GP of Indy: They crashed with the rolling start too

Turn 1 carnage

Rob Chinn/AR1.com

Maybe next year, you know? Maybe not. Maybe the Angie's List Grand Prix of Indianapolis is destined to become the IndyCar Cubs, just sad enough to be lovable.

There was a lot of good stuff to love about Grand Prix 2.0, don't get me wrong. We saw one of the best drivers in the business, Will Power, at his best. He pretty much lead start to finish – minus those pesky pit stops, which Power's team navigated in less time than it will take you to read the rest of this sentence – to win Saturday by 1.5 seconds. That's a blowout.

The crowd experience seemed lovable, in part because the crowd was so small – ahem – that traffic and lines weren't an issue. If you're a hardcore IndyCar fan, attending the 2015 Angie's List Grand Prix was like going to a Tuesday matinee. Same movie stars. Same plot. No crowding, no lines.

The movie Saturday was "Poltergeist."

Power led 65 of 82 laps and averaged 116.842 mph, but the most pertinent facts from Grand Prix of Indianapolis 2.0 are these:

At 3:42 p.m., Mari Hulman George said words we love to hear at Indianapolis Motor Speedway: Gentlemen, start your engines.

And at 3:50 p.m. – maybe 10 seconds after the race began – we heard words we keep hearing on Lap 1 of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis: The yellow flag is out.

What in the …?

Two years for this road-course race, two disasters at the start. Last year's mess was caused by Sebastian Saavedra or his car or whatever poltergeist decided to curse this race. Saavedra had pole position and led the race for maybe one second, which is how long it took the cars behind him to realize he hadn't stopped to let a goose cross the road.

His car had stalled.

The pole sitter, stalling at the start of a race, is like Andrew Luck taking the first snap of the game and swallowing the football whole. The field went around Saavedra's stalled car. Well, most of them. Carlos Munoz hit Saavedra, and then Mikhail Aleshin hit him. Debris flew. It was scary.

This year's mess was caused by Helio Castroneves, his car, or whatever poltergeist hates this race and is determined to make a mockery of it. Coming into Turn 1, Castroneves ran into the back of Scott Dixon – who started second to Power. Dixon spun out, there was another collision farther back in the pack, and the result was chaos. Some cars went into the infield, where they righted themselves and got back on the course. Some, unable to make that first turn, went onto the escape road past Turn 1. One rolled the wrong way, made a U-turn and kept going.

And some sat there, waving for help.

"The massacre on Lap 1 in Turn 1," is how fourth-place finisher Sebastien Bourdais described it.

Nobody was hurt, same as last year, though a year ago Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard – the ceremonial flag-waver – did suffer a bruised arm. The yellow flags that marred this race in each of its first two years were unrelated, though third-place finisher Juan Pablo Montoya suggested this year's crash was avoidable. Sorry, scratch that. He suggested it was unavoidable, and the fault of race officials.

"You put us on the longest straight(away) you can think of, you put a first-gear corner at the end of it," Montoya said. "What do you think is going to happen?"

Another disaster for James Hinchcliffe, apparently. Talk about cursed …

That poor guy. Hinchcliffe raced this event last year and couldn't tell you a thing about it. He doesn't remember. The car in front of him, Justin Wilson, kicked up debris that clocked Hinchcliffe right in the head. At least, that's what his crew told him. Hinchcliffe suffered a concussion on the spot, though he maintained not only his consciousness but his car. The human spirit. It can be indomitable.

Hinchcliffe was held out of five days of 2014 Indy 500 practice, qualified second anyway, then collided with Ed Carpenter after 175 laps and was done for the day, 28thof 33 cars.

That's another year, and another race at IMS. This year? This race? Scott Dixon is furious, probably even now as you read this. Lord knows, two hours in the car didn't calm him down Saturday. He spent the first part of those two hours on the radio, demanding to know the penalty for Castroneves. He was told there wasn't one. That didn't do much for his mood.

The normally affable New Zealander wasn't talking to the media after the race, instead bolting from the track to race control to have some words with whoever would hear him vent.

Castroneves was telling media on the track afterward that he was sympathetic if not apologetic about the mishap that ruined Dixon's day.

In the garage, Dixon's team took apart his car, hours after they had to put it back together following the Lap 1 crash. The front and back wings were damaged, causing Dixon's pit crew to clip on new wings like Lego pieces. The Lego assembly was fast, but not nearly fast enough. Not on a day Will Power started in the lead, well ahead of the day's only real turbulence, and never really relinquished it. Only three cars finished within 25 seconds of Power. As Bourdais was saying afterward, "The race was all about track position."

And the most important position – the pole – was determined a day earlier. Will Power won this race on Friday, is what I'm saying.

What happened Saturday was just for show. And as far as shows go, we've seen better. But not in this race. Last year was disastrous too.

Just wait 'til next year. Gregg Doyel/Indy Star