It's Wednesday, so that means race control has had a couple of days to watch the re-watch the race and assign the penalties we all thought they should have handed down then... now.

But before we get to that, let's have a look back at the highlights from last weekends 2nd running of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.

Now that we've looked back, here is what IndyCar released today:

• INDYCAR officials have penalized driver Helio Castroneves of Team Penske for violating Rule 9.3.3 (avoidable contact). Castroneves has been penalized eight points in the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers point standings.

"Following every event, the INDYCAR race stewards conduct a review of all racing incidents utilizing all the tools available - including car data, video replays and interviews with the competitors involved," said Derrick Walker, president of competition and operations, INDYCAR. "With the benefit of additional camera angles during our post-race review of Saturday's race, the stewards determined actions of the No. 3 car (Castroneves) were the cause of the first-lap incident. This obviously changed our view of the entire incident. At the conclusion of every post-race review, all penalty options are available to the stewards and they determined an avoidable contact penalty was warranted."

Well, duh.

This is where the team would normally add our Kicks & Kudos, but alas, it seems no one had anything to add this week. Strike that, Scott did provide his thoughts which we used in our race recap.

Me? Well, I was there onsite, shooting. I didn't really get a chance to see much of the race or hear what was going on. (it's very different seeing the action from a photo hole) From where I stood and walked, I saw maybe one pass. From what I understand there was more action on the other side of the track. Whether any of that was captured on tv is anyones guess. Like I said, I didn't get to watch, so I can't say. I can however give you my impression of the event itself.

I think IndyCar does this event a disservice by plonking it down in the middle of the "Month of May" hype.
I don't think it brings any more eyes or attention to the Indy 500 (as it is supposedly meant to do) I think it puts undo stress on the folks at IMS and on the teams, who had just started their Indy 500 prep, only to have to put it all on hold for a few days.

The atmosphere, the very life blood of any event, was virtually non-existent. Walking around on Friday it felt more like a load in day at any other event. Even race day lacked the usual adrenaline rush in the air. The whole event just felt off. Like it's the red-headed step-child of the season.

Instead of using the event as a speedbump on the way to the "greatest spectacle in racing", it should be a stand alone event, later in the season, perhaps even the season finale, which would bring everyone and the attention back to Indy to cap off the season and might even attract a larger audience. Just my two cents.