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While the race ended under the
caution flag, there was no doubt Scott Dixon had the dominating
car and 2nd place Tony Kanaan wasn't going to run him down. The
caution flag was brought out when Tomas Enge attempted to pass
Helio Castroneves for 6th position on the inside going
into a turn. Helio mustn't have known Tomas was there, because
he turned down into him and there was a big crash. Both drivers
appear to be ok. To me Enge was doing what he needed to do,
which was to finish as high as possible, and he was far enough
into the pass that Helio should have seen him. The running recap
that will serve as a race wrap-up for now can be seen here...
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(9-25-05, 2:40 PM EDT, an update)
The final (Sunday morning)
practice session is over and it was run in wet conditions. Dario
Franchitti and Tony Kanaan topped
the session, followed by Vitor Meira, Tomas Enge and Tomas
Scheckter, with pole sitter Helio Castroneves in 6th. Giorgio
Pantano, the man everyone concedes may have the best chance in a
rain hampered race posted the 8t fastest speed. As you would
expect, IndyCars two oval track specialists, Sam Hornish Jr. and
Ed Carpenter were 16th and 20th respectively. Jeff Bucknum, who
didn't practice in the rain at all Friday was 17th on the chart.
Carpenter has enough trouble road racing without being an
adverse factor in a race, even without adding water to the mix.
I'm getting mixed
signals from the weather reporting sources, but so far
weather.com reports it is "cloudy and 72 degrees, and their
3:00
PM call for "no rain" appears to be holding up,
but it's all downhill after that. The start of the race at 3:45
could come after the rest-of-the-day starts. RaceTrack
Weather is a little more optimistic, showing a 40% chance of
showers. Jeff Simmons won the MIPS race over Marco Andretti and
"last lap speeds" indicated they were running in dry
conditions. The IMS radio feed is moments away from going live,
we'll have a weather update momentarily. Here's the latest,
it is not raining YET.
***
Showers are a possibility when the
IndyCars bring open wheel racing back to the historic old course
at Watkins Glen, NY today, here's the weather
forecast... That forecast calls for rain at noon and 6:00 PM
as well, with cloudy conditions at 3:00 PM. Since the race
starts at 3:30, lets hope the weatherman is spot on today. That
isn't to say a few laps under wet conditions wouldn't raise the
excitement level a notch, but I'd just as soon pass on an
all-day drenching. Read more of my race preview and also follow
the race in running recap format here...
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While I wasn't at Watkins Glen
today, I wish I was, because the Firestone Fast Six session must
have been something to see. In my running recap commentary boxes
I tried to keep up with the Fast Six position changes as rapidly
as possible, and fell hopelessly behind. I only hope we see some
footage at SPEED News Saturday this afternoon. As it turned out
there were Toyota powered Panoz or Dallara chassis in the top 4,
while the two AGR Honda's of Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti
had to settle for 5th and 6th. The fastest car out there though
may have been the RLR Panoz Honda of Vitor Meira, who just
missed the Fast Six due to a couple of slips on his
"Q" attempt. The finished running recap of the day's
action can be seen here...
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When the IndyCars
return to Watkins Glen today weeks after their open test
session, Ryan Briscoe, who set the fastest speed then will be
absent from the field, recovering from injuries suffered two
weeks ago at Chicagoland Speedway. While the test
results showed surprising balance between Toyota and Honda
powered cars, there were 6 cars with Panoz Chassis in the top
ten and only 4 Dallaras. Briscoe's team owner Chip Ganassi has
declined to replace him for the last two 2005 events, and again
will bring in Giorgio Pantano to drive the #10 car driven on the
oval tracks by Jaques Lazier. AJ Foyt Racing will also again
bring in road racer Jeff Bucknum to replace AJ Foyt IV. Here is
the entry
list... and event schedule as shown by IndyCar.com, all
times are EDT.
Practice 1
Fri. Sep. 23 :: 10 a.m. - Noon
Practice 2 Fri. Sep 23 :: 1:50 - 3 p.m.
Practice 3 Sat. Sep. 24 :: 10:20 - 11:30 a.m.
Qualifications Sat. Sep. 24 :: 1 - 2:45 p.m.
Final Practice Sun. Sep. 25 :: 9:30 - 10 a.m.
Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix presented by Argent
Mortgage Sun. Sep. 25 :: 3:45 p.m.
Read more about
today's practice session and follow the running
recap here....
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