Alexander Kardashian edged out defending champion Jacob Peddycord by one lap and nine seconds to be declared the winner of the The 65th running of the Purdue Grand Prix.

The longstanding Purdue tradition resumed this year without capacity restrictions for the first time since 2019. Saturday’s race featured a sold-out crowd packed onto two large sets of steel bleachers, every inch of grass in front of the bleachers and a sea of people who couldn’t get a ticket gathering outside the track wherever they could get a view.

“I’ve been racing for 16 and half years,” Kardashian said. “I’ve been around the block a time or two, but the (Purdue Grand Prix) is a unique race, and this was my first time ever endurance racing.”

The senior, majoring in aeronautical engineering, raced as a member of the Jimmy Simpson Racing team, whose founder and namesake was the only individual to win the Purdue Grand Prix for four consecutive years from 2013 to 2016.

Kardashian started the day in pole-position with Peddycord right behind him at No. 2 in a field of 33 drivers. As the race progressed, it became evident to both spectators and drivers being lapped by the two leaders alike that the trophy would likely end up in one of their hands.

Neither Kardashian nor Peddycord saw their respective positions of first and second change once in all 160 laps around the approximately 0.27 mile-long track.

“It hurts,” Peddycord said in an interview with local media. “I just ran out of gas there physicality wise — my neck started to go, my arms started to go. (Kardashian) was just master class, he probably put on one of the best showcases in Grand Prix history with his run.”

More than half the drivers completed less than 100 laps. Many teams experienced a variety of race-ending issues, from mechanical failure to collision. Among the first teams to leave the track in disappointment were Kappa Sigma, the Honors College and Triangle Fraternity.

Purdue also welcomed back alumni drivers to the track to compete as undercards in the event, as happens every five years. They competed in a series of entertaining and lighthearted preliminary races, at which time the crowd had already occupied most of the available seats, almost two hours before the main event.

Saturday’s weather featured sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-80s to give the thousands of Boilers in attendance the first taste of summer while also ensuring a spectator environment that lived up to the Purdue Grand Prix’s slogan as the “greatest spectacle in college racing.”