Sorry about the poor posting above. The time limit on editing had expired while I was correcting it. Here's what I meant to write:
Taku-san was awesome. Or was Helio calling him Taco-san, LOL?
You probably won't be surprised that's what AJ always called him!
Going in, Sato was one of the few guys I would not have been happy to see win, but he drove such a clean race, fought his way back from a bad put stop, and then put it away with a brilliant set of passes, well, it's hard not to be happy win that's how this race is won. A truly deserving champion. He's probably going to represent the 500 very well, especially in Japan. I can easily see their interest in Indycar exploding.
In the 2012 500 Sato crashed on the last lap trying to pass Franchitti. Dario left him just barely enough room, and I'm talking about inches here. Sato felt the car step out and instead of letting it run up into Dario he held it down and spun it. So, instead of winning the race he played fair and lost. That's the kind of guy I'm happy to see win the world's greatest race.
Hunter Reay ran superbly and probably would had had a shot at it but you could actually hear the motor pop from the in car camera. Even nastier was Alonso's blow up which sounded like someone threw a hand full of roofing nails in a garbage disposal. Attrition is back!
Other notables include Ed Jones, but anyone who saw the opening races knew he was going to have a hell of a race. James Davison surprised me by being in position to actually win the race, but he and Servia took each other out. Rahal was in the top five or so when he absolutely got hosed by Carpenter. Lots of desperate driving out there, which is what we like to see.