Well, if winning the Indy 500 twice doesn't put you at the top, I don't know what does. It's only the fact that our British media pay so little attention to Indy that many of us tend to dismiss it, but I can't think of any two-time winners there since the Second World War that wouldn't be counted as being at the top and amongst the best oval racers of their eras. We'd been lucky over the past six years in the UK that, between them, Dan and Dario Franchitti had won 2 IndyCar titles and 4 Indianapolis 500s, almost unprecedented and a reminder of the 1960s when British drivers and constructors dominated over there.
As to the event itself, I think Tony is right inasmuch as the circumstances were not good. Too many cars on a 1.5 mile oval that, due to its high banking was more suited to NASCAR as the single-seaters were flat-out for the entire lap, leading to groups of cars drafting each other only a few feet apart at 225 mph.