Retrospect: Skip Barber at Indianapolis
As part of my prize package for 2nd place in the Skip Barber eRace Series, I was able to choose a 2nd race weekend to compete in their F4 race series. That choice came easy to me as a chance to compete at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an open wheel car is a dream for many racing drivers. This opportunity gained even more prestige when we learned the NTT Indycar Series was moving a canceled event to create a doubleheader weekend at the Indianpolis Motor Speedway the same weekend as us. With our F4 races running Thursday and Friday October 1st and 2nd we would find ourselves right in the middle of an extremely busy and exciting week of racing.
Practice and Qualifying
Practice day was Wednesday before most the the GT World Challenge and Indycar teams loaded in to the speedway. This allowed us incredible access to the facility letting us get 2 practice sessions and a track walk complete before the busy Thursday. The plan for me is to just rebuild the confidence in the car that I had in New Jersey a few months prior, as well as not abuse the tires since we only get one set for the entire event. Right out of the box I was fast, setting the 2nd fastest lap time in practice 1 with the champion Johnny Guindi sitting P1. Practice 2 saw the times tighten up with me winding up P4 but confident going into qualifying.
Thursday was a day of struggles for me. Bright and early start for us with our 2 qualifying sessions separated by just 30 minutes and starting at 8:30 in the morning. With tires and cars cold going into Qualifying 1 it would be the last couple laps that would see the fastest times of the session set. This along with the hunt to find a draft off another car down the long straightaways at Indy would prove to be a huge challenge. I never really got a lap I was satisfied with and ended up P5 in the session.
Just a few minutes later we were back in the cars for Qualifying 2. This time I set myself up in a good position behind a couple others to get a good draft but on the first time into the tight turn 1 I started to lock up and had to take to the escape road. This was just the start of a tough session trying to get a lap I was happy with. I ended up P6 never really finding the pace I had in practice.
Race 1
Race 1 took place late on Thursday with the Indycars and GT cars building up rubber on the track the whole day. Getting over the absolute thrill of driving out of the pit lane at Indianapolis ready to start a race, I was confident I could make up spots from my 5th place starting position. When the green flag dropped both me and the P6 starting Sven De Vries got great jumps and tried to get passed the row in front of us. Sven drove all the way to 1st by turn 1 but I had nowhere to go getting pinched to the pit wall on the inside. When we got to turn 1 I clipped my nosecone on the car in front of me and then tried to pass someone that got hung out on the outside. By the time we got to the backstretch chicane I found myself side by side and made the mistake of staying in it, driving onto the marbles off the racing line and spinning.
After a struggle to get the car restarted I drove off not knowing what damage that could be done to the car and the tires. I spent most of the rest of the race alone, occasionally coming across one of the slower cars and getting around them. I made a last lap pass to promote me up to P6, a satisfying comeback after spending 40 seconds stationary on lap 1. I used most of the race to try new things and treat it like a practice session which would come back to help me going into Friday.
Race 2
I headed into race 2 on Friday feeling surprisingly relaxed and was just happy to be there. We were the last session of the day rolling off just after 6pm and immediately following the first race of the Indycar Harvest GP double header. Sitting on the pre-grid with the Indycars rolling by us after a long battle, and driving out seeing the winner Josef Newgarden just finishing up his victory celebration felt surreal. It all felt like a dream and created a nervous calm that would soon become very intense and very real. I was starting 6th and made another very good start, jumping out of line and going almost 4 wide heading down to turn 1. Unfortunately one of the other drivers on the inside line wasn’t as lucky and hit the inside pit wall. We raced to the backstretch before the full course yellow came out with me now sitting 4th.
Under the long caution I worked extremely hard to keep temperature in the tires, trying not to let them lose performance like what happened at NJMP. On the restart both me in 4th and the driver in 2nd popped out of line with me drafting by and out-braking 3rd into turn 1. Going down the backstretch the top 3 fanned out 3 wide with me on the outside and taking 2nd away as Johnny backed out of the middle. 2 corners later the new leader took a defensive line into turn 10, compromising his exit and allowing me to execute a perfect crossover and out-braking him on the inside into turn 12. At this point I worked on building a lead and knowing I had the pace advantage over Sven who was now defending to hold 2nd place. This defense allowed me to pull out a big gap before anyone was able to get back by him.
The race turned into a mental game at this point as I just tried to manage the gap and avoid any big mistakes. When I saw the while flag come out and still around a 2 second gap back to 2nd I backed up my braking zones by a brake marker and just focused on bringing the car home. I didn’t trust that I actually was going to win until hitting that last paddle operated upshift on the front straight. The emotion was incredible and I couldn’t believe that what just happened was actually real. At this point I was just over 2 years removed from racing my first 24 hours of Lemons race and the fact I was where I was at that moment left me absolutely speechless.
I can not thank Skip Barber Racing enough for what has been the most incredible experience of my life. I will work to get back to this point, but I could not have done it this year if it wasn’t for the e-series and the opportunities they opened up through it.
If you haven’t already be sure to follow Nathan Saxon Racing on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube to keep up to date with my journey and see the content that I made about the weekend at Indianapolis.