Nashville Indy “Music City” Gran Prix Full Report – Nashville, Tennessee

A trackside report by Mark Roden

29 August 2023

In 2023 the Music City Gran Prix was in its third year to be held on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, stretching from the Tennessee Titans NFL football stadium across the Cumberland River and back again. It was a 3-day racing event with a mix of IndyCar speed, Trans Am raw power and several other road racing classes to fill out the field. 

It was my eleventh racing event of the year, and the fourth  of the year attended with my friend and fellow photographer, Mark Robertson.

04-Aug 2023, Practice Day

The first order of business was to find the credentials office and grab our hard cards.  We were then directed to the media center inside the stadium, where we attended the photographers briefing before getting out to the track.  Across the hall we were outfitted with a vest, color coded so they could tell who’s who trackside. 

The blue vests were for the full time IndyCar photographers and red (ours were green, because they ran out of red) were for everyone else.  We had all the access the blues had except for a few limitations in pit lane and the paddock.

Once trackside we made our way to a spot in front of grandstand 1 and began taking some shots.  The Toyota GR Cup cars were running their P1 practice session at the time, and I managed to grab a couple of shots  before the session ended.  We were trying to get to a good spot to view the Trans Am group which was coming up next.  To get there we had to cross the first of two walk-over bridges.

We set up close to turn 2 as the Trans Am cars (TA2 class) began their practice session.  Trans Am is a great class to watch if you like feeling the power and hearing the raw thunder of high horsepower engines.  In this area they were not at full speed, but we could hear them roar on their way to the next turn which put them onto the first long straightaway. 

This was a TA2 only event, without the full 850HP Trans Am entries.  Still, they are a class of their own, becoming very popular with large entry fields.  The cars are purpose-built race cars, built to resemble the street cars that they are modeled after and be a cost-effective racing platform.  The engines reach 530 horsepower max, and there are cost limitations on certain wear and mechanical components. 

No titanium or carbon fiber components are allowed outside of the driver’s seat.  The bodies are selected from a small list of two specific manufacturers and styles which include Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger.  Engines are designed and built by an approved list as well, and each car will have a similar rear wing.  All of this is to provide competitiveness and keep operating costs down.

Rafa Matos would take 4^th position on the grid in his bright yellow 88 Mustang.  Matos won the TA2 race in Sebring earlier in the year, and has a racing career in the US going back to 2002. 

Besides the Sebring win, he has won the 24 Hrs of Daytona (GT3), won the Indy Lights title in 2008 and has won TA2 championship twice (2018 and 2021) and being the 2009 Indy 500 rookie of the year as well as the fastest rookie that year. 

Beside him in the second row was Thomas Merrill, who has been racing since the age of 8 and has competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona and other endurance races.  Merrill was a back-to-back champion with two national karting titles in 2005 and 2006.  He spent the next couple of years in SCCA formula series and achieved the championship of Pacific F2000 and rookie of the year. 

Sitting on the front row were Nathan Herne and Brent Crews.  Crews won the pole with a track record time of 1’-30.641”, however Connor Zilish went even faster, only to be disqualified later on a tech related violation and sent to the back of the field.  Crews also won this race in 2022 in his second career win.

Herne was a two-time Australian Trans Am Series champion and came to the US in 2023 to compete in the American Trans Am Championship series.  He would have competed in the Bathurst 1000 in 2020 but was short on Superlicence points.

Connor Zilisch started last on a tech violation for the second time.  He has scored two victories in 2023 and was looking at Nashville to be his third.  He seems to have no problem starting a race looking at all the taillights; his Detroit finish proved that as he sailed through the field to victory.

We spent some time shooting from the turn 2 position and then walked over to turn 3 once the Indy NXT cars started to run.  This viewpoint gave us a very good view of the cars coming off that river bridge at speed.  I have taken a liking to this class in recent years, since it was rebranded from “Indy Lights” to “Indy NXT” something about it has popped for me.  Some of the favorites this year are Jacob Abel, Nolan Siegel and Christian Rasmussen. 

Jacob Abel was fastest in the P1 practice session, Rasmussen was 6^th and Nolan Siegel followed closely in 8^th just 0.87” back.  Abel has been looking to improve his career on the Road to Indy, finishing on the podium at St Pete, Road America, Iowa Speedway and would end up 3^rd in Nashville.  He also placed 4^th in the Detroit Gran Prix (Race 1).

Nolan Siegel is looking to impress in NXT, having come from mixed results in other classes such as the USF2000, Formula 4 and Indy Lights series.  He finished 4^th in the Indy Pro 2000 championship series, having won the Barber Motorsports race from start to finish.  He is currently running full time in NXT chasing down the series title.

Danish driver Christian Rasmussen has won the 2020 USF2000 and the 2021 Indy Pro 2000 championships, and placed highly (3^rd) in the 2017 Formula 4 Danish Championship, the 2018 F4 US Championship, and the 2019 USF2000 Championship.  He was 2^nd overall in the Danish Formula Ford Championship in 2016.   He finished 6^th in the 2022 Indy NXT series and is looking to win it in 2023.

Matthew Brabham, son of Geoff Brabham and someone I had expected to see running in the Trans Am cars, took 12^thspot.  Brabham has shown that he can run just about anything including the Indy Lights/NXT cars, Indy, GT4, Trans Am and even Stadium trucks; the racing DNA has definitely found a home with him.

We continued to walk along the inside fence toward turn 9, and after shooting on the inside of the turn we crossed the second walk-over bridge at the bottom end of the course to get to the outside of the track.  It was a great vantage point for catching the end of the long straight, and as an added benefit the tire wall could be used as a foreground. 

After NXT came the IndyCar series, however at this point my shooting day ended due to the heat and some health issues.  I climbed into the ADA grandstand for a bit and watched as a spectator, then headed for the car park. 

Mark continued to shoot for a while and met me at the car some time later.

05-Aug 2023, IndyCar Qualifying and TA2 Race day.

The second day of racing began with wet weather, and lots of it.  We did not get to the track early, and once they red-flagged it we were really not in a grand hurry to get there. 

When we did arrive, we made the choice to get onto that Cumberland River bridge to get some shots at speed.   

The track had dried, and the first to run was Trans Am; Saturday was their race day. 

As we walked toward one of the few photographer cut-outs (more on that situation later), it was apparent just how fast these cars were going. 

I was hit more than once by small pebbles or debris kicked up from the track.  One pebble left a finger stinging, while another (very small one) got me on the cheek.  A third bounced off my camera to the ground.  It is no joke being around this sort of speed.

Crews took the first lap off the green, followed by Hearne and Merrill battling immediately.   Matos managed to put the #88 into 4^th in the first handful of circuits along with Austin Green his teammate.  The first caution came at lap 6 due to a misstep by the #18 driven by Caleb Bacon.

 The top 5 stayed consistent until lap 18 when a stalled back-marker collected the top 2 leaders of Crews and Merrill. Hearne narrowly missed the malaise and took the effective lead.  Crews limped the #70 back to the pits with the hood up into the windscreen; Merrill was dead stick until the safety crew showed up. 

He managed to get it back onto the track, but the damage was done to his position in the race and to the car.  As he went by pieces of it were flying off and not well repaired.

 With half the race over there was a new leader board, with Hearne holding down the front, followed by Matos, Green and Connor Zilisch who zoomed from 6^th to  3^rd on the restart after starting the race dead last due to his post-qualifying penalty.  By lap 30 he was challenging for the lead and took it on lap 31.

Toward the end of the race Adam Andretti gained some ground, rising up to 4^th position.  Austin Green tapped out around lap 33 with a total loss of power.  Zilisch maintained his incredible last-to-first lead all the way to the checkered, winning the race in heroic fashion.  Nice run for a 17 year old.  In fact, it was his second race of the season (the other being Detroit) to qualify first, only to have it taken away for a technical violation, and then win from last position.  Eyes on this one for the future.

Because I had missed the IndyCar session the day before, I wanted to be sure to catch the top class at turn 9, which seemed like the best overall location to photograph them at different angles.  We walked down the bridge and stopped outside the apex.  Several of the other photographers were set up just outside the turn, across the run-off lane from our position (see map above).

Once we had some work from this area, we walked around the run-off cap to where the other group had been and did some more shooting while the IndyCars were still on the track. I found a grandstand to sit in for a while, just in time to watch the stadium trucks. I was not familiar with this class, but I knew it was going to be something a bit different when they set up ramps on the circuit.

Sure enough, they came off the turn and hit those ramps. From my seat there was not a great vantage point for photogtraphy, but I could see them well through the fences. I was happy with the work I had so far and was looking forward to race day.

 I shot similar work as the Trans Am group session on Friday, and some from pit exit lane.  The IndyCars are quite fast and being this close to them caused me to want to maximize the time, so I spent a lot of it doing some video clips with a GoPro and cel phone to enhance my website.

Once I was satisfied that I had everything, I continued down to the turn 3 area where Mark had gone to get some rear car shots going onto the river bridge at turn 3.  Without many cutouts it was difficult to get sharp work in areas like this.  The cars were screaming by and then heavily onto the binders, then into the turn and rambling away from us again. 

All of that drastic changing of speed made pan shots very difficult, especially through fencing.  The best shots in that area were into the turn and then as they entered the long straight across. 



One good thing about this course was that the fencing was produced from cyclone, which is at 45 degree angles, and not flat horizontal as was the case at St. Pete.  At least here we could get very close to it and make it essentially vanish with the right lens.

We had a conversation with another photographer (blue vest) earlier about the photo holes.  Apparently when putting together the circuit, there was a team concerned with where to put the cutouts, and another team which was doing things like banners, portable toilets, and the like. 

The two teams did not communicate with each other, and the team which installed the banners, tents, portable toilets and other things basically ignored the openings and located those items from a map with indicated locations written on it.  No one gave any thought to it, and by the time we showed up it was all done.  So, a total of 5 cutouts for something like 80 photographers.  We still managed to sort it out, as inconvenient as that was, but it could have been better in some areas.

Scott McLaughlin, Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta and Alex Palou filled out the first 4 spots.  I have been watching Scotty Mac for a couple of years now and he seems to grow as a driver with every race.  He is on the cusp of a championship contending season in 2024, and the rest of 2023 will likely see some good results if all goes well. 

Herta almost won this race in 2021 but for a late race incident which took him out of contention.  Palou has had his recent ongoing legal battle concerning his on again, off again split with CGR heading to Arrow McLaren.  In the latest it seems to be permanently off; however the legal woes continue with AM bringing suit against him.  We hope this chapter will close soon so that it doesn’t distract this very talented racer who, without some kind of disaster, will be the 2023 IndyCar series champion.

Starting out on a clean, dry track for race day saw the race quickly ramp up on the green flag.  Will Power had some trouble getting out of the gate because he couldn’t find his ear buds.  Linus Lundqvist continues to sub for Pagenaud after his terrible wreck at Mid-Ohio.  Seems like a great fit for the team, but I am a serious Pagenaud fan and hope that he will remain on the team in the future.  In the meantime, Lundqvist is doing a fairly bang-up job of it and I see his career taking of as a result.  I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he has his own full time seat.

After one false start the race began with McLaughlin taking the first circuit, followed by O’Ward, Herta and David Malukas who passed Palou.  Newgarden was down in 10^th after the first 9 laps.  Not exactly where he would like to be as this year’s Indy 500 winner loves to run up front.  The field spread out with the top 8 spots within 10 seconds, down to over a minute back to last position. 

First caution flew for Malukas, who apparently had some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure concerning the rear swing assembly, engine, and possibly even the gearbox.  McLaughlin curiously did not take advantage of the yellow, staying out instead of pitting.  He finally did come in on lap 26.

The series of pit stops up-ended the leader board; after the dust settled it was Ericsson in the lead, Rossi in 2^nd and Castroneves right behind him in 3^rd spot.  Palou was still in 4^th followed by Lundqvist and Kirkwood.  McLaughlin tucked in behind some down-field traffic and was going to have some work to get by all of them. 

It was a clean race up to that point and seemed to be going by quickly.  Ericsson’s lead only lasted a few laps as the pit stop strategies continued to unfold as the laps flew by.  Palou and Kirkwood found themselves battling it out for the lead at the halfway point.  Soon after, McLaughlin was right back in the mix.

 A late yellow for Lundqvist brought the field back together, setting up a nice tight finish.  At the same time Jack Harvey had a problem with his front wing and had to retire from the race.  With 9 laps to go, Palou now had a good chance to catch and pass for the lead.  On the restart there was another crash involving Rosenqvist, Canapino and Pederson triggering the red flag to repair tire wall damage and clear the wreckage.

Once they got going again, there were a handful of laps remaining.  Newgarden got nearly sideways trying to catch Palou as they went over the bridge while McLaughlin tried to make a move on Kirkwood.  At the flag Kirkwood held off the challenge for the win.

 I spent time in the grandstands during the last part of the race.  I was getting low on energy and decided to watch the rest of the race as a spectator.  Overall, it was a good weekend of fun and photography.  

Kyle Kirkwood, Winner 2023 Nashville Gran Prix