Street fight

 Watched nearly all of the IndyCar race from the streets of Detroit yesterday, just to see if the course was as ridiculous as some people were saying, and if the race would therefore turn into Red Flag Hell like those same people were predicting.

Here's what I concluded: Some people are pearl clutchers.

Here's what else I concluded: Roger Penske knows what he's doing, surprise, surprise.

That's because IndyCar's return to the streets in Detroit for the first time in 32 years produced a bunch of laps run under yellow, but nothing that necessitated pulling everyone in under a red flag to clean up piles of debris. There was even some dicey racing down there at the end, as Will Power tried to chase down Alex Palou and Scott Dixon and McLaren teammates Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi almost literally duked it out behind them.

There was some squeezing and bumping and pushing and shoving, and, at one point, Power getting up on two wheels. And as Rossi and Rosenqvist fought each other through one tight corner after another, you wondered how many punches were going to be thrown in in the McLaren garages afterward, and if it would be gloves or bare knuckles.

In other words, it was a hell of a show. And at least part of it was because, yes, the course was ridiculous.

It was too short for a street course and too bumpy and some of the corners were downright claustrophobic, so narrow an NBA big man could have stood in the middle and touched the fence on both sides. And right off, in the very first corner, Callum Illott ran into the back of Kyle Kirkwood, knocking himself out of the race and Kirkwood's rear wing askew, and you immediately thought "Oh, here we go."

But ... no. It looked like a knife fight in a closet at times, but when would race fans ever complain about that?

And so score one for Penske's IndyCar vision, again. And the pearl-clutchers who were predicting an utter farce?

Have a seat on the fainting couch, my dears. The Captain's got this.