Detroit, MI
Unpredictable fun or embarrassing? IndyCar's Detroit chaos
To see Oriol Servia – who last raced in 2019 – lead the most laps in the Detroit IndyCar street race was hardly a surprise, especially given the unpredictable nature of the race.
Of course, Servia is the IndyCar pace car driver, and his Corvette needed refuelling such was the hive of activity, as caution laps made up 47 of the 100 laps of the race.
Funny. Not based in true facts, at least not all of them. Yes, a bit messier than desired but still a great and entertaining race. Ratings will tell if the audience wants to see me lead more laps again 😅😉🏁 @IndyCar https://t.co/Dk8BcryeKY
— Oriol Servia (@OriolServia) June 2, 2024
It was a race featuring eight crashes – well, there were more, those were just the ones that caused a caution – rain, strategic gambles on fuel and tyres, and drivers like Will Power receiving four penalties and still ending up sixth. It just beggars belief.
It left fans with a mix of opinions, ranging from celebrating the unpredictability to demanding for a return to the old Belle Island circuit – a view shared by some drivers too. But this isn’t the first time we’ve had races like this in IndyCar recently.
Belle Isle appreciation post 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/MiVesujojQ
— Ryan Hunter-Reay (@RyanHunterReay) June 2, 2024
Why was this race so messy? How does IndyCar’s stewarding play into what we saw? Is this type of race good for IndyCar? Let’s take a look at the event as a whole to try to draw some conclusions.
What the drivers made of it
There was some immediate reaction from drivers who had admittedly not watched the race back at that point, so they saw things through their own blinkered views.
Marcus Ericsson made a late charge to second (showing why Andretti wanted to sign him, as he was some way off his team-mates in qualifying but beat both in the race) and has won similar races before, including in Nashville in 2021 when he came from last and literally launching over the back of another car to victory.
“I think people are driving reckless on the restarts,” he said.
“Obviously [there are] opportunities on restarts.
“I think more than 50% [of the race was spent] on yellow [47/100 laps in reality].
“I’m sure it was dramatic and fun to watch. At some point also we need to have a bit of a better standard. We’re one of the best racing series in the world. We shouldn’t be driving on top of each other every single restart.
“I saw in my mirrors every time on the restart, four, five-wide. I was just praying not to get hit pretty much every restart.
“I need to watch it before I comment more on that.”
Me too. https://t.co/JukWuIqGeF
— Graham Rahal (@GrahamRahal) June 2, 2024
As previously mentioned a host of drivers and fans were left yearning for a return to Belle Isle, the venue before the current city track was introduced last year.
This new layout is just fundamentally too short for IndyCar. In practice and qualifying, you have drivers backing up halfway through the lap to try to get a clean run through the next lap, but the 1.645-mile track just can’t support that.
People are easily out of place in qualifying.
And then with just nine corners in the race, it breeds desperation in the few passing zones that are afforded, the Turn 3 hairpin being the only obvious and ‘safe’ passing point. Turn 8 is relatively popular but very easy to get wrong and put the car you’re passing in the wall after a downhill braking zone into the left-hander.
“The track, I don’t know what word to use, but it’s…challenging, let’s put it that way,” added Ericsson. “It has some great characteristics with the bumps, the walls are close. That is good.
“But it is very short and twisty for IndyCar. That’s for sure. It’s on the limit of what we can do.
“I wish we could have a couple more corners and a little bit longer lap. It seems to create good drama, like we saw last year and this year.”

Scott Dixon offered a slightly alternative opinion to his ex-Ganassi team-mate Ericsson, whom he’d beaten to the win.
That victory was underpinned by pitting earlier than it should have been possible to reach the end on fuel, but he gambled correctly that there would be more cautions that would allow him to save.
Asked where the line was between the race being action-packed versus embarrassing, Dixon replied: “I don’t think it’s ever embarrassing.
“I think you do a survey, most people go to races to watch crashes. I don’t.
“I know when I watch some kind of NASCAR race, they have a similar kind of effect. It’s obviously exciting. Obviously you don’t want to see the caution laps and them taking over.
“I didn’t see a lot of it. Obviously once I watch the race back and see what happened. But you’re in confined streets here. It’s tough, man. You make any kind of mistake…
“The tyre was pretty hard here. Very hard to turn the black [harder compound] tires on, makes it easy to lock the fronts. Colder conditions than last year. That probably definitely played a factor, as well.”
Last year there were still 32 laps run under caution, which makes a grand total of 79 laps of the 200 run on this track under caution.
Given part of the logic of having a race the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 – much to the detriment of the exhausted teams and drivers – is to capitalise on any carryover TV ratings, it begs the question: is this the kind of race you want to have as a follow-up?
Especially when the Indy 500 is more important than the championship to some – so if they had a bad Indy 500, they can come into Detroit pissed off and feeling like there’s nothing to lose by just going all out without thought of the consequences.
The Indy 500 is a perfect demonstration of the skill and bravery of the drivers, the work of the crews both in preparing the cars and in the pitstops, the strategists, and trusting the competitors around you. You could be forgiven for thinking Detroit was an alien sport in comparison.
As Ericsson points out, this is supposed to be a demonstration of what people regularly refer to as one of the best single-seater racing championships in the world. You could certainly be forgiven for baulking at that observation if you were watching Detroit.
Stewarding claims assessed

I actually think the stewards got most of the decisions in this race correct.
There is only one major one I would argue against and that was the Rinus VeeKay-Will Power incident, where Power did make contact with VeeKay – but that felt like a racing incident where VeeKay was on the outside and cut across the front of Power. VeeKay could argue he was just going about his business and was hit but, on the outside, he had a responsibility there to leave Power enough room, especially as they were three-wide with Romain Grosjean in a sandwich.
But honestly, that was a tough call.
The much, much greater problem for IndyCar with the penalties in races like this is that, whereas on a standard road and street circuit a drivethrough that drops you to the back of the pack or costs a handful of positions would be fatal for your chances of a good result, here it didn’t matter at all!
Let’s use Josef Newgarden as an example. He made his last pitstop with Dixon, so matched the winner’s strategy, but he ran over a wheelgun in his stop which warranted a drivethrough.
But because he’d just pitted, he served his drivethrough, then there were another few cautions, the drivers ahead pitted and Newgarden could stay out, so he vaulted from the back to fifth, with his penalty totally negated.
Wild day… finished P16. 🥲
Craziest race I’ve been part of. Anyway my team did an excellent job all weekend, can’t wait for a proper race next weekend. 😅
Top job @scottdixon9 & @MarcusArmstrng 🏆 pic.twitter.com/jCqbiI6Vwb
— Alex Palou Montalbo (@AlexPalou) June 2, 2024
Like in Nashville, the short pitlane here means drivethrough penalties aren’t as costly, so you’ve got drivers yo-yoing all over the place. Like Alex Palou, who pitted twice in the early running and was 21st, pitted again for wets, pitted again for dry tyres mere laps later, and was behind Newgarden in sixth when they crashed.
You can’t mandate the length of the pitlane being longer for that reason, it’s just happenstance, but it did contribute to the issue of the race being messy and tough to understand.
This is going to be one of those races where someone finishes 9th and you’re like how in the WORLD did they get there? #DetroitGP
— Conor Daly (@ConorDaly22) June 2, 2024
The IMSA SportsCar Championship race later on Sunday was a perfect example, where Nick Tandy was able to serve a drivethrough and emerge in fourth, then pitted just as a caution came out and emerged at the front of the field. That wouldn’t be possible at a lot of other tracks, especially in IMSA with driver changes.
There’s also the need for IndyCar drivers to take responsibility for avoiding some of this chaos.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the restarts were a lottery, and plenty of drivers avoided any issue. But as we’ve seen in countless incidents recently, some drivers need to be more heads-up about being overtaken and just getting out of the way.

I imagine it’s annoying to be divebombed at Turn 3 at Detroit, but just get out of the way and live to fight another lap, especially with so many cautions going on.
It feels like there’s a habit of drivers either not reacting quickly enough to overtakes or just steadfastly refusing to move and instead taking the contact. My zoomed out perspective of that is I’d rather give up one position in an overtake than 20 by retiring.
Ericsson’s right when he says drivers have to do better when racing wheel-to-wheel in the series. Just because the car is robust, doesn’t mean it’s a weapon.
As much as we praise IndyCar drivers for their ability and feats, it’s fine to question them in races like this, too.
As for the stewards, there’s plenty of races I think they’ve performed poorly at and there’s far too much generally letting contact go or allowing drivers to make overtakes to shunt the other car off in the process. But they’ve set a precedent for that and, in this race, they did dish out hefty penalties to drivers involved in incidents. It just didn’t matter because of the number of cautions and the short pitlane.
It’s worth considering if one race per year like this is a good thing or not. It’s not what most fans would call pure racing, but the unpredictability is certainly very appealing to a neutral tuning-in hoping not to see the same driver win every week.
Only, IndyCar already does a pretty good job of providing that anyway.
Detroit, MI
Detroit Pistons’ loss to Cavs shows weaknesses before playoffs
What questions have Pistons answered this season?
Friend of the pod Laz Jackson walks through what the Detroit Pistons have proved of themselves this year.
CLEVELAND – In just five days, the Detroit Pistons faced the Cleveland Cavaliers twice.
They split the games to finish their season series against the Central Division rivals, but with a potential reunion looming in the second round of the NBA playoffs, the Pistons came away from both games unsatisfied.
On Friday, it was the Pistons needing overtime to overcome a Cavaliers team missing James Harden and Donovan Mitchell at Little Caesars Arena. On Tuesday, March 3, in Cleveland, however – with Harden back in the lineup – the Pistons struggled in the areas they usually thrive, for a 113-109 loss.
The Pistons’ first loss on the road since Jan. 29 didn’t feature their usual fire for much of the night.
“I’m frustrated with the effort level, the attention to detail that we played on that end of the floor,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “The times and opportunities where we did do the right thing, did get stops, we let people outwork us to come up with offensive rebounds. We can’t afford to not play at maximum effort. That’s been our superpower all year long and, tonight, I felt like there were times where we were outworked. If we’re outworked, this isn’t going to be the results that we want.”
The Pistons work at being the league’s most disruptive team via turnovers has given them a top-three defensive rating. They force turnovers on 17.2% of possessions – best in the NBA –and only trail the Houston Rockets in offensive rebounding percentage. They also lead the league in steals and blocks per game. Getting out in transition and capitalizing on second-chance opportunities has created an above-average offense despite struggles on 3-point shooting.
For three quarters against the Cavaliers, little of that materialized – as least until the Pistons grabbed seven steals in the final period (after just two in the first three). Overall, the Pistons were beat on the offensive glass (11-10), mustered just 10 fastbreak points (their lowest total since Jan. 27) and picked up 11 second-chance points (their least since Feb. 6).
It was, in all, a lackadaisical defensive performance, with the Pistons repeatedly losing shooters behind the arc as the Cavs knocked down 17 3-pointers – eight more than the Pistons.
“Obviously they’re a good team, but we haven’t been playing to our standard on that side of the ball,” Pistons wing Javonte Green said. “Coach talked about the effort we need to bring every game. We just need to play harder. We can’t get outworked on offensive rebounds and 50-50 balls, that’s our identity. I feel like we needed to pick up that slack.”
The Pistons also were hurt by a poor shooting performance by Cade Cunningham; he finished with 10 points and 14 assists but shot 4-for-16. Cleveland threw multiple defenders at him all night, and he obliged by passing the ball and setting up his teammates. It led to a big second half for Tobias Harris, who scored all 19 of his points in the last two quarters.
But it wasn’t enough.
“On the defensive end we just couldn’t put up a wall, couldn’t get a stand going,” Cunningham said. “Personally, I had a lot of bad closeouts; just off the ball, I didn’t feel sharp. Just gotta clean all that stuff up.”
With 22 games remaining, the Pistons are focused on cleaning up the margins so they’ll be ready for postseason play. These two games against the Cavaliers have given them a list of areas to clean up.
Friday, they needed an extra period to win after rallying from a late nine-point deficit despite losing Cunningham late after he fouled out with just under two minutes left in the fourth quarter. Jalen Duren and Daniss Jenkins stepped up in overtime after Duncan Robinson also fouled out.
Mostly, the Cavaliers have proven they can pounce during soft stretches on defense. Thursday brings another rematch with a contender, as the Pistons wrap up a three-game road trip against the San Antonio Spurs (another opponent from last week).
“We didn’t play our best basketball the other night,” Bickerstaff said of the Cavaliers’ game on Feb. 27. “Give our guys credit because we played 53 minutes and were able to pull it out in some adverse conditions. Cade fouls out, Duncan fouls out, our guys still figure out a way to get it done.
“We need to be better. We need to be better defensively, we need to impose ourselves on the game a little bit more than we did last game. I thought the last two quarters of the Orlando game [on Sunday] were the best quarters we’ve played defensively since New York [on Feb. 19]. I hope, and told our guys, that we can continue to build off that, because that’s where it always starts for us. You can tell the tone by how we are defensively and how we’re getting after it.”
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky and/or X @omarisankofa.
[ MUST WATCH: Make “The Pistons Pulse” your go-to Pistons podcast, listen available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) or watch live on YouTube. ]
Next up: Spurs
Matchup: Pistons (45-15) at San Antonio (44-17).
Tipoff: 8 p.m. Thursday, March 5; Frost Bank Center, San Antonio.
TV/radio: FanDuel Sports Network Detroit; WXYT-FM (97.1).
Detroit, MI
Police search for suspect, accomplice after teen injured in shooting outside Detroit school gym
The Detroit Police Department is searching for a suspect and an accomplice in connection with a shooting last week that injured a teen outside a school gym.
The shooting happened in the 3400 block of St. Aubin, the same area where the Detroit Edison Public School Academy’s Early College of Excellence is located. Police say that at about 8:27 p.m. on Feb. 27, there was an altercation inside the gym that continued outside.
Police say the suspect allegedly fired multiple shots at the victim, striking him. The teen was taken to a hospital for treatment. His current condition is unknown.
Police say the accomplice who was with the suspect was also armed.
Anyone with information is asked to call DPD’s seventh precinct at 313-596-5740, Crime Stoppers at 800-Speak Up or DetroitRewards.tv.
Detroit, MI
Bruce Campbell announces cancer diagnosis; ‘Fear not,’ he tells fans
Treatment will delay the Royal Oak-born actor’s plans to tour his new film ‘Ernie & Emma’ this summer.
Royal Oak-born movie star and cult hero Bruce Campbell announced on social media on Monday that he has been diagnosed cancer — a type that is “treatable” but not “curable,” he said.
“I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too,” the “Evil Dead” star, 67, wrote in a message posted to Instagram.
He went on to say “I’m not gonna go into any more detail,” and he didn’t. He said the public announcement had to do with scaling back appearances on his schedule, including tour dates behind his latest film, “Ernie & Emma.”
Campbell planned to show the movie June 5 at the Redford Theatre; as of Monday night, that date is still on the Redford schedule, but Campbell wrote in his note he plans to get “as well as I possibly can over the summer so that I can tour with my new movie ‘Ernie & Emma’ this fall.”
The movie is written, directed by and stars Campbell as a man who goes on a journey following the death of his wife. Campbell produced the movie alongside his wife, Ida Gearon, and filmed it in Oregon, where he now lives.
Campbell told The News in January he dedicated “Ernie & Emma” to his childhood moviemaking pals, including Scott Spiegel, who died of a heart attack in September 2025.
“It’s a callback to the carefree days of Super 8, where we could do whatever the f–k we wanted to do,” Campbell said of “Ernie & Emma.” “So I thought, ‘All the boys are responsible for this,’ so they’re all in there.”
Campbell got his start making movies around Metro Detroit with his childhood pal, Sam Raimi. Campbell starred in Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy and has since appeared in most of Raimi’s films; Campbell makes a brief appearance in a photograph in the background of an early scene in Raimi’s latest, “Send Help.”
He’s also an author; Campbell’s autobiography “If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor” was published in 2001.
In his post on social media, Campbell thanked fans and said he was not out to elicit sympathy.
“Fear not, I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch and I have great support, so I expect to be around for a while,” he wrote.
agraham@detroitnews.com
-
World7 days agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Wisconsin3 days agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Denver, CO1 week ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Louisiana1 week agoWildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
-
Florida4 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Maryland4 days agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Oregon5 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling



