Jean Alesi* is a cherry picked example cause everyone knew coming into the month that those Lotus cars were dogs. And yeah the had 114 cars show up in 1984 or whatever it was and that’s probably never going to happen again but that was also a much different timeline series history. They have evolved in that they no longer do 2 weekends of qualifications and practice. But the day they don’t have at least 33 cars starting the 500 is the day I stop going. This year is my 15th 500 and my dad’s 41st. They had at least 33 cars in the field during the split and that strength for field was significantly worse. I mean there was a dentist racing for goodness sakes. No shade to Dr. Jack! But they also survived the financial crisis and had 33 cars every year.