herta said.

Marcus Ericsson went airborne in the inaugural race on a Lap 5 crash. By Lap 33, he was leading. He’d win in the end.

Last year, Scott Dixon was collected in an early race crash too. He had to pit multiple times for repairs, restarted outside the top 20 and later wound up in victory lane in dramatic fashion.

The starting spots of both winners were 18th and 14th. Dixon pit 7 times a year ago and still landed in victory lane.

These aren’t the only success stories either.

Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi each rebounded from early race troubles to even falling a lap down to still finish in the top 5 last August. Scott McLaughlin came from 15th to 2nd.

“The final stint there, we were 15th. Managed to lose by a nose,” McLaughlin continued. “There’s a lot went on. Our car was phenomenal. I feel like it’s just as good this year.

“Look, honestly, same car as what we ran last year. It’s just been unreal. The Chevy has been awesome. Been a lot of gains everywhere. I think we’ve made improvements.

“Overall just to come here with the same philosophy, just nail laps, it’s a good feeling, especially with the interruptions between sessions. I actually wanted it to rain. I was excited with the rain. The rain was a lot of fun this morning, had a blast. Learn a ton every time I’m in the rain.

“Nice to be fast in the wet and dry.

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You can’t even plan really. Guy won last year doing six stops.

“You just got to play it on the run and try and do the best job, execute every lap that I can. Pit stops need to be good. Yeah, the reason we were back there last year was a bad pit stop. That was an unfortunate thing that doesn’t really happen on my car.

“Yeah, I’m super pumped for tomorrow to see what we got.”

Nashville is a race to where you need luck to win. Pure speed doesn’t necessarily win here. Both winners prove that. But you also can pass if you have a good car too though. 5 of the top 6 finishers last year rebounded from being outside the top 10 to finish there.

“Everything can happen here, as we’ve seen in ’21. The first car that was in the air won,” O’Ward says. “Yeah, will it be as chaotic tomorrow? I don’t know. That’s what we thought in ’22. It was worse, so… Maybe tomorrow it’s the same. Worse, better, I don’t know.

“If it rains, it will make things interesting.”

Rain is in the forecast again and if it does, watch out.

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

“I don’t know. It’s a crazy one. Obviously it’s very different to any other race that we go to,” Herta said. “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.”

I mean if you’re leading the race, 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.

“I mean, you’re just waiting for the yellow light to flash up on your dash or something like that,” McLaughlin said. “You can’t control anything like that. It’s a matter of me controlling what I can control, execute.”

His teammate, Will Power agreed.

“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.”

McLaughlin starts on the pole for the second straight year and is hopeful this year’s race is more straightforward than last.

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You can’t even plan really. Guy won last year doing six stops,” he said after scoring a mega pole by 3-tenths on Saturday.

“You just got to play it on the run and try and do the best job, execute every lap that I can. Pit stops need to be good. Yeah, the reason we were back there last year was a bad pit stop. That was an unfortunate thing that doesn’t really happen on my car.”

He says you have a plan, but you can’t typically use it saying, “I just think you don’t,” when asked if you plan for the race.

“That goes out the window after the first stint,” said second place starter Pato O’Ward.

He said you have like 10 plans and if one fails you go to plan F.

“You don’t really plan it out,” said O’Ward. “We’re going into the race like this, and then let’s see where we get guided, pretty much.”

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.

So, who does what? Do you start on the alternate and get a quick yellow to run the primary tires the rest of the way? Do you count backwards and position yourself to stop as early as possible in the final pit window?

Doing the undercut is a move that a lot may try. You also avoid the “danger zone” by doing so and if you luck out and get a caution while trying this strategy, you’re set to flip the field. It’s happened every year here including multiple times in each race.

However, sometimes the overcut works too if you’re minimizing the tire fall off over the course of that said run.

I think the alternate tires are going to fall off over the course of a stint, so doing an overcut while on the greens may not be a wise move. But, doing so on primaries could be open so long as you start the plan early on in the run to save your tires for a longer stint.

That’s why pit cycles and if cautions fly during them are something I’ll be keeping my eye on.