How racer dogs fared during 2020 Indy 500 weekend

How did racer dogs fare during 2020 Indy 500 weekend?

How did the racer dogs fare during the 2020 Indy 500 weekend?

Well, to begin with, in the Indy 500 itself, Arrow came out on top. Arrow is an Alaskan Malamute (his Twitter handle is @ArrowTheMal) who belongs to NTT IndyCar Series veteran Graham Rahal and his wife Courtney Force, who was part of the mighty John Force Racing family in NHRA drag racing.

Rahal piloted his No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda to a third-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon, August 23, in a race won by teammate Takuma Sato after the third RLL driver, Spencer Pigot, had a violent wreck into the pit lane wall with five laps to go.

As David Letterman is one of the co-owners of RLL Racing, it should be noted that many dogs were featured during his years as the Late Night host, including Air Bud himself.

The day began on a promising note for Moodie the Bulldog and Maelie the Korean Jorin, who belong to polesitter Marco Andretti, but strategy problems left the No. 98 Andretti Autosport driver in 13th at race’s end.

Part of the NBC broadcasting team for the 2020 Indy 500 in a color commentary role was Danica Patrick, dog mom of Dallas and a former teammate of Andretti during her IndyCar days, who later drove for the decidedly dog-friendly team of Stewart-Haas Racing after she pivoted to NASCAR.

Norman Pagenaud, the Jack Russell Terrier of Team Penske driver Simon Pagenaud, the reigning champion of the event, was at the track in case he got to celebrate in Victory Lane again, but it wasn’t to be, as Pagenaud damaged his front wing on a restart about halfway through, and that ruined his race, as the French driver matched his car number in 22nd out of 33 cars.

Marcus Ericsson, a Swedish driver for Chip Ganassi Racing whose main primary sponsor is a European drink called Huski Chocolate (it’s supposed to be something like Yoohoo), crashed out early and finished 32nd.

While some Lucas Oil Motocross riders probably have dogs, we aren’t aware of any who were racing this weekend at the Loretta Lynn’s Nationals 2 in Tennessee.

In NASCAR, a pair of doubleheaders highlighted a massively-packed weekend at the Monster Mile of Dover International Speedway, as Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe won the Xfinity Series’ Drydene 200-B on Sunday after finishing 10th in the Drydene 200-A on Saturday.

Briscoe got some pointers from his Frenchie Callie during the weekend, as a tweet from his wife showed. Callie is the younger biological sister of their other dog Ricky, though they came from different litters. Both of the Briscoe racer dogs were named after characters in the 2006 Will Ferrell movie Talladega Nights, though unfortunately the only animal in that film is a mountain lion.

In the NASCAR Cup Series, Martin Truex Jr (Charlie the Lab) led the dog dads, as he was second and second in the Drydene 311-A and -B, while Erik Jones (Oscar the German Shepherd) was 12th and 22nd, Alex Bowman (Finn and Roscoe the Labs) was 21st and fifth, Bubba Wallace (Asher the Aussiedoodle) was 27th and 21st, and Daniel Suarez (a Papillon whose name is unknown) was 30th and 28th.

Kyle Busch, whose sponsorship package includes various Mars Petcare brands, finished third and 11th, while his former Gander Outdoors Truck Series driver Todd Gilliland (who once ran over a fox in mid-race) ran fourth on Friday evening.

For more news, analysis and opinion on how the 2020 Indy 500 went down and a variety of motorsports disciplines in general, be sure to check out our FanSided Network sister site Beyond the Flag for more details.