MILLER: Praise from on high

Everyone always has an opinion about an IndyCar race – too boring, too processional, too many long yellows, not enough overtaking, Mickey Mouse circuit – and other than the Indianapolis 500, there usually aren't a lot of compliments thrown around.

Which makes the phone call I received Monday morning not only unusual, but also pretty credible.

"I thought yesterday was a damn good race," said A.J. Foyt, who watched the ABC 500 at Pocono from his Houston home because of an infection in his leg. "I mean, there was a lot going on, and guys going from the back to the front, drafting each other and racing hard. Hell, I watched every lap, so you know it had to be pretty good."

Now Indy's first four-time king and the winningest driver in IndyCar history isn't exactly enamored with today's cars and drivers, so this unprompted endorsement is worth noting. And he wasn't raving about the show because one of his cars won (although Carlos Munoz had his best run of the season, finishing 10th).

Rick Mears, who has been lobbying for less downforce and making the cars more difficult to drive, sounded pleased before he got on his flight home Sunday night.

"It's amazing how good the racing can be when everybody isn't wide open," said the four-time Indy winner. "That was good racing today."

But the next-to-last oval of 2017 was a different kind of entertaining. It wasn't a Hanford Device race, where nobody wanted to lead yet nobody could help passing because of the giant hole blown through the air.

And it wasn't a pack race where everyone is stuck together at the same speed, running wide-open for two hours.

With almost 600 on-track passes for position and 42 lead changes among 10 drivers, the cynical assumption was that it was a staged show of courtesy, or letting other people go to save fuel. Yet the eight-wide restarts, dive-bombs into Turn 1 and countless passes into Turn 3 put on about as good a product as could ever be expected from only 22 cars in 500 miles.

"I though it was a bloody good race," said Tony Kanaan, who wound up fifth after leading 32 laps. "It was much better than a Hanford Device race or a pack race, and we raced each other clean and hard. Sure, at some point we all tried to save fuel to make it in six stops, but I assure you Graham and I weren't saving any fuel when we kept trading the lead back and forth, and that was fun."

Simon Pagenaud, who finished fourth for his 12th top five of the season, agreed with T.K. about the fun factor and strategy.

"It's a 500-mile race, and naturally you're going to try and save a little fuel and take care of your tires, but I can assure you that in the last 20 laps we were all running as hard as possible," he said. "I don't know what it looked like on television or to the fans in the grandstand, but I thought it was one of our best races of the year."

Of course the trick is to make Phoenix, Gateway and Iowa as racy as Pocono.
Based on the new, universal aero kits and feedback from Juan Pablo Montoya and Oriol Servia, the cars seem to be slipping around a little more and might be tougher to drive next year. IndyCar seemed to hit on the right aero package at Pocono, and the early returns are positive for 2018.

"I told Jay Frye [IndyCar's president of competition] that they were heading in the right direction," said Mears.

Super Tex was entertained, and Mears is encouraged. Good enough for me.