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Doyel: Will Power was a dry, boring winner until he poured that Indy 500 milk

Gregg Doyel
IndyStar
Team Penske IndyCar driver Will Power (12) celebrates winning the102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 27, 2018.

INDIANAPOLIS – This is when it all came out, the frustration and fear that Will Power has been lugging around for years. Ahead of him, Stefan Wilson and Jack Harvey are turning into pit row on Lap 197 of the 2018 Indianapolis 500. Ahead of him now? There is nobody ahead of him now. Only the checkered flag. Three laps to go, two, one…

Will Power starts screaming.

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It’s all coming out now, coming out in unintelligible bursts of emotion that stun the two men at Team Penske who know him best, owner Roger Penske and president Tim Cindric. They are with Power shortly after he crosses the bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for his first Indy 500 title, which had been the last major accomplishment missing from an IndyCar career that will go down among the all-time greats. Penske and Cindric are watching as Power puts his hands to his head and then starts clawing everything off – the silver helmet, the red head sock, the wires running down his body.

The entire time, he’s screaming.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

His bosses at Penske, they’ve never seen anything like this. Nobody has seen anything like this from Will Power, normally so dry and droll, so unaffected. Some say he’s boring, because he doesn’t do this. He doesn’t show emotion. Two weeks ago on this very track, Power won the IndyCar Grand Prix and may have broken into a smile. Winning isn’t easy, but since joining Team Penske in 2009 he has made it look that way. In 146 career races for Penske, Power has won 29 times. He has made it onto the podium – for the top three finishers – 58 times.

Team Penske IndyCar driver Will Power (12) celebrates winning the102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 27, 2018.

He has never done this. He is wearing that giant wreath of flowers they give to the winner of the Indianapolis 500 and he is leaning into his wife, and he is screaming.

Ahhhhhh!

Somebody is handing Power the bottle of milk they give the winner, and Power doesn’t like milk. He doesn’t drink milk. It’s a dietary thing: No dairy. Before the race when drivers are asked what kind of milk they prefer, just in case they’re the winner, Power tells them it doesn’t matter. He’s not supposed to drink milk.

500 Festival Queen Scholar Natalie Murdock talks to Team Penske IndyCar driver Will Power (12) after he accidentally splashed her with milk while celebrating winning the 102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 27, 2018.

But someone is handing him the milk and Power stares at it before deciding: Hell with it. He pours several ounces into his mouth, then most of the rest of it onto his head. Now Power leans into his wife. He wants a kiss, but he is covered in milk. It’s dripping off his head, it’s all over his face, and she’s not kissing him. Power is staring at her, just so happy, and she relents. She kisses him. He screams:

I won it!!!

He's still holding the bottle of milk, and it’s not completely empty yet, so Power takes care of that: He waves the bottle like a wand, spraying the last of the milk. The Indianapolis 500 Festival Queen is standing nearby, and voila – she’s covered in milk: her hair, face, glasses. Power is mortified, and he’s apologizing.

But if the Festival Queen only knew how long he’d waited for this moment, how deeply he’d feared it would never come …

For years Power was the street-course guy, the specialist. Ovals weren’t his thing, and he told everyone it wasn’t his thing, and Ed Carpenter – who started from the pole on Sunday and finished second to Power – remembers hearing Power whine over the radio about how much he hated IMS.

“I didn’t really like him much in 2008 because he hated this place,” says Carpenter, a Butler graduate who loves this place, and who deserves to win the 2019 Indy 500 and enjoy a moment as sweet as the one Power enjoyed Sunday. “Somewhere along the lines, Will and I became friends.”

Team Penske IndyCar driver Will Power (12) celebrates winning the102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 27, 2018.

Carpenter pauses.

“Somehow,” he says, and now he’s smiling, and it speaks to the popularity of Will Power that Ed Carpenter, at such a low moment, musters a smile only when he is asked about Power. After Power’s ceremonial victory lap around IMS, several drivers are waiting for him as he climbs out of the car. Graham Rahal is there. Alexander Rossi. Ryan Hunter-Reay. They know how hard Power has worked to become not just competent on ovals, but dominant.

But nobody has seen him this happy. Not ever.

A few minutes later, Roger Penske will describe his normally stoic driver like so: “He’s in a different world right now.”

After the race, that whole time he’s in the car and ripping off his gear, and then out of the car and making a mess with the milk, Power’s face registers shock. It’s not just that he wondered if this day would ever come, though he did.

“It has run through my head the last year more than ever,” he’ll say a few minutes later, “because I’ve won so many races and poles and led more laps than anyone. I just hadn’t done it here. I’ve been thinking: Am I going to finish my career without a 500 win?”

Winning the race, having this dream come true – this obsession – it stunned him. But so did the way it happened. Power has had a great month, winning the Grand Prix and starting this race from the front row, behind only Carpenter and teammate Simon Pagenaud. But this race was strange. So many cautions, all but one caused by single-car accidents that drivers couldn’t explain afterward. All of them, IMS-proven veterans like Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick, roared around a turn in fine shape and then just sort of … lost it. The car wiggles, and now it’s spinning into the wall at 200 mph, and for them, the race is over. For Patrick, her career is over. This was to be her last race.

“I’m pretty sad,” she said.

All those cautions, they turned this race into one of fuel strategy, the kind Alexander Rossi won in 2016. Entering the final 65 laps, Power was on the wrong side of that strategy. He needed one more caution.

And there it was, on the 139th lap: Sebastien Bourdais, who led four laps to remain the only driver to lead every race this season, roars around a turn and then just sort of … loses it. The car wiggles, and now it’s spinning into the wall at 200 mph. Another caution. Power can pit for fuel and stay on the lead lap.

Now he is in business, and he and Carpenter are in position for a final duel, but what’s this? Kanaan spins into the wall on lap 189 – a little wiggle, and he loses it – and the caution is out, and now Oriol Servia, Stefan Wilson and Jack Harvey are staying on the track. They are running 1-2-3, and it’s a fluke of fuel, but is it about to pay off? Is this another Rossi-type miracle win, circa 2016?

Will Power is afraid. Here comes the re-start on lap 193. Servia heads to pit row. Now two cars are ahead of Power. He’s trying to get them, trying to reel in Wilson and Harvey, but cannot. There are three laps in the Indy 500, and this is shaping up to be another massive disappointment for Power, something to rival the sting of his final-lap loss to Juan Pablo Montoya in 2015, the loss that has led to all the frustration and fear of recent years.

But wait. What’s this?

Three laps from the finish line, barely two minutes left in a race that has lasted more than three hours, and Wilson is ducking into the pits. Harvey is following him. Just like that, Will Power is leading the Indy 500 and Ed Carpenter isn’t close enough to get him, and now it’s coming out. The fear, the frustration, the frenzy. Will Power starts screaming, and he doesn’t stop until long after he has won his race, had his milk, kissed his wife.

Afterward, after the second or third – maybe fourth – question about all that screaming, Power counters the question with one of his own.

“Did I scream a lot? I must have screamed a lot,” he says. “Everyone’s talking about screaming.”

He's dry and droll, not boring. Winners never are.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.