Power rams Kirkwood in outrageous IndyCar practice incident
IndyCar

Power rams Kirkwood in outrageous IndyCar practice incident

by Jack Benyon
4 min read

After an Indianapolis 500 month filled with controversy, it took just minutes for this weekend’s Detroit IndyCar race to give us a fresh altercation as Will Power repeatedly rammed Kyle Kirkwood’s car in bizarre fashion in the first practice session.

Penske driver Power was on a hot lap entering the 90-degree left at Turn 5, which always causes traffic jams here because the lap is short and with just nine corners as far back as Turn 6 the cars are slowing to prep for the next lap and it blocks the track.

Power met Kirkwood at Turn 5 and hit his rear. Power then pushed Kirkwood through the run to Turn 6 and through Turn 6, past David Malukas’s car as he had to stay out of the way to avoid an incident. TV coverage suggested Kirkwood’s Andretti car sustained floor and gearbox casing damage.

A representative of IndyCar said there would be "no action" on the incident, although The Race has followed up to double check there hasn't been a misunderstanding over the incident being discussed and will update here once a reply is received.

“I came around and he slowed up in the middle and made contact, so I thought I may as well get a gap now so I just pushed him past the car in front, just moved him out of the way and got a really nice gap,” was Power’s explanation to Fox TV.

“If I hadn’t touched him already…I was like, oh, well, I’ve touched him already, I may as well keep pushing him (laughs) and get myself a gap and finished the run nicely.”

Even before he was interviewed, you could hear Kyle Kirkwood shout “I know what you’re going to ask me” in a somewhat mischievous manner as Fox approached him.

“Everyone is going slow around here, the track’s not big enough to fit all the cars and he got frustrated,” said Kirkwood, who also tweeted the video with the caption "Will Plower".

“Whatever, I guess.

“Does it give him the right to push my car through a couple of corners and almost cause a wreck? I don’t think so.

“Malukas is right in front of me, like I can’t really do much, and he’s just shoving me along. Everyone stopped.

“I don’t know, I’m not upset, I don’t care, we’re P1.

“But at the same time, I expect IndyCar to do the right thing with that, I’m sure that they’ll do something, who knows what, I’ve never seen that before.

“We had damage from that too. Maybe we were even a little bit faster. Who knows.”

Coincidentally, Power and Kirkwood went fastest in their respective groups of practice. With qualifying split in two late on to ensure track time, Malukas topped the longer earlier combined session which is when the Power/Kirkwood incident took place.

Kirkwood is used to controversy during FP1 at Detroit. Last year in this session he was smashed into at the same Turn 5 corner by Santino Ferrucci, who then gesticulated angrily at Kirkwood and used a “boyfriend” slur towards Kirkwood and Andretti team-mate Colton Herta before later apologising.

David Malukas was the car on the outside who had to wait for Kirkwood and Power to come through.

He said at first he thought Kirkwood had an issue and Power was pushing him to safety, similar to a scene Malukas remembers from the Cars movie where Lightning McQueen gives 'The King' a helpful shove. "Then I realised, it was not that!" Malukas said.

He added: "For me it just felt like I was back playing iRacing or rFactor. I was like, yeah, I'd totally do that in a video game.

"It was pretty cool to see him just push [Kirkwood], and actually in my peripheral vision, because [Kirkwood] went off and Power just blasted through, and I just drove by and I just see [Kirkwood’s] hand like going in the air, like, ‘what the hell is going on!’.

"But it was interesting to see. I couldn't believe it."

The Race says…

What a ridiculous incident and a totally unacceptable explanation via his TV interview from Power, at least for me. It basically feels akin to ‘I punched them, so I figured I’d just keep punching them until it helped me achieve my goal without any thought for the consequences’.

There was no Power apology in his interview, acknowledgement of the cost implications of the damage for Andretti - with Fox stating it was a broken floor and gearbox casing - or the loss of track time suffered by Kirkwood in a condensed weekend when the cars haven’t been on a street course since early April.

Most of all, this is a really poor example to set to aspiring racers. Power has worked with many of himself, for example he’s mentored and advised Indy NXT driver Myles Rowe. He likes to kart as well.

According to IndyCar-based podcast host Tony Donohue, Power was heard apologising to Kirkwood, so that is something we've learned after the fact which is encouraging.

Watching Power’s initial reaction makes me feel like I must be living in some sort of parallel universe where somehow I’ve massively overreacted to the incident and had a massive misunderstanding over how dangerous or unacceptable it was. 

Am I massively out of line here? You can watch the video and make your own judgement, and let us know in the comments.

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