Dat race

 Four hours times 365 days equals deja vu all over again. There's your calculus for this long strange trip.

It took 'em four hours to get the 108th Indianapolis 500 started Sunday, and then they all drove like bats out of hell for three hours as May afternoon stretched into lingering May twilight. Marcus Ericsson, your 2022 winner and 2023 runnerup, was crashed out of it by a rookie named Tom Blomqvist before he got to the first turn of the first lap. Folks were trying to go three- and four-wide through corners where you can't do that. 

A whole pile of drivers bit the wall, including Will Power and Colton Herta and Marco Andretti. Scott Dixon ran Ryan Hunter-Reay right into the grass and got away with it. Helio Castroneves was in the top ten for awhile, and then wasn't; NASCAR star Kyle Larson was in the mix for a bit, but missed a shift at one point and sped on pit road another time like any other rook, and finished 18th.

It was wild. It was nuts. And then, down there at the finish, last year happened all over again.

Last year was Josef Newgarden getting a huge run off turn two on the 200th lap, passing Ericsson and taking the checkers to put his face on the Borg-Warner. This year was Pato O'Ward -- the dazzling young Mexican who's going to win this race someday -- passing him for the lead as the white flag flew, and then Newgarden returning the favor, diving past him in turn three on the 200th lap to become the first repeat winner in 22 years.

Two years, same ending. Only this time in the Hoosier gloaming. and this time with everyone in the sprawling place hurting for O'Ward, who cried in the pits afterward and left his helmet on because, as he said later, it was "very wet in there."

"A tremendous champion," Newgarden called him.

No one disgreed.

Other stuff:

* Whether it was the protracted rain scrubbing the track clean or the long wait scrubbing nerves raw, the 500 looked more like a 50-lap sprint than a 500-mile Patience Bowl. Everyone was in a hurry to get to the front, and once there no one stayed there for long. 

Eighteen drivers led at least a lap, from Newgarden to Dixon to O'Ward to the previously unlettered Sting Ray Robb, who led 23 laps for A.J. Foyt. In the last 50 laps, seemingly everyone had a shot at the win: Newgarden and Dixon and O'Ward; Alexander Rossi and Santino Ferrucci and Rinus VeeKay and Scott McLaughlin, who led a race-high 64 laps from the pole.

The Blob's take: Maybe there should be a four-hour rain delay every year.

Nah. Just kidding.

* No, I don't know why Scott Dixon wasn't penalized for running Hunter-Reay off the road and out of the race, unless it was because he's Scott Dixon. He should have been.

On the other hand, if he had been penalized, he might not have been in the mix at the end, a circumstance owing to skilled fuel window management and the fact that he's, well, Scott Dixon. You don't run here for 20-plus years without learning a few things about how to get to the front. 

* Move of the day: O'Ward's amazing double save coming off turn two. How he didn't stuff it in the wall, not even he could explain. "I put that car in certain points where I didn't know if I was going to come out in once piece," he said.

* Line of the day: NBC race analyst Townsend Bell, who suggested drivers might have ingested a bit too much caffeine during the long wait for the start, and that was why they all seemed to be impersonating the wild and crazy Festrunk brothers out there. 

And last but not least ...

* Annoyance of the day: NBC endlessly, endlessly going to commercial, especially early on. For awhile there no one led more laps than And Now A Word From Our Sponsors.

Mighta won without that drive-through penalty for exceeding the limits of viewer patience. Just sayin'.