Road America president Michael Kertscher didn’t take kindly to Will Power’s harsh Saturday comments on the state of the circuit’s offtrack safety and care.
“This track’s terrible; when you go off, they do a terrible job here so they need to pick up their game,” Power said after a poor qualifying run left him 22nd on the grid.
Unimpressed with the Team Penske driver’s remarks, Kertscher commandeered one of the road course’s pungent “**** trucks” used to empty the many portable toilets located throughout the 4.0-mile facility and parked it in front of Power’s motorcoach in the drivers’ lot atop the paddock.
Kertscher’s rationale of ‘Call this a **** track, get the **** truck’ was both hilarious and the perfect end to a contentious day where Power was errantly hit and crashed by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon in the morning practice session. A furious Power shoved Dixon and the domino effect from that early crash and the ensuing repairs left both drivers in an uncompetitive place when it was time to qualify.
Having pranked Power with the odorous truck left in front of his mobile home, Kertscher was kind enough to leave the keys in the vehicle, and with an opportunity to perform a prank of his own, Power climbed in, fired up the truck, drove it down the lot, and parked it in front of Dixon’s bus.
I caught up with #IndyCar’s No. 1 sh*t truck driver… pic.twitter.com/SHoTAKLqbr
— Marshall Pruett (@marshallpruett) June 18, 2023
Power’s arrival provided some much-needed humor for the two IndyCar champions who broke the ice and had a laugh. To Kertscher’s credit, no video of the drop-off exists, leaving the track president with plausible deniability. A photo of Power arriving at Dixon’s bus, however, does confirm the vehicle’s appearance in the drivers’ lot…
Will Power’s Honey Bucket Maintenance Service debuts at @roadamerica. pic.twitter.com/cMUQzfmVnu
— Marshall Pruett (@marshallpruett) June 18, 2023
