Inside Malukas’ “incredible story” in Nashville: A hospital visit, people power & baby Jesus
- Archie O’Reilly
- 4 hours ago
- 9 min read
“That was…” he pauses. “Wow.”
It takes a moment for David Malukas to muster the words. As the adrenaline wears off, he begins to truly take stock of the whirlwind he has endured over the past three days. It has been brutal, both physically and mentally, but is overridden by an incredibly rewarding climax.
“Man, this whole week…” he utters, halting again. “What an incredible weekend. This is definitely not going to be one I’m going to forget for a very long time. Just super, super happy. Obviously exhausted. But just so happy.
“That was the best race I think I’ve ever performed in. I was trying so hard with everything going on, just kept asking for one more. My body kept giving it to me till the end.”
Malukas is not unaccustomed to riding the rough rollercoaster of the racing world. But even by his standards, having been put through the wringer of injury and free agency in recent years, this was particularly intense - almost a microcosm of his IndyCar career to date.
Between Saturday and Monday at Nashville Superspeedway, he had essentially a mere 19 minutes of on-track normality. Because from the moment he backed his No.12 Team Penske car into the barrier between Turns 1 and 2 early in opening practice on Saturday morning, things descended into a frantic blur for the 24-year-old.
You held your breath a little as he initially remained in his mangled machine and the AMR Safety Team assembled around to assist his extraction. The concern centred on his knee, which had knocked the steering wheel loose amid the force of the impact.
Relief soon prevailed as Malukas, who was airlifted to hospital from the same track last year after crashing out of the race in the same corner after contact with Louis Foster, was able to clamber from his car and walk away largely unaided. But a longer-than-usual wait for a further update on his condition raised some alarm bells.
Communication from Dr. Angie Fiege first altered that Malukas was “awake, alert and in good condition” but that, despite walking away from the crash, he was under continuing evaluation, which is usually an indicator that not everything is entirely clear.
A little over 20 minutes after that message, news was conveyed that Malukas would be transported to a local hospital, via a private vehicle, so he could undergo further testing. So in the three intervening hours before qualifying, as well as preparing a repaired car, a scramble was on for Penske to find a possible stand-in.
The primary option was always clear: IndyCar’s unofficial ‘super sub’ and oval supremo Conor Daly, who was present at the track to coach Indy NXT driver Jack Beeton.
Called upon to prepare to shake the car down in qualifying to be ready for the evening’s practice session, Daly was facing ticking one of the final two current teams he had never competed for (along with Chip Ganassi Racing) off his list. But this plan came undone when it was realised that Daly would be mandated to race if he qualified the car.
At that stage, Penske were not ready to commit to Malukas being sidelined for the weekend. And as it was, they were correct to make that call, as Malukas returned to the track around five hours after departing for the further assessment in hospital.
Checks at the hospital had ruled out a concussion and scans determined nothing was broken or torn. That is not to say he was not battered and bruised - his knee was still in pain, particularly when moving - but he promptly exhibited the ability to get in and out of his car without issue and was thus cleared to return to the seat for final practice.
Back in the saddle, he was clearly not too inhibited by any ailments, as a statement late lap put him top of the session’s order. That in itself was quite the recovery, before he even got to contemplating tackling the race from the back row - on a weekend where he was already to be placed on the back foot by a nine-place engine penalty, ultimately rendered irrelevant.
Heading into Sunday, Malukas knew he had 300 laps across 399 miles to make his way forward with arguably still the field’s strongest car. But admittedly, waking up that day after the crash, he did feel a little worse for wear.
So as the wider paddock bemoaned the adverse weather that rolled in as evening time and the race start beckoned, putting IndyCar into an ever-extending holding pattern, Malukas somewhat welcomed the storms. In fact, as nightfall approached, before IndyCar had even officially postponed the race to Monday, Malukas had committed to an early night’s sleep.
“If we race yesterday, it was survival. Today was game on,” he asserted on Monday, when the race was eventually run at a reduced count of 225 laps. “That was the situation I was in. Getting that extra night of sleep… I am not going to lie, I heard the rain on my bus, I thought: ‘That’s really nice.’
“I was already lights out at 8pm [when IndyCar announced the postponement]. I just thought: ‘If I go to bed, we’re not going to race today. It is going to be committed.’ I woke back up a couple minutes later, they told me that they cancelled it. I said: ‘I knew it. This is good.’ It was awesome, Really good.”
Waking up a little more revitalised for the rare novelty of a Monday race, it was indeed game on for Malukas - not that it looked to be panning out that way in the opening laps, though, when progress was hard to come by. In fact, by the time Caio Collet crashed to bring out a first caution on Lap 18, Malukas had gained only two positions to 23rd.
But the race’s first neutralisation marked immediate crunch time for a strategic ploy. So as 22 drivers pitted, Malukas was among the three to remain on track - Foster staying out ahead and Christian Lundgaard likewise behind.
Malukas took the restart in second, sporting used primary-compound tyres against the early-race front-runners on fresh, softer alternate rubber. Common sense would have suggested he would lose ground, as was the case for the plummeting Foster and Lundgaard. But it was not so for Malukas, who remarkably surged clear out front.
At points in the ensuing 20 laps, before catching backmarker Graham Rahal, he had grown a lead of over three seconds to teammate Scott McLaughlin.
“We just wanted to go on a different strategy to the rest of the field since we were all the way in the back,” Malukas reflected. “Big kudos to [strategist] Travis Law. Absolute genius, madman. Always seems like he knows what’s going to happen, put us in the right call.”
Naturally, by completing his first stop under green-flag conditions on the 1.33-mile oval, Malukas fell temporarily a lap down. But the strategy meant that once the leaders’ second round of pit stops had been completed, he was able to cycle back into the race lead again.
But there came a cruel twist on Lap 122, only three laps after Malukas’ own second pit stop on his alternate strategy, when Scott Dixon ran into the back of a slowing Alexander Rossi in Turn 3 to bring out a second caution. This allowed a free pit stop under yellow conditions for the leaders, confining Malukas to 13th once the cycle had shaken out.
It was not disastrous, but it was equally not the lead fight Malukas had been forecasted to re-join. So recovery mode was initiated again - and executed with aplomb.
Malukas swiftly made his way back into 10th on the restart, where he stalled in the order for a brief while before decisive, opportunistic action in traffic allowed him to climb past Nolan Siegel and Marcus Ericsson, up into eighth. Then on Lap 180, a third caution was deployed for a crash for Dennis Hauger - again in the middle of a pit cycle.
Mercifully for Malukas, on this occasion he had not yet pitted - unlike McLaughlin, Kyle Kirkwood and Rinus VeeKay from within the lead battle. So once free to pit under caution, Malukas was able to converge his strategy with those at the front of the field and exited behind only race-leading Álex Palou, Josef Newgarden and Felix Rosenqvist.
“We had to go through the field twice,” Malukas outlined. “Thankfully the team gave me an incredible car so we were passing in a track that’s very tough to pass.”
By the time a rhythm was restored again post-restart, Malukas found himself back into a podium position in third. In the closing laps, this put him in the centre of a Penske train in pursuit of Palou, headed by Newgarden and with McLaughlin behind in fourth, though the chase ultimately came to no avail.
Yet still, while the wait for an overdue first career win goes on, Malukas had delivered an almighty comeback charge to cap a tumultuous race at the end of a tumultuous weekend.
In the middle of the race, he had even questioned whether he would be able to make it to the chequered flag. But he battled on through the pain barrier on a day where the heat index pushed 108 degrees fahrenheit in an oppressively hot Tennessee.
“My face was covered in salt crystals, snot coming out of my nose,” Malukas detailed. “I didn’t feel any of that till the end, to be honest. I was just running on pure adrenaline, focused on what’s in front. I just kept asking give me one more, give me one more.
“I’m not going to lie, halfway through that race I thought: ‘I’m done.’ We kept going, kept going. The body kept pushing. Adrenaline is a beautiful drug.”
There was something of a comedown after Malukas emerged from his car at the conclusion of the race on Monday afternoon. Standing on the podium, as the adrenaline quite abruptly dissipated, it all started to catch up with him.
It was over one hour after the race finish - after runner-up Newgarden and race winner Palou had been through press - before Malukas finally graced the media centre with his joy amid destruction after such a brute of a weekend. It transpired that he had required a visit to the infield care centre to be routinely tended to for the impact of the heat.
“There was almost no time the past few days to get fluids,” said Malukas, who had changed out of his race suit and was now sporting a Penske polo. “We were even getting fluids [on Sunday]. After that race, we knew it was probably going to be a thing.
“I felt really good and the adrenaline started to wear off and things started to get a little spinny there. Went and got fluids, picked me up on a little bit of sugar. I’m good now.”
It was such people as those in IndyCar’s medical team - and far beyond - for whom Malukas shared great gratitude for their role in shaping his weekend. As he reflects on the ordeal, he holds a sincere belief he would not be where he was late on Monday afternoon without those who rallied around him, across Saturday, Sunday and the eventual delayed race day.
As much as he may not say it so plainly, this comes in addition to his own admirable resolve, which shaped one of the gutsiest IndyCar drives in recent memory.
“I’m not going to forget this race from everybody involved,” Malukas insisted. “It’s cool to see when you have so many people all on a collective opportunity. I would not be in this car - I would not be racing - without all the support and people that were behind me, from the team, to the medical team, the local hospital here.
“Everybody just worked so hard, managed to get me back into an operating form, getting the car into an operating form. Here we are: last to third. It was an incredible thing. Incredible story just to think about when humans come together what we can accomplish. Super happy. So much to remember. A lot of good memories.”
Malukas comes away with mementos to crown those memories, too, having carried three different gifts with him throughout race day and in the car. In his eyes, they were lucky charms to fuel one of the most memorable days of his career to date.
“Look, I didn’t have any of that when the crash happened. I said: ‘We need everything with me today,’” he recounted with a grin. “It was a fantastic race. I had baby Jesus from a fan; they said they got this blessed and I needed it. I had a US Marine coin and a little pink ducky that a fan gave me and they said: ‘Hey, you’ll need this for good luck.’
“I had the Trifecta… and P3. I think it’s a new tradition; I have the big three in my pocket. We’re cooking up with the big three.”
Albeit only four points ahead of Kirkwood in the championship standings, Malukas now stands one position better than his new lucky third after 12 rounds. But still 83 points adrift of championship-leading Palou with six races remaining, he remains suitably circumspect about his chances of genuinely challenging down the stretch.
“Well, I don’t know,” Malukas assessed. “At the end of the race, I’m saying: ‘This is such a good race…’ but I see he was in front. Look, he’s at the peak right now. He’s doing so good year by year. People thought he was going to run away earlier on in the season, had a few unlucky ones. See how it plays out. You never know how things are going to happen.”
In any case, particularly against the backdrop of much skepticism over his replacing of the legendary Will Power, regardless of any title fight, he remains rightfully prideful at how his first year in Penske’s fabled No.12 entry continues to pan out.
And this weekend in Nashville, as has been defining in the tender years of his career, has proven again that Malukas just does not know when he is beaten.
“Thankfully I was able to recover a mistake from this one [with] all the support I had. We have to keep trying, keep pushing hard. Maybe it will come down to the end. If not, I’m so happy with this race, this season.
“Life is good.”
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