Remembering the magic of Belle Isle

Last Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear was an epic way for the 2.35-mile racetrack to sign off its time on the IndyCar schedule. Will Power’s triumph by one second over Alexander Rossi meant the Team Penske ace landed Chevrolet’s 100th win since it returned to the sport at the start of the 2.2-liter V6 twin-turbo era in 2012, and he did so in the marque’s – and Roger Penske’s – backyard.

Power also joined Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon as three-time winners at this venue that has seen so many memorable moments since it first appeared on the schedule in 1992. On the eve of the series arriving for its eighth round at its most scenic and spectacular road course at Road America, let us pay tribute to what became one of the most distinctive and also most grueling venues for IndyCar racing, Belle Isle.

The CART Indy car drivers of 1992 loved the course and it’s not hard to understand why: their most direct comparison was the downtown Detroit venue they’d inherited from Formula 1 in 1989, where they’d been pointing-and-squirting around 90-degree turns and turning average lap speeds of 88mph. By comparison, this new 2.1-mile venue saw averages comfortably exceed 100mph and while it was as bumpy as the old track – Michigan winters and Michigan summers will do that to any kind of surface – there was barely a right-angle to be seen. Instead there were flowing slow-, medium- and high-speed turns thrown into the mix, and the price of overambition was as high as ever, involving a trip into concrete or tire walls.

It remained ever thus over the 30 years. Following his tremendous pole lap last Saturday, Josef Newgarden commented: “That was one of the most satisfying pole laps I've ever had because of the