WASHINGTON (AP) — On the streets of downtown Washington, an American led almost the whole way.
Kyle Kirkwood raced to his second victory of the IndyCar season Sunday, dominating the Freedom 250 in his No. 27 Honda. Kirkwood crossed the finish line in front of the U.S. Capitol 3.09 seconds ahead of Christian Lundgaard, after leading for 128 of a possible 147 laps.
“This likely is the most satisfying win that I’ve had, just the magnitude of it. This one and my first are pretty similar,” said Kirkwood, who now has seven career IndyCar victories. “When you think about the magnitude, what this means, having this race here in D.C., being the Freedom 250, as an American, it might top the first win for me.”
The race was set up as part of the country’s 250th birthday celebration. President Donald Trump gave drivers the green flag at the start and District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser served as grand marshal.
Organizers could hardly have asked for better weather, with plenty of sun but not so much heat that fans would stay away. The area was awash in red, white and blue. Even the Canadian flags on that country's embassy — located along the track's Pennsylvania Avenue straightaway — featured two of those three colors.
“This was not a race. It was an event," race chair Bud Denker said.
Will Power and Marcus Ericsson, Kirkwood's teammates with Andretti Global, finished third and fourth. Pole winner Alex Palou, who had a chance to clinch the series title, finished 20th in his second-worst showing of the year.
After several prerace flyovers and Trump’s green flag, the field quickly went under caution because of debris on the track. The first big wreck came when David Malukas went into the wall and Sting Ray Robb could do little to avoid crashing into him coming around a turn. Just like that, two of the race’s eight American drivers were out.
Several cars went onto pit road, and that’s when the day started to fall apart for Palou. He appeared to hit a tire in someone else’s area while exiting, and he was assessed a drive-through penalty.
On a subsequent pit stop, one of Palou’s tires was loose when he started driving. That caused another delay, and he ended up off the lead lap. Palou later spun coming through a turn. His lead in the standings dropped from 133 points over second-place Kirkwood to 91 with three races to go.
“Things happen. I'm at least kind of happy that everything happened at the same day instead of spreading out throughout different races," Palou said. “We had some issues in pit lane — one my fault, one out of my control.”
Kirkwood had a commanding lead before Palou’s spin caused a caution. On a restart with 19 laps remaining, Scott McLaughlin tried to pass Kirkwood and went into a tire barrier.
“Quite honestly, I thought he was going to make it stick initially,” Kirkwood said. “Once he got alongside me, there’s no way he’s stopping.”
After another caution, Kirkwood pulled off a strong restart with 13 laps to go and Lundgaard didn’t mount much of a threat as the 250-mile race wound down. Nicknamed the “King of the Streets” because of his success on tracks like this, Kirkwood looked right at home on the 1.7-mile circuit that was being used this weekend for the first time.
Misplaced blame?
Marcus Armstrong was penalized for avoidable contact when he sent Christian Rasmussen into a spin. Rinus VeeKay went into the wall during that incident but appeared unaware of Armstrong’s culpability when he went on TV for an interview.
“If Rasmussen’s around, you know you’re going to crash. Either he does or you do,” VeeKay said. “It sucks. It’s stupid. It’s a long race, and some people seemingly don’t know that.”
The race's future
Denker had plenty of impressive stats ready for his postrace news conference: over 215,000 people attending over the last two days, and over $969,000 in merchandise sold Saturday.
As for whether the race will continue in the future, Denker said he'll discuss it with series owner Roger Penske.
“Mr. Trump hit me 15 times today about having to have this," Denker said. “'Let’s do it for five years,' is what he’s saying, ‘because that guarantees you’re going to be here through my term, then two more years for whoever is in office next.’”
