LAS VEGAS — Monaco to Indianapolis to Charlotte, all in half a day. Kyle Larson would attempt The Double, starting and finishing both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in Carolina.
I’d try The Triple, viewing every single lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, Indy and Coca-Cola races last Sunday in a casino sportsbook.
Could I endure racing’s final racecar trinity at the Green Valley Ranch?
Its book features five huge screens, the one on the far right typically showing odds of the day’s events, the two at the left reserved for horses. A high blackened ceiling creates a superb sports-viewing environment.
Rows of partitioned cubicles house their own private screens.
For many hours, this would be home, honoring the typical holiday weekend races. Since a new Formula One contract next year bumps Monaco to June, this represented the final shot at, my final respects to, the trinity.
Many might consider the 24 hours of Le Mans among The Triple Crown of Motor-sport, instead of the Coca-Cola 600.
I don’t, first because Le Mans, run in June, is an endurance deal, second due to Monaco, Indy and Charlotte all being staged on the same day.
I’d take a financial position or two with each of the racecar trifecta, to have some skin in them.
A thousand corners
Monaco’s tight track isn’t for everyone.
It includes racing’s lone tunnel, a long-bending right turn that takes 3½ minutes to walk, seconds to zip through at 200+ mph. Malcolm Folley, author of the 2017 book “Monaco: Inside F1’s Greatest Race,” once made that walk.
“You really get attacked by the sunlight as you come out,” David Coulthard, two-time Monaco victor, told Folley. “You learn to look at the right side of the road — just as you wouldn’t stare into the lights of an oncoming car at night.”
Sir Jackie Stewart won Monaco in 1966, when the Beatles attended, and their reactions typify worldviews of the race. Stewart told Folley that John Lennon didn’t fancy the racecars, but Paul McCartney liked it.
“Ringo [Starr] loved it,” Stewart said, “and George [Harrison] was completely knocked out by it. George became a good, good friend.”
In 1929, for the first one, Monaco was dubbed “the race of a thousand corners.”
Princess Grace of Monaco, ex-actress Grace Kelly, began wooing Hollywood royalty to the principality in 1956.
Her son Albert, now Prince, recalled to Folley meeting stars like Sinatra when Albert was a tyke, when the overpowering noise and smell proved so alluring.
In 2006, Herman Rarebell, drummer for the rock group Scorpions, told me he’d kept an apartment in Monaco for 20 years.
That high-pitched cacophony, however, is unbearable. “Like they were racing in my living room,” he said. He’d leave every race week.
Many wish the race would leave for good, but the new contract keeps it on the F1 slate through 2031.
I had backed Charles Leclerc, a Monaco citizen who won it last year, and Max Verstappen, who won the previous F1 race in Italy.
I’d be zapped, theoretically, by a rule change, requiring two pit stops this year instead of one. Verstappen led near the end but had to take his second pit stop on the penultimate 77th lap, letting Lando Norris win.
Leclerc finished second and said, “Max played the long game, hoping for a red flag.” In his McLaren, Norris won the pole in qualifying to preserve the adage that Monaco is won Saturday, in qualifying.
Verstappen finished fourth.
Palou for profit
Indy began with rain and cool temperatures. I selected Josef Newgarden (+1200), victor in the past two 500s, and Alex Palou (+600), four-time winner this season and the circuit’s points leader.
Larson tried to give Tony Stewart, who finished sixth at Indy and third in Charlotte in 2001, a run at history but a crash ruined him.
“He took out himself and two others,” longtime pal, writing colleague, race ace and Indiana native Ron Kantowski texted me. “The guy is a hell of a driver, but you just can’t get into an Indy car with no experience and be competitive.”
On another screen, Liverpool secured an English Premier League crown in its first season without star manager Jurgen Klopp; Dutch boss Arne Slot took over, and Mo Salah celebrated on a crossbar by pumping his fist.
Meanwhile, Detroit lefty Tarik Skubal looked masterful in allowing Cleveland only two hits in a 5-0 Tigers victory.
A fellow punter told me the GVR kiosks had a glitch, allowing bets on the Detroit game into the second inning. A supervisor confirmed that a colleague had botched that game’s start time, 30 minutes after the actual first pitch.
Anyone who took gross advantage of that error, the supervisor told me, would be paid but barred from the premises for life.
At Indy, with 14 laps left, Palou pulled off a suave inside move at the start of a long left turn to pass Marcus Ericsson and take a lead that he’d never relinquish.
I barked, “Go, baby, go!” repeatedly at the No. 10 DHL Honda on my small screen as Palou became the first Spaniard to win the Indy 500.
Moreover, it was his first victory on an oval track. I will be investing in Palou again July 6 in the Grant Park 165, Chicago’s street race.
From the back row
I backed only Christopher Bell, who’d won four races this year but went off at 10-1 odds at the South Point, for the Coca-Cola 600. Double-figure odds on a driver who won the previous week? Value. But I was hit with another dilemma.
The Coca-Cola 600 streamed only on Amazon Prime, which GVR couldn’t access. The supervisor said he could tune it in if anyone had such an account, but neither he nor I did. He apologized.
I messaged South Point book director Chris Andrews, who said they’d show the race. I figured that property would have it, as it sponsors the Las Vegas NASCAR race.
I climbed into my white No. 23 In-N-Out Burger Cherry Dr. Pepper Dodge Challenger and navigated the 4½ miles due west.
Bell struggled to stay among the top 10. William Byron (+700) appeared to have the best car, with pressure from Denny Hamlin (+700).
However, in Lap 329 (of 400), Ross Chastain (25-1) began logging fast laps. With 17 left, the Knicks had completed a 20-point comeback to win in Indiana and someone switched the race from a small overhead screen to a large one.
Perfect timing, because Chastain, in his No. 1 Chevrolet, passed Byron with six laps remaining and won, the first Coca-Cola 600 victor to come from the back row.
At 7:57 p.m., my race-viewing exploits ended. Larson had started both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 but finished neither.
Exhausted, but with a triumphant Triple, I moseyed White Lightning home with the neck a tad sore, the price of enduring 1,274 miles over 678 laps, in 13 hours, 57 minutes.