The night before the 106th Indianapolis 500, Brad Goldberg visited his father’s gravesite.
David Goldberg would take his young son to Indianapolis 500 practice, but after passing away when Brad was only nine years old, one of David’s best friends continued taking Brad to practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after school let out for the day.
Goldberg’s passion for racing led him to a career as a race engineer for Chip Ganassi Racing, a team he’s been with for 20 years. On Sunday (May 29), Goldberg’s childhood dreams came true as the car he engineered won the Indianapolis 500 with Marcus Ericsson behind the wheel.
The path to victory was one of intense study, especially over the last 100 miles of the race. Ericsson’s race strategist Mike O’Gara was looking with Goldberg at the lap times of the cars that stopped early for their final pit stops of the race. As long as Ericsson’s times were as fast or even faster than the cars that had stopped, then it was worth risking staying out in case there was a yellow flag that would ruin their strategy.
Once O’Gara and Goldberg knew that Ericsson would not go a lap down to the race leaders and that he would come out of the pits behind a fast car that would tow him around, the call to pit came from the No. 8 Honda’s timing stand.
Pato O’Ward was leading the race with Ericsson just over a second behind, and both went to the pits together on lap 177. The duo left the pits together, and Ericsson got a tow to get up to speed quickly and attack.
“We knew the car was fast, and it’s just a matter of getting clear air and the momentum and having a gap and then letting her, letting her catch the tow and letting her rip,” Goldberg told Frontstretch. “And as soon as we did, I think [Ericsson] cranked off a 224 mph lap, like on his first timed lap or something like that. And it’s like, ‘Holy smokes, we’ve got something here!’”
Ericsson ran the fastest lap of the 2022 Indianapolis 500 on…
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