![]() Power crept his way back into the top five briefly, but another pit-road mix-up cost him time. Raphael Matos, who got to second early in the race, dropped back when his right rear tire came off – then went out when he hit the wall on lap 72. Power’s problems were part of an overall sloppy day at “The Greatest Spectacle In Racing,” which featured nine caution periods, including one when Davey Hamilton, the oldest driver in the race, crashed before the drivers made it out of Turn 2 on the first lap.ĭixon, Franchitti’s teammate, lost his left front tire coming out of pit road. I think we could’ve hung with Dario, no problem. “As a team, we made too many mistakes today,” Power said. More than an hour before Castroneves stalled in pit road, teammate Will Power’s crew left part of the fuel rig in his tank – a costly mistake that forced Power to take a penalty run through pit road and dropped him out of the top five.Īnd moments after Castroneves’ error, his other teammate, Ryan Briscoe, careened into the wall and out of the race while Penske, The Captain, looked on – hand on hip, seemingly amazed at how his smooth-running machine fell so far, so fast. Ganassi won his fourth Indy and has one of those few pieces of history that aren’t owned by racing’s most successful owner, Roger Penske, who had an unusually bewildering day in his quest for a 16th Indy victory day. “One of the worst things you can do, and we’ve done it, is to finish a race with some fuel left,” Ganassi said. This time, the end came under slow, yellow flag conditions that froze the order of finish. In 2007, he won when the race was shortened to 166 laps because of rain. He did, and was on his way to a milk mustache in Victory Lane.īoth times he’s been there, he’s crossed the bricks without really racing. With the yellow flag out, Franchitti’s wife, actress Ashley Judd, put her hand over her head, hoping her man had enough fuel to make it. That’s when the cars behind them went flying. Wheldon started bearing down, positioning himself to make the last lap of the Indy 500 the first lap he had led all year on the circuit. He did as he was told, and after leading 154 of the first 199 laps at speeds of up to 224.287 mph, he slowed steadily at the end – to 210 mph, then 209 and 206. His crew started pressing their driver to conserve fuel with about 15 laps left. “I was concerned about running out of fuel. More exciting than Franchitti might have wanted. “I hope I made it exciting out there,” Kanaan said. His chance of becoming the first driver in 94 years of Indys to go from worst to first ended when he had to go to the pits for a splash of fuel with four laps to go. Not so for Tony Kanaan, who finished 11th after starting last in the 33-car field and moving as high as second, less than half a second behind. “I’m very happy with the result, and the reasons we got it were that our pit stops rocked and we had a perfect strategy,” Patrick said. Marco Andretti was third, followed by England’s Alex Lloyd and Scott Dixon. Patrick never found her comfort zone in the 88-degree weather – at one point saying she wished she could make up as much time on the track as in the pits – but she was patient and disciplined and now has five top 10 finishes in six years. After being booed during qualifying when she complained about a balky car, she picked and poked her way from 23rd to finish sixth. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick made no mistakes. “Unfortunately, silly mistakes put us in the back,” Castroneves said. It left Castroneves in need of a yellow flag miracle at the end that never came, and he finished ninth after one last pit stop on the 192nd lap. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., and Rick Mears for most wins ever at the Brickyard essentially ended with an uncharacteristic mistake – stalling out while leaving the pits on the 146th lap. He did, and so the story became about his second victory instead of Helio Castroneves’ fourth. ![]()
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