Indy 500 Champ, NASCAR This Week's Sports Hero, Zero

by Julian Spivey

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​​Hero

​Josef Newgarden did something on Sunday, May 26 in the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that had only been accomplished five previous times in the 108 years of the illustrious motorsports event – winning the race in back-to-back years.

When Newgarden made a daring last lap pace of race leader Pato O’Ward on lap 200 of the event on Sunday he managed to do something that only Wilbur Shaw (1939-40), Mauri Rose (1947-48), Bill Vukovich (1953-54), Al Unser (1970-71) and Helio Castroneves (2001-02) had ever done before.

Sunday’s race was arguably the most competitive in the history of the event with a record 16 different drivers in the 33-car field leading a lap with Newgarden leading 26 of the 200 (his Penske Racing teammate Scott McLaughlin who started on the pole led a race-high 66 laps).

The big win for Newgarden comes during what has been a rough first part of the 2024 IndyCar season for the two-time series champion who had initially won the season-opening race at St. Petersburg before having been disqualified more than a month after the fact due to illegalities found within the car (and that of his teammate McLaughlin) in that event.

Newgarden’s Indy 500 victory on Sunday was the 30th win of his career, which ranks him 13th all-time in the sport.

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​Zero

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It’s hard to officially pinpoint my sports zero of the week because there are multiple people and entities involved with it – Marcus Smith and Speedway Motorsports, LLC, NASCAR team owner Richard Childress, etc. – but ultimately I’m just going to give the entire zero of the week to NASCAR in general because the sport ultimately oversees everything that happens during one of its events.
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And the thing that earns the sport the dishonor of the week is having former President, current Republican candidate for President and all-around bad dude Donald Trump at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 26.

Trump used the event, as he’s done before (but at least then had the allure of being the President of the United States), simply as a photo op and the sport was more than happy and willing to kiss his ass as he was chauffeured around pit road during the pre-race ceremonies by Childress.

There are a couple of problems here – but the biggest is NASCAR once again aligning itself with a person who among other things has attempted to overthrow a democratic presidential election, has said and done racist and misogynistic things and has openly lied about and disparaged the sport’s only African-American driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr.

There’s also the hypocrisy from some of the fan base who scream “Don’t bring politics into the sport” whenever NASCAR has a driver with Black Lives Matter on their car or celebrates Black History Month or Pride Month, despite none of those things actually being political and then are all “Fuck Yeah, America” when Trump shows up at the track. You can’t have it both ways!

NASCAR seemingly has made efforts to distance itself from politics in the last few years but this does away with all of that. Even more hurtful is seeing social media posts from all of the fans of the sport who may be in the minority in one way or another – people of color, LGTBQ+ fans, etc. who feel like the sport has turned its back on them by inviting the most vitriolic President in the history of this country into its community.