Rookie David Malukas could scarcely believe he was hunting down Team Penske cars as he hauled his way to second place in the Gateway IndyCar race.
The 2021 Indy Lights runner-up started 12th and fell off the lead lap until he pegged one back under the Caution period which fell just past halfway into the 260-lapper.
Still restarting only 11th then, Malukas was able to climb to fifth before proceedings were disrupted a second time, due to rain.
Armed with slightly better tyres than those around him for the 36-lap green flag run home, he worked the traffic intelligently to pass Penske’s Will Power.
When he also got by Pato O’Ward with 16 laps to go, the only two cars left to try and overtake were the other two Penske entries of Scott McLaughlin and leader Josef Newgarden.
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Post-race, he opened up on the thrill of taking the fight to one of IndyCar’s powerhouse teams.
“Ross [Bunnell], my engineer, he said, ‘You see the leaders, go get ’em,’” recalled the Dale Coyne Racing driver.
“I saw them go through [Turns] 1 and 2; ‘Oh my God, they’re Penskes! I’m going behind Penskes right now. This is crazy.’
“To me, as a kid, I used to always watch and I just could only dream of it. Every time through practice, every time they passed me, I always let them by, I’m always like, ‘Man…’
“It’s definitely special to me. I was trying so hard to not get nervous.
“I mean, I was nervous, but I was trying so hard not to get overexcited and do something stupid.
“Yeah, it’s definitely intimidating when there’s two Penskes in front of you.”
At 20 years old, Malukas is under the United States’ legal drinking age, but that was not the only thing which was novel about the podium proceedings to him.
“[I was] Mainly just nervous because I haven’t done it in a while so I have no idea what to do,” he said of the post-race celebrations.
“Driving past the start/finish line even, this is great, I was celebrating. Where do I go? What do I do?
“Thankfully McLaughlin, I just watched him, staring him down. ‘Okay, I’m just going to copy him.’ Yeah, I did it. I think it went smoothly.
“They have the confetti, it’s a lot. Wow, a lot going on.
“I got grape juice. Newgarden let me spray the real stuff which actually makes more sense because I’m spraying it away from me, not towards me.
“I thought, Why didn’t they give me the real stuff? Maybe they give them the grape juice, but that’s not fun.
“I don’t know. Maybe I can just tell them I’ll close my mouth, I don’t know…”
Inexperience was also a factor in how Malukas tackled the final stint, admitting he was overly cautious about using the high line which he would eventually take to in order to pass McLaughlin.
“Through the race I was doing the high line,” recalled the American-Lithuanian.
“It was that last stint, I didn’t do the high line until two [laps] to go.
“With the last stint, the tyres were getting old; that’s when I wasn’t doing the high line because I didn’t think it would be able to hold.
“That was my mistake because the Dale Coyne Racing car was very good and it handled it with a breeze.
“It was a bit unfortunate I did it so late,” he added.
“But, I guess, rookie season, rookie stuff. I’m going to put it in the back of my brain and remember it for next time.”
Malukas is 16th in the series with two races to go, one position behind leading rookie Christian Lundgaard, of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
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