Back marker blues

 I don't know what sort of dreams crowd Graham Rahal's sleep these days, but surely they can't be pleasant ones. Surely, last night, they took the form of some ravening six-eyed monster with "2023" written in blood on its forehead, chasing him through an oddly deserted Gasoline Alley shouting "Hey, buddy! Remember ME?"

Or, you know, something like that.

("You have an exceptionally disturbed mind, you know that?" you're saying now.)

(Yeah, well. Tell me something I don't know.)

Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. Graham Rahal.

Who's experiencing some serious back-marker blues this morning, because for the second year in a row he'll be scrambling to get into the Indianapolis 500 as a last-chance qualifier along with three others. Two of them are Katherine Legge and 19-year-old rookie Nolan Siegel, who went on his head in a scary crash yesterday. The fourth, shockingly, is 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, who finished second last May and came within half a lap of becoming the first back-to-back winner in 21 years.

Rahal, meanwhile, failed to make the field in qualifying, but caught a break when Stefan Wilson broke his back in a practice crash a few days later. Rahal took over Wilson's ride, starting dead last in the field.

Now he's in the same position again, and this is where you wonder (or at least I do) why it is Indy seems to enjoy tormenting certain drivers. There's always been cruel and occasionally bloodthirsty streak to the place, one which manifests itself most starkly in the way it dumps heapin' helpin's of misfortune on particular victims.

Lloyd Ruby comes to mind, of course. Any and all Andrettis. And now, Graham Rahal.

When he won St. Pete at 19 in his very first IndyCar Series start, it was naturally assumed that someday he'd win at Indy in May, too. But that was 16 years ago, and Rahal is 35 now, and still the big W eludes him. He's finished third twice and fifth another time, but someone has always been faster or hit the pit window right or just been plain luckier.

Now he comes to May again with another certified beater, hoping to wring enough speed out of it to finish at least third in a four-car battle for the field.

"When you've got a car like the guys in the front row do, they don't have to do much," Rahal said yesterday. "And when you don't, it's not so easy to ride."

Especially when, back in the day, it looked so much easier than it's turned out.