SALINAS, Calif — Before I go too far here, I do want to preface that I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen messy practice sessions to where we’re all wondering if the race is going to be a complete shit show and it turns out to be as clean as any other NTT INDYCAR SERIES race.

However, this weekend in Monterey just seems different.

There were 21 stoppages for off track excursions during the test on Thursday and the pair of practice sessions this weekend. There were 3 more in qualifying on Saturday.

As far as why so much carnage? Well it’s simple. The track being repaved and track position meaning so much here, you have to push. 21 of the last 24 visits were won from a top 3 starter (15 from the pole, 4 from 2nd).

As a result, if you get just slightly off the racing line, you become a passenger.

“It’s just tremendously loose offline,” Scott McLaughlin said. “It’s just train tracks out there right now. Yeah, watched the INDY NXT race with a lot of interest, just seeing how they raced, especially at the start. I said to myself, I really don’t want to be on the outside into one. Now I’m starting on the outside going into turn one (smiling).

“It is what’s. You just got to figure it out. But, yeah, there’s no grip out there. I feel like the pavement is worn in where we have been running. Everywhere else where we haven’t been running, it’s a bit polished like when Felix was running here.

“I’m sure it will wear in as the race goes on. That transition traditionally doesn’t bode for much passing.”

However, with so many drivers needing wins on Sunday in order to not go through the season winless, does that create chaos too?

“It is the last race of the year. The championship is sewn up. I’m sure there’s going to be some Kamikazes out there,” McLaughlin said.

Felix Rosenqvist hasn’t won in 60 races. He’s on the pole. McLaughlin hasn’t won since Barber (12 races ago). He starts 2nd. Rinus VeeKay hasn’t won since the 2021 Indy GP (45 races ago). He starts 7th. Will Power is riding a 27 race drought. He’ll start 8th. That’s 4 of the top 8 needing wins. Can they?

“You’ll fight pretty hard, I know that,” Power said on being winless. “You’ll fight pretty hard. If there’s someone there on the last lap, last corner, you haven’t got a win, yeah, certainly will be floating through your mind about what you might just do (smiling).”

Santino Ferrucci echoed that.

“Its hard to pass, so you’re kind of banking on people to make mistakes,” he said. “It’s also the final race of the season so for sure, people are going to crash trying to pass.”

Callum Ilott was on the front row last year but fell out early. He feels the effects of this repave this time around too.

“Yeah, super grippy track. It’s incredible this repave how much performance it extracts from the cars and the drivers,” Ilott said.

“Yeah, putting it together, it’s tough. For some reason, it’s very knife edgy, lots of guys making mistakes, myself included. I had a little gravel moment.

“But yeah, it’s an interesting place. Real drivers’ track, and it’s taken it to another level this year.”

Ilott says that if you’re under the limit and comfortable, you’re too slow. That’s why everyone is making these mistakes he feels because it’s just enticing you to go faster and faster, and then suddenly it’s not allowing you to do the same thing as you did the lap before, and you kind of end up going off.

“It’s rewarding to be consistent. Obviously it’s rewarding to the team, as well, to not have to be putting new parts on the car,” he continued.

“But it’s tough. It’s real tough. For some reason, it’s a pain in the ass to put together a lap.”

Monterey used to be an older track surface with tons of tire fall off. Similar to Darlington in sense of low grip, high tire wear. You have to slow down to go fast. Be smooth.

This offseason, the entire track surface has been repaved. It changes the way you drive this track. You can actually attack every corner now.

“Yeah, there’s definitely that here,” Will Power said. “Corners that are pretty high commitment. You don’t have much time to rest. It’s a pretty rhythm track. You’re always in a corner. A bit like a go-kart track. A lot of corners to get right, a lot. Easy to make a mistake. As you’ve seen the times, if you mess up one corner, moves you a lot of positions back.”

Christian Lundgaard agreed.

“The track has been resurfaced so I think everyone will come there with a new mindset of perhaps what we showed up at Road America with, setup wise,” said Lundgaard.

As a result, it’s become a quite a physical track.

 “It’s fast. It’s so fast. It’s incredible how heavy it is, as well,” Kyle Kirkwood said. “Like the steering effort is like astronomical, and I can only imagine with full fuel, and I’m thinking about it — thinking about yesterday, man, when we add a little bit of weight to the car, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to turn around this place.

“Yeah, it’s fast, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s cool to go there and go out and just do a lap because of how fast it is.”

Kirkwood said that there is a realistic concern about drivers retiring from the race early due to how physical this track has now become.

“It’s definitely a concern. If it’s going to be as heavy as it just was there on the alternate tires throughout the race or heavier, I think you’ll see people crash because they just can’t turn the wheel. I think that’s very possible,” he noted.

Graham Rahal said even with cooler temperatures, the race will be the most physical of the season inside the car too.

Will the drivers and teams dial it in for a cleaner race now or will it be one of attrition?

Last year, there was 1 caution for 3 laps.

There’s been 5 combined cautions over the last three races on the season overall. Also, 92.1% of the laps since August were run under green flag conditions too. 72 of 80 laps in Nashville, 79 of 85 for the Gallagher Grand Prix, 238 of 260 at World Wide Technology Raceway and now 104 of 110 in Portland.

Road America was a repave but we saw four cautions for 10 laps.