|
|
|
 |
|
Traffic
would be a problem all day Saturday, but not usually this bad.
|
|
|
Courtesy
of Honda IRL Racing
|
|
Sam
Hornish and Marlboro Team Penske won the XM Satellite Radio Indy
200 on pit road and with a small amount of defensive driving at
Phoenix International Raceway Saturday, but Dario Franchitti was
the “show” all day, with an “honorable mention” going to
his AGR teammate Tony Kanaan for an amazing charge at the start
of the race. Kanaan had a terrible P&Q day on Friday, beset
with overheating problems that kept him off the track for most
of both sessions. At first the team blamed the engine, and
changed it, only to find the overheating problems persisted.
Ultimately, the trouble was found in the cooling system, but by
then, on a “single-engine” weekend, Kanaan was regulated to
start at the back of the field, so he didn’t even make a
“Q” run.
Seventh
in seven laps! Tony
started last (21st) and passed ten cars on the first lap. It was
probably easier than it looked. Most drivers meetings start with
the standard admonition that “you can’t win the race on the
first lap.” With that in mind, and remembrances of “the big
one” still fresh in their heads also; Kanaan was probably more
ready to race then most of the back-marker’s he passed. Tony
caught most of them easing up to speed while their tires came up
to temperature and out-desired them, but he still managed to
pass some decent talent, including Scott Dixon and Scott Sharp,
2nd in the pre-race practice. Kanaan would wage his
fight from mid-pack most in the race, constantly finding himself
dueling with the two MTP cars and dodging cars often ten-mph
slower than the rest of the pack. There were some cars far off
the pace, but not the 30-mph gap that was over-stated by
anti-IndyCar pundit Robin Miller on SPEED. Paul Dana was far off
the pace and a rolling hazard until eventually being clipped by
another car and called in as being too slow. Dana may turn out
to be not ready for prime time, and there are already rumors of
impending replacement, but one driver that is qualified and
should be ready is Ryan Briscoe, and he struggled for the 2nd
race in a row. This time Briscoe’s wall contact was minor, he
crashed twice at HMS with much more extensive and expensive
results. Briscoe will come into his own in a couple of weeks at
the street race in St. Pete, but even there, his former F1 test
driver status leaves him ill prepared for the concrete canyons
of American temporary street racing.
Wheldon
may have been in the lead, but Franchitti/Hornish kept everyone
on the edge of their seat.
Dario didn’t get the “Q” run results he expected, after
dominating testing last month, he was in the same situation in
practice until he exploded a gearbox in the 2nd
practice session. In “Q” runs, he was very angry after
posting 5th quick speed. At the start of the race Dan
Wheldon led lap one, passing pole sitter Bryan Herta while
Franchitti faced Hornish/Kanaan challenges from behind. Herta
was able to drop in and hold position two until being passed by
Dario on lap 69. As for Dario, if he wasn’t in a good frame of
mind with his 5th starting position, his disposition
probably became worse being hung up behind Tomas Scheckter while
under extreme pressure from Sam Hornish Jr. Dario had to make
some daring moves in keeping Hornish and Kanaan behind him. It
was in splitting lapped traffic behind Scheckter that Hornish
finally got past Franchitti. Now it was Hornish stuck behind
Scheckter, with Dario putting pressure on him. Hornish slipped
once and almost lost the spot to Franchitti before falling in
line. The three cars ran that way with Kanaan in 4th
until the caution for the Buddy Rice crash.
All weekend, if anyone got in trouble, it was always at the exit
of turn two, that section of the track had been known as the
trouble spot at PIR, but when they revised the track and opened
up more running-room, most felt it was manageable. Not this
week, in practice Patrick Carpentier hit the wall there in
nearly the same spot as Rice would hit. The back of the Rice
Panoz stepped out on him coming out of two and tore the rear of
the car to pieces. In the Carpentier crash, Patrick caught the
spin, and in turning into it, hit front-first, when the back end
came around, the wall contact must have caused the bell housing
to rupture, and in these cars, that is where the oil reservoir
is. The oil would catch fire and singe both the car and
Carpentier as well; he got out in a hurry, but was injured by
broken parts off the car getting into the cockpit. ABC used the
same Side-By-Side split-screen commercial breaks as ESPN; and it
was there that we first saw the results of the Rice crash, and
later on would see some the best in-traffic racing I can ever
recall.
With the field under an early caution, mirroring what happened
at
Homestead
, some teams
opted to pit while other protected track position and stayed out
on the track. Race leader Wheldon stayed out, as did Herta in
2nd, Franchitti, Manning, Meira and Matsuura. The rest of the
contenders pitted, including the two Penske cars and Tony Kanaan
as well.
After the restart, we saw some of the most intense
racing I can ever recall at PIR Wheldon was clear and in the lead, but the lapped car
of Ed Carpenter was in the mix as well, having stayed out during
the caution. Herta and a very aggressive Franchitti split in
passing Carpenter, with Brian on the outside beating Dario into
and through turn one. At this point the TV crew appeared to
award the race to Wheldon. Meanwhile, the two Penske cars, first
of those out of the pits (what’s new), were about to put on an
amazing run for position behind the 5th place car of
Matsuura, with Kanaan trailing them and looking for his
opportunity as well. Mind you, these are two teammates fighting
for “P-6” with 80% of the race left to be run, and racing as
if going for the win. Helio was in 6th, Dario
in 7th and dealing with Kanaan underneath him. On lap
44, with fresh tires, Castroneves, Hornish and Kanaan started
their run towards the front, Helio was first to clear the car of
Darren Manning while Hornish couldn’t and lost a spot to
Kanaan as the field bunched up behind Carpenter (again). At this
time, Wheldon, Herta and Franchitti were driving away from the
field. To make
matters worse for those for those trying to run down the
leaders, as slow as Ed Carpenter was, Dana was slower. After
Dana was forced into “the marbles” on the restart, almost
losing the car, here he was in the mix again, and this time
Manning made slight contact with him on an inside pass. That was
enough for Dana and perhaps IndyCar officials as well, Dana
would exit the race. Several laps later Helio got under Matsuura
and Kanaan/Hornish cleared Manning Then it was Kanaan/Hornish in
a real side by side battle behind Kosuke, with Hornish making
the outside pass. It is time to mention Danica Patrick, sure she
was off the leader’s pace, but she never was a hazard out
there. She held her line and there was always room around her to
get past, far better than Carpenter, who has a full season of
experience on her. Patrick was also able to manage a clean pass
on Roger Yasukawa, who assumed the Dana role of a P-I-T-A to
clear! On lap 66 Dan Wheldon got caught up in traffic and lost
most of his 5-second lead. Wheldon had yet to pit, and although
“light” on fuel, he may have been running out of usable
rubber as well, and he was trying to lap Scott Dixon, not an
easy task. On lap 69 Franchitti finally got under Herta for the
inside pass, but all three AGR cars would have to pit soon.
Herta would be first to stop, with Wheldon a lap later. Later we
would learn that Franchitti was upset with Herta, feeling that
Bryan
was holding him up, Franchitti had Wheldon in
sight, but was having a tough time clearing Roger Yasukawa;
playing another rolling chicane part. Robin Miller would call
them “jam cars,” I rarely agree with Miller, but in this
case… If Franchitti was angry, who could blame him? Once clear
of Roger, Dario got under Wheldon for the first lead change of
the race.
|
|
|
|
Courtesy
of Honda IRL Racing
|
|
Wheldon
may have had trouble lapping
Dixon
, but Dario drove right under and past him.
Perhaps Dario did have the best car all the while at this stage
of the race, and didn’t force his way past his two teammates,
but at 74 laps, the three AGR leaders would have to pit soon and
it looked like it would be under green. Wheldon and Herta were
first in and out of the pits on lap 75; Dario would run one more
lap before attempting a stop. Pay
attention here, Dario would be able to run 76 laps/miles, all
but ten under green, plus the three pre-race laps and a couple
of more under the caution flag that was about to come out before
getting fuel, over 80 miles. Later in the race, after a 51-lap
run under green, Dario would pit early and not only get enough
fuel to win, but four tires as well, and THAT, IMO is what cost
him the race, not the three-lap dash to the checker (hindsight
is 20/20). As Dario dove towards pit road, Tomas Enge got in
the fence on the frontstretch and brought out the caution flag.
Dario drove past his pit stall and back out onto the track. That
caused Dario to lose 4 positions on the track
and be in dire need to get into the pits for fuel before
running out on the track. Gil de Ferran stated that Enge came up
behind the slowing Franchitti and ran out of room, going high;
and got into the fence, a great observation. I was critical of
Gil on his Patrick call at HMS, this time he “nailed it.”
Actually, the caution “saved” Dario, he would have lost a
lap pitting under green, and if those that pitted earlier caught
a caution to pit under, Dario would have gotten the lap back,
but would be at the rear of the field. Franchitti got the fuel
he needed two laps later. In the pit sequence I noticed another
issue that would cost Dario dearly and also have a bearing and
become the “seeds” of Franchitti’s ultimate
disappointment. Dario lost an engine at
Homestead
, and he is far back in points. Because of that,
he had poor options in pit selection, so his pit was close to
the pit entrance, leaving him to drive the length of pit road at
the mandated speed all the way to pit exit. Most of the
contenders were at the other end of pit road, with a quick dash
out and back up to speed. In this stop and the next, when the
others exited the pits under caution, Dario’s car was destined
to fall in behind the Penske cars. He would always have to
contend with them from behind on restarts.
|
|
|
|
Courtesy
of Toyota Motorsports
|
|
This
caution flag pit stop was disastrous for Tony Kanaan, The crew
was unable to get any fuel in Tony’s car due to a problem with
the single-point refueling rig, Kanaan, out first but without
any fuel, would have to return to pit road. Give a nod to the
AGR crew, rather than lose precious time fighting the problem,
they sent Kanaan around until the rig was fixed and brought him
back in. Getting back to Dario, almost on empty, his stop was
rather long, and in counting the cars exiting the pits, his car
was 9th out, and there was a lot of “deadwood” in
front of him, including both Cheever cars (my opinion) and
Yasukawa, plus the two Penske cars. One of those cars was
Kanaan, but he would soon return to the pits. I think that the
cars of Wheldon and Herta, who were now a lap down to the
leaders, were waved around to the rear of the field and on the
leader lap.
The
race and great racing resumes on lap 84, with the MTP cars at
the point!
The first T&S “crawl” shows Matsuura in 3rd,
Manning 4th and Franchitti in 5th. Dario
was clear of the “deadwood” of lapped cars easily.
Franchitti, reportedly upset with Herta, cleared Manning easily
with an inside pass going into one. A lap later he tried a like
move on Matsuura, but with Kosuke also Honda equipped, it took a
half-lap longer to clear him. Now it was Castroneves and Hornish
at the point, Dario closing fast. It took two laps to clear
Carpentier and set out after the Penske cars, who were about to
stage another memorable duel. Meanwhile, TK, who started at the
rear of the field again, was already back to 6th in
10 laps. With Dario lurking, the three cars came up on lapped
cars, including Foyt IV. Helio easily “threaded the needle”
of traffic, but Hornish didn’t, losing a spot to Franchitti in
brushing the Foyt car. All this happened during a commercial
break, and if ABC hadn’t done the “SBS,” we would have
missed it. Before they got back to a full-screen view,
Franchitti made an amazing run on Helio; we would see more of
the same during “Side-By-Side” coverage soon. In traffic
again the lurking Franchitti closed in on Helio, held up by the
car of Alex Barron, Helio got under Barron and escaped,
Franchitti than had a mirror full of Hornish and Kanaan as Ryan
Briscoe got in trouble for the 3rd and final time,
brushing the wall. The caution flag came out, and all the
contenders would pit, almost close enough to the end of the race
to be able to go green the rest of the way, but not quite.
Interestingly, the “in-car” shot of the Briscoe contact from
Herta’s car, shows Helio about to put
Bryan
a lap down.
Behind the pace truck under caution and before pitting, it was
Helio, Dario, Sam the lapped car of Barron, Briscoe, soon to
exit the race, TK in 4th, Matsuura in 5th, with
Carpentier and Sharp following. As pit road opened, no one that
mattered stayed out other than perhaps Herta. During the caution
period I noticed that even though the TV sponsors were willing
to allow split-screen commercials, ABC didn’t chose to do so
as well, going full screen for their breaks.
|
|
This
caution flag pit stop was disastrous for Tony Kanaan, The crew
was unable to get any fuel in Tony’s car due to a problem with
the single-point refueling rig, Kanaan, out first but without
any fuel, would have to return to pit road. Give a nod to the
AGR crew, rather than lose precious time fighting the problem,
they sent Kanaan around until the rig was fixed and brought him
back in. Getting back to Dario, almost on empty, his stop was
rather long, and in counting the cars exiting the pits, his car
was 9th out, and there was a lot of “deadwood” in
front of him, including both Cheever cars (my opinion) and
Yasukawa, plus the two Penske cars. One of those cars was
Kanaan, but he would soon return to the pits. I think that the
cars of Wheldon and Herta, who were now a lap down to the
leaders, were waved around to the rear of the field and on the
leader lap.
The
race and great racing resumes on lap 84, with the MTP cars at
the point!
The first T&S “crawl” shows Matsuura in 3rd,
Manning 4th and Franchitti in 5th. Dario
was clear of the “deadwood” of lapped cars easily.
Franchitti, reportedly upset with Herta, cleared Manning easily
with an inside pass going into one. A lap later he tried a like
move on Matsuura, but with Kosuke also Honda equipped, it took a
half-lap longer to clear him. Now it was Castroneves and Hornish
at the point, Dario closing fast. It took two laps to clear
Carpentier and set out after the Penske cars, who were about to
stage another memorable duel. Meanwhile, TK, who started at the
rear of the field again, was already back to 6th in
10 laps. With Dario lurking, the three cars came up on lapped
cars, including Foyt IV. Helio easily “threaded the needle”
of traffic, but Hornish didn’t, losing a spot to Franchitti in
brushing the Foyt car. All this happened during a commercial
break, and if ABC hadn’t done the “SBS,” we would have
missed it. Before they got back to a full-screen view,
Franchitti made an amazing run on Helio; we would see more of
the same during “Side-By-Side” coverage soon. In traffic
again the lurking Franchitti closed in on Helio, held up by the
car of Alex Barron, Helio got under Barron and escaped,
Franchitti than had a mirror full of Hornish and Kanaan as Ryan
Briscoe got in trouble for the 3rd and final time,
brushing the wall. The caution flag came out, and all the
contenders would pit, almost close enough to the end of the race
to be able to go green the rest of the way, but not quite.
Interestingly, the “in-car” shot of the Briscoe contact from
Herta’s car, shows Helio about to put
Bryan
a lap down.
Behind the pace truck under caution and before pitting, it was
Helio, Dario, Sam the lapped car of Barron, Briscoe, soon to
exit the race, TK in 4th, Matsuura in 5th, with
Carpentier and Sharp following. As pit road opened, no one that
mattered stayed out other than perhaps Herta. During the caution
period I noticed that even though the TV sponsors were willing
to allow split-screen commercials, ABC didn’t chose to do so
as well, going full screen for their breaks.
|
|
|
|
Courtesy
of Toyota Motorsports
|
|
Off
this restart it was the Penske cars banging wheels and side by
side again.
Hornish faked a move to the outside on the green and ducked to
the inside and almost even with Helio at the line. Amazingly,
and in spite of getting into the dirty line on the outside and
causing a rooster tail of dust, Helio held on to remain to the
outside of Sam down the backstretch and through turns three and
four, where the cars made slight wheel contact. Sam eventually
prevailed, but that was an exciting two laps. While you might
expect this at
Texas
, it was a
rare sight at PIR. The contact left Helio’s left sidepod with
a real “donut,” not the show-off kind you see at the end of
races lately. Man I wish I knew how to and was able to download
these TiVo images into still shots, I’d have hundreds to show
from this race. Weather or not the intensity of the run
distracted Helio for the moment while he caught his breath,
moments later Franchitti got under him and past, almost
uncontested. A few laps later it was Franchitti trying the low
line on Hornish. Whether or not it was Honda power, Franchitti
made it look easy. Clear of traffic, Franchitti opened up his
lead a bit, knowing the next time he got in traffic, he will
need the spacing. Dario needed to put some cars between himself
and the Penske cars, but it wasn’t going to happen. With ABC
back to their “S-B-S” again I have to give a call to Danica,
I can never recall a rookie driver running as well as she was on
a difficult track being an non-issue, you heard many mentions of
Carpenter, Yasukawa, Dana and Briscoe being a problem in
traffic, I never saw that with Danica. In this segment, first
Dario, in opening up his lead, cleared her without slowing down,
and then the following Penske cars took enough time to get to
her that it was obvious she wasn’t that far off-pace, and both
cleared her as well. Also, in giving them room, she never got so
far off line as to put her car in trouble. Danica Patrick is the
real deal, once past the hundreds of laps she will get at Indy,
she will be an honest contender, and you read it here first. On
Lap 143, my good friend Dr. Jerry Punch reported that AGR data
showed that Dario, who was lapping over 1-mph faster than the
rest of the field would come up 18 laps short of finishing the
race without stopping. With that in mind Remember that Dario
would stop even before that, on lap 178, after running only 58
green flag laps. Again remember that at the start of the race,
Dario ran 65 green flag laps, plus two after the caution flag,
ten caution laps earlier and the 3 warm-up laps at the start of
the race, a total of 80 laps! Furthermore, as long as I can recall, the MTP cars have not
been able to outdistance an AGR Honda Dallara on fuel mileage,
and Sam and Helio stayed out on the track for 8 and ten more
laps respectively. In addition, Kanaan stayed out until lap 189.
On
lap 153 Dario gets stuck behind
Dixon
and Hornish is on his right rear corner Immediately!
Again they clear Danica with no trouble. On lap 158 Dario got a
run on
Dixon
and Scott
“closed the door.” Dario had to back off and go a little
wide. Franchitti lost momentum momentarily and Hornish was
outside of him. At this point ABC chose to go to commercial and
“SBS” again, luckily, otherwise we would have missed the
most intense ten laps of the race. Sam actually got under
Franchitti and far enough past to actually be in the lead
“unofficially,” coming off turn four. Then Sam came up on
the Yasukawa car as
Dixon
passed him,
Dario in trail. Sam and Helio split the D&R car with Sam
going low, Helio out 3-wide. Franchitti also went low under
Dixon
, and to
Scott’s credit, he must have seen that he was interfering with
the leaders and let them go, falling a lap down. Franchitti had
breathing room again, but only for a while as Hornish made the
outside pass on
Dixon
within a
half-lap. It took Helio two more laps to clear
Dixon
. Safe from
Helio for a while, Hornish closed on Franchitti again with Dario
stuck behind the lapped car of Carpentier, and Sam tried to go
low as Dario came down on him. Next it was Barron in the way,
but he yielded.
Dario
makes a pit stop with a half-straightaway, 2-second lead. There was no question at the time that everyone else would
have to pit as well. In the pit, Dario’s tires were stopped
for a total of 7-seconds on my watch, with Sam stuck behind the
two TCGR cars remaining in the race, so they weren’t gaining
ground. Sam would be the first MTP car to pit, but he went an
additional 10 laps with a very light fuel load. Sam’s tires
were only stationary for four seconds on his stop, a three
second difference over Franchitti. Add the fact that Sam was
pitted very close to the pit exit and didn’t have to worry
about exit speed, and you have the reason he exited the pits
ahead of Dario. From that point on, we would have seen a great
run to the finish, dodging lapped traffic, with Dario on fresh
tires, I suspect he would have passed Sam, but Scheckter caught
the wall, so we will never know! Adding to Dario’s troubles
was the lapped car of Wheldon between him and Sam, and Dan was
slow in yielding to his teammate. At this point it was ten-to-go
and Wheldon actually closed the door on Franchitti once. Two
laps later Tomas was in the fence, and the race was essentially
over. A pass of fairly equal cars would take more then the three
laps we would have after the green flag. The restart was fair,
and going into turn one Dario went high on Hornish, who was
moving up as well, probably lost air off his front wings and
caught the marbles, race over.
A
quote from Roger Penske, Dario had fresh tires, we had Sam! That may be the case, but MTP had taken the measure of the
entire field on pit road at
Homestead
and did the
same at PIR. Dario’s quote on Sam, “he hit me once, I saw
him hit someone else, but at the end of the race, he did nothing
wrong. I have never seen a race like this at PIR unless it was a
Spridget offering, not CART, not NASCAR. The cars of the IndyCar
Series, circa 2005, are as perfect a total open wheel package as
I have ever seen. This package is set for one more season, as
the series has decided to postpone a 4th generation
chassis change until 2007. Personally, in spite of rumors that
there may be movement towards a production-based engine in 2007,
I think they should stay with what they have, the same specs.
Toyota
is catching
up, and soon Honda will max out at all the power they can have
under these rules. When things finally do level out, there
won’t be ten-horsepower between all engines in the series.
With less R&D costs, the build-price for these engines would
be considerably less.
|
|
|
|
