And then there was one.

This weekend’s Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix presented by WillScot is the last of the 17 races on this year’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule. The season has indeed flown by, in part because it seems Alex Palou wins every other race.

(For the record, he has won every other race, at least statistically.)

Palou, who recently secured his third consecutive series championship and fourth season title in the past five years, was on point to score win No. 9 last weekend at the Milwaukee Mile before Christian Rasmussen capitalized on the opportunity to take new Firestone tires with a late-race pit stop. That occurrence ended Palou’s bid to tie A.J. Foyt’s record of 10 series wins in a season – a mark matched by Al Unser in 1970 – ahead of the finale.

Still, a win by Palou this weekend at Nashville Superspeedway would give the Chip Ganassi Racing driver the most wins for a series driver in 55 years and equal Mario Andretti’s standout 1969 season (also nine wins).

Like Foyt, Unser and Andretti, Palou included a victory in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge to his season-long dominance.

Alex Palou

Palou (photo, above) also can join a relatively short list of series drivers who have won at least seven poles in a season. Simon Pagenaud (2016) was the last driver to win as many.

In 2023, Palou became the first driver since Sebastien Bourdais in 2007 to clinch a series championship in advance of the season’s final race, and now the Spaniard has done it twice in three years. He will take a 165-point lead over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward into Sunday’s 225-lap season finale (2 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX One, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Like Palou, O’Ward has secured his position in the final standings, and the second-place effort is the best of his career after finishing third in 2021 and fourth on two occasions (2020 and 2023). The fight for third involves Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who is seven points ahead of Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood trails Lundgaard by 21 points, so there still could be some shuffling within the top five.

Robert Shwartzman

The pursuit of the Rookie of the Year Award remains a tight one. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Louis Foster leads PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman (photo, above) by seven points.

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES made its Nashville Superspeedway debut in 2001, with Buddy Lazier beating Billy Boat. Jaques Lazier finished third. Alex Barron won the next year. But this will only be the second race held on the 1.33-mile oval since Dixon earned the last of his three consecutive race wins in 2008.

Colton Herta of Andretti Global w/Curb-Agajanian won last year’s race with O’Ward second and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden third. Kirkwood won the NTT P1 Award and finished fourth in the race.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rasmussen could again be in the spotlight after earning the first series victory of his career last weekend in the Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250. He has had a strong oval season, finishing sixth at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, third at World Wide Technology Raceway, sixth and eighth at Iowa Speedway and first at Milwaukee Mile. The champion of the 2023 INDY NXT by Firestone season became the series’ first first-time winner since Lundgaard in Toronto in 2023.

This weekend’s action begins Saturday with the first practice at 10:30 a.m. ET followed by qualifying for the NTT P1 Award at 2 p.m. and the final practice at 5:30 p.m. All these sessions will air live on FS2, FOX One, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.

(Presented by Tennessee Sounds Perfect)