Final thoughts on an Indy 500 for the ages

It’s time to farewell the 2026 Indianapolis 500 and turn the page to the Detroit Grand Prix, which is a shame since the 110th running of the Indy 500 is one we’ll never forget.

Many of the stories have already been told, so here are a few items that stood out to share before the chapter is closed.

PERFECT ENDING

It felt like we were at a funeral.

During the days leading up to the Indy 500, the stunning loss of transcendent racing superstar Kyle Busch on Thursday left many in a state of shock. The mercurial Busch was seemingly gone in an instant, and it wasn’t a familiar death in our sport. This wasn’t a violent crash that led to his demise. This was an instantaneous void with no warning and no time to prepare for the worst outcome.

On Thursday night in Speedway, Ind., the mourning for Busch was immediate. As fans and teams and media reconvened at the track Friday morning ahead of Carb Day’s final pre-race practice run, the mourning continued as those most heavily affiliated with Busch and the NASCAR world were largely speechless, prone to casting thousand-yard stares while lost in deep emotions.

At least for those on the inside of the sport, a heaviness weighed upon the Indy 500. The heartsick reaction spoke to the gravity of Busch’s life and impact on racing. Here, at the world’s biggest race, where "Rowdy" had yet to compete and had no involvement, his death was treated like a 500 legend had been lost. The timing of his loss also meant there was a certain degree of joylessness as Sunday’s race drew near.

Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Gray, cloud-filled skies and the specter of rain only added to the pall on race day, which did nothing to lift the mood. But the race got under way as scheduled, and it didn’t disappoint. Polesitter Alex Palou and a hobbled second-place starter Alexander Rossi traded the lead 12 times in the first 18 laps. And Busch was celebrated by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar Series on the 18th lap, a tribute to his longstanding car number at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Once the race returned to green after the crash involving Ryan Hunter-Reay and Katherine Legge was cleared, the lead changed hands 32 times between lap 26 and lap 92. And within those laps, and again a few more times on the ones that were waiting to be run, home state hero Conor Daly shot into the lead and Lord did we hear 350,000 people do their best to drown out the sound of the cars with the ferocity of their cheers.

In this frame, we also had Mother Nature interrupt the action – a delayed arrival of light drizzle – that toyed with our emotions. A whale of a race was in motion, only to be slowed by menacing skies. But the pauses proved to be temporary, and the action resumed.

Fourth-place starter Felix Rosenqvist was lurking all afternoon, and by lap 154, as the 500 crossed into the final quarter, he took the lead for a Meyer Shank Racing team that was starving to capture its second win some five years after its first at the 2021 Indy 500.

But Team Penske’s new driver, the ever-present David Malukas, wouldn’t be denied and wrested the lead from Rosenqvist on lap 167. Palou made his last stand with a move to take the lead on lap 175 before fading after another explosion of cheers was heard when Pato O’Ward took the lead on lap 176. Rosenqvist reclaimed first place on lap 185 and then the big crash by rookie Caio Collet on lap 192 set the stage for a big restart on lap 196, where Rosenqvist’s teammate Marcus Armstrong swept into the lead. But rookie Mick Schumacher glanced off the wall on the restart, the race returned to yellow and two laps were somehow wasted to set up what proved to be the final restart on lap 199, which Malukas led.

And then we witnessed the once-in-a-lifetime lap 200. Armstrong, Malukas, Rosenqvist, O’Ward and Scott McLaughlin delivered the laps of their lives as some made the right moves and others were left in tears. Rosenqvist, Meyer Shank Racing, emerged as winners of the Indy 500 by 0.0233s over a crestfallen Malukas.

All of the sorrow over Kyle Busch’s incomprehensible death. All of the uncertainty over the weather and if the race would be washed out. Both met with a blur of color and speed across the finish line and the greatest possible release, a cleansing of the sorrow that weighed on so many hearts, with an explosion of cheers from hundreds of thousands of people who were freed of their grieving.

This communal burst of joy was unlike any I’ve experienced in all of my 500s.

Indy made an instant hero of Rosenqvist. Brandon Badraoui/Lumen via Getty Images

This little Swedish fire hydrant of a man, all impish grins and delight, leaping atop his car and pumping his fists in the air, a first-time father and first-time Indy 500 winner in the same month in his adopted home of Indiana, became a Hoosier on Sunday.

His story, his life, his achievement, made in a drama-filled pass for the ages. From the darkness that descended on the Speedway to the unbridled rapture in the race to the checkered flag, disbelief marking both moments, but ending with joy.

Lap 18 was special, and so were most of the 200 tours on Sunday with the peak produced on that last-lap showdown. It was the perfect race at the perfect time with the perfect winner. That’s how I’ll remember the 110th Indianapolis 500.

ANOTHER MILESTONE

Meyer Shank Racing’s Kylee Jarman became the latest woman to win the Indy 500 as a member of the pit crew. Jarman, who drives one of MSR’s transporters, has been a fixture on pit lane with the team preparing and maintaining Rosenqvist’s Firestones, and during pit stops, she’s over the wall in a firesuit and helmet pulling tearoffs from FRO’s aeroscreen.

Kylee Jarman. Penske Entertainment photo

It’s been a busy time for firsts with women at the Indy 500 with Mary Beth Shank, who runs the business side of Meyer Shank Racing, celebrating the 2021 win by Helio Castroneves with her husband Mike and co-owner Jim Meyer. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Angela Ashmore was a big part of Marcus Ericsson’s 2022 Indy 500 victory as the first female engineer to win the race as part of the engineering duo led by race engineer Brad Goldberg. Nicole Rotondo also won that day with Ericsson as his engine technician attached from Honda Racing Corporation US.

In 2023 and again in 2024, Caitlyn Brown became the first female mechanic to win the Indy 500 – while also changing inside front tires on Josef Newgarden’s Team Penske car – and now Jarman has added another distinction for the growing number of elite women on pit lane and the engineering stands.

The next milestones for women at the 500 include winning as chief mechanic, race engineer and race strategist.

TEARS AND CHEERS FOR MALUKAS

The last time we saw a driver arrive at Team Penske and immediately take the lead with their qualifying and race results was in 2017, when Josef Newgarden moved across from ECR. It hasn’t happened since – not until David Malukas stepped up from Penske’s satellite team at AJ Foyt Racing – and the effect has been eerily similar. Except Malukas is performing at a level after seven races that surpasses what Newgarden achieved after his first seven with the team in 2017.

At the same stage, the Penske trio of Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud and Newgarden were ranked in that order in the drivers’ standings. So far in 2026, Malukas has been Penske’s most consistent and most competitive performer as he’s led Newgarden and McLaughlin in six out of seven qualifying sessions, including the last six in a row.

He’s also been the first Penske driver to reach the finish line in four of seven races, including Sunday’s thriller where he capped the month of May as Penske’s most formidable threat at the Indy 500 with a second consecutive second-place run.

He came up just short in the end, but Malukas' forceful charge to the front continued the pattern he's shown all year. James Gilbert/Getty Images

After securing his first IndyCar pole at Phoenix, Malukas continues to chase his first win. He vaulted to second in the championship behind Palou, which is another accolade that warrants appreciation. McLaughlin is sixth in the standings after a fine run to third at Indy and Newgarden dropped to eight after his crash; he entered the 500 in fifth, but it isn’t a long haul to get back to the top five.

Newgarden rose up in the second half of his Penske debut and overtook his veteran teammates to clinch the first of his two championships. Malukas has started off his Penske tenure as the top dog, but faces the mounting pressure and scrutiny that comes with such lofty and unexpected results. McLaughlin and Newgarden can be counted on to surge over the next 11 races, and there’s no telling how Malukas – a first-time title contender – will handle the heat from his teammates and the rest of his rivals.

But we can, at least through the Indy 500, take a moment to marvel at what this soft-spoken, fun-loving creature from Chicago has produced for an IndyCar juggernaut after arriving with no predictions to be anything other than the third-best driver at Team Penske. Instead, the kid who was crushed after losing the Indy 500 has taken full advantage of the opportunity presented by Penske and has become frighteningly effective while finding his way inside a new team.

If the first seven races are an indicator of what’s to come, I can’t wait to see how Penske’s newest version of Newgarden fares as Year 1 motors to the finale.