The track at Indianapolis is vast. The stadium is, in fact, the centre of its own municipality (Speedway) with its own zip code (46224), along with police station, hospital, golf course, budget liquor store and strip club. The total footprint of the venue is 415 hectares - large enough to fit Sydney's Olympic stadium 25 times.

It’s Memorial Day weekend in these United States, and so there is pageantry and bombast. A marching band plays America the Beautiful. There’s a volley of gunfire, Taps, God Bless America, Back Home Again in Indiana, and the national anthem. The entire crowd stands, of course, hats off and hands on hearts. Will Power puts his earplugs in, tugs his fire-protective balaclava over his face, pulls his helmet down and slips into the cockpit as four F-18 fighters whine overhead. And then comes the announcer, who sounds like a ringside boxing promoter.

“Fans, are you rrrrrready?”

“What a SIGHT!” he says as they scream towards the start. “Ladies and gentlemen, here we go for the one hundredth running of the Indianapolis 500! The! Greatest! Spectacle! In! Racing! THE GREEN FLAG IS UP!” And Will Power, car number 12, gunmetal grey, is off. It’s not a great race for our man, either. An improper pit exit sees him penalised early, sent to the back of the field. Yet within 10 laps he is in front of the field of 33. “If you’re leading around this place, you can drift into a rhythm. I can almost go into autopilot,” he says later. “If you’re in the train though, you’re always back and forth, trying to get runs, and your mind is always occupied with how to find clean air.” He falls back again soon enough, then near the finish of the three-hour race he gets to 13, then 12, then 11, then 10, then 8. It looks like a charge but he runs low on fuel and splutters into 10th place. Not great. Not terrible. A rookie, Alexander Rossi, wins and pockets roughly $US2.5 million. Power’s cheque is for $US390,243, but all prize money goes to the team. His earnings are an undisclosed percentage.





The thinker Power looks pensive away from his car. Photo Shawn Gritzmacher





The track is a jubilant mess, but not where Power sits, in the pit, his leg either side of a concrete wall, his fire suit pulled down to the waist. As he walks back to the garage drinking a bottle of cherry juice, the crew lets the air out of his tyres. “He’s lost that aura of speed, but only temporarily,” says Malsher. “There’s always that air of vulnerability with Will. But when he’s flying, it’s honestly like, ‘Where the hell are the rest of them?’ They can’t keep up.” The result doesn’t faze Power. He wins three of the next four races on the calendar, in fact, and is runner up in another. At the time of writing, he stands second in the championship, within striking distance of another crown.

“I’m at home in the paddock now, I’m in my own skin.”