A few racy thoughts

 Late Sunday afternoon in the shadows along the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's front stretch, and here was Alex Palou, in the extremity of his joy: Goin' all Misty Mae from the Kitty Kat Gentleman's Club And Lounge.

First the helmet came off.

Then one driving glove.

Then the other driving glove.

Burlesque music started up in your head.

And then ...

And then Alex Palou was Alex Palou again -- your freshly-minted winner of the 109th Indianapolis 500, ready to celebrate the culmination of a single-minded pursuit. 

He shed the gloves and then he was sprinting along the pavement, arms spread wide, heading for his pit crew down the way. They vaulted the low wall and swallowed him up in a group embrace, and then they all were literally jumping for joy, dancing on that fabled stretch of roadway as if it were the grandest of ballrooms.

This is how it looks when a 28-year-old man cements his still-young legacy.

It's how it looks when the undisputed king of IndyCar achieves his final validation.

He's won five of the first six races on the schedule so far this season, and unless some bolt of lightning strikes, by the end he'll have won his third IndyCar title in a row and fourth in the last five years. You just can't beat the guy right now, as Graham Rahal observed earlier this month. You can't even beat him at Indy anymore.

Put him in that Chip Ganassi Racing seat and he becomes one with the machine, cool and unruffle-able and forever calculating. His drive Sunday was typically masterful; he started sixth, hung around the top five all day, rode the draft when he needed to and attacked when it was time to. 

At the end, stalking Marcus Ericsson as the laps ticked down, he surprised everyone but himself and his bean-counters on the pitbox when he surged past Ericsson for the lead with 15 laps to run. Conventional wisdom said it was way too soon; Palou knew it wasn't.

He'd been riding Ericsson's wake because, unlike the leader, he needed to save as much fuel as possible to mount one last charge. But the longer he waited, the less fuel he would have. And up ahead of Ericsson were two back markers he could use as a tow just as he'd been using Ericsson.

So he went. And he rode the back markers' draft. And Ericsson couldn't catch him  as a result.

It was an impeccable finish to a day that was all kinds of anything but, and the nuttiness began early. A piddling drizzle delayed the start for an hour; cool temps reminded old heads of 1992, when cold rubber on cold pavement created such mayhem 85 of the 200 laps were run under caution. The polesitter, Roberto Guerrero, goosed the throttle a scoche too much trying to warm his tires and crashed on the parade lap.

Thirty-three years later, cold rubber on cold pavement again, and, hey, look at this, deja vu all over again: Scott McLaughlin goosed the throttle a scoche too much trying to warm the tires, and, bang, into the wall he went. On the pace lap.

Two years. Two drivers who didn't even make it to the start.

And a start, as result, that happened under caution, and wasn't that a trifle weird. Then, four laps in, bang, there went Marco Andretti into the wall. Then more laps behind the pace car as another piddling drizzle passed. Then ...

On and on. Weirdness square, and then cubed.

Rinus Veekay locked up the brakes, spun and crashed in the pits. Rookie polesitter Robert Swartzman locked up his brakes and crashed into his pitbox, scattering crewmen like tenpins. Oh, and Alexander Rossi's day ended when his car caught fire in the pits, prompting the irreverent to imagine this notation in the official record: Alexander Rossi, 73 laps. Reason out: Unscheduled barbecue.

Sheer craziness. Made you wonder, as the afternoon went on, if there maybe wasn't an exchange between a crew chief and a driver that began with the crew chief saying "Pit, pit, pit," and the driver replying "Aw, HELL, no. I'm not comin' in there."

At any rate, as it always does, Indy kept randomly taking contenders out of the running. Scott Dixon had brake issues. Pato O'Ward, the Vegas favorite, got shuffled back early, climbed back to fourth, but didn't have the car to run down the leaders in the end and finished fourth.

So it went.

Forty-eight-year-old two-time winner Takuma Sato led more laps than anyone -- 51 -- but got shuffled back, too.

 Josef Newgarden barged up through the field from 32nd to sixth in 137 laps, an astounding run, but his day died in the pits when his fuel pressure crapped out. 

Conor Daly, who played what looked like a winning hand for the longest time, dropped back when his tires suddenly went away; Ryan Hunter-Reay, driving a pit-crew challenge car because his primary burned to cinders on Carb Day, stalled it on his last stop after a superb fuel-window strategy put him in front for 48 laps.

In the end, it came down to Ericsson and Palou.  And then just Palou.

Who's gonna beat this guy? Who?

More than just Graham Rahal are wondering now.