I've finally found the time to watch the Firestone Indy 400, here are some thoughts about the race.
First as many of my friends here know, I had a bit of a family outing yesterday as my granddaughter competed in her first golf tournament. Putting woes struck mid-round in what turned out to be a 100 degree day, and of course the kids are required to walk from tee to green. No excuses, it was her first event and she had the girl she was playing against (who has played in 7 events) covered easily until she lost all control of the putter. We'll get her to a teaching pro and get it fixed.

***

For once they had a fairly well aligned start and pole-winner Franchitti led the first lap... Considering rain usually hurts the walk-up gate, there was a very decent looking "crowd" for the race... The race settled into a fairly orderly single file early pace for the first 28 laps. You could expect a full fuel run to last about 35 laps, bet there were some extra laps at the start, so I expect the teams would have pitted at about 30 laps if Jon Herb hadn't crashed for the 2nd time of the weekend. Herb was shown ahead of only Milka Duno, but already 3 laps down when he backed the car into the turn two SAFER. To be fair, Herb was running a repaired and untested car because he never made a "Q" run and there is no longer a race day morning practice session... All teams pitted as it was very close to pitting time anyway... Milka Duno had to be towed off the course after stopping in turn 4 with a "mechanical" issue. Again Duno's "fastest" race lap was the slowest of the race... To pit or not to pit was the question, and when Franchitti came in everyone followed, but the two Penske cars went for fuel only, Franchitti stalled his engine on pit exit. Scott Dixon was the new race leader and Dario would be far back in the pack, but not for long... In five laps Franchitti had passed half the field, and by the lap 59 caution for contact between Helio Castroneves and Vitor Meira, Franchitti was 2nd, so there is no question Dario had a dominate car. As for Castroneves, who gained a lot of track position from not changing tires on the last pit stop, he had given all those back and more before making contact with Meira... Helio shook his fist at Vitor as the cars stopped, and Vitor appeared to have an answer for him, it appears that as both cars turned down into the tri-oval bend Vitor appeared to turn more than Castroneves and made left front tire to right rear with Helio's car and both cars headed for the SAFER locked together. The contact was severe enough that momentarily Meira's car was difficult to recognize for the TV crew making the call on the crash. That was a hard, very high-speed crash with little time and distance to bleed off any momentum. To be fair to Vitor, both cars gave a little wiggle and after Helio experienced his, he no longer was headed to the bottom of the "bend," although Meira still was. I didn't see Helio make any move up-track that Scott Goodyear claimed he had... There is a very good chance of significant tub damage to the Castroneves car... Once pit road opened every car was back in, mostly for a fuel top-off only, and Franchitti regained the lead of the race that he lost only a dozen laps earlier after restarting 18th. This was a race that would never get to green flag pit stops that would allow some possible car separation, no wonder it was a crash-feast... During this sequence of yellow flag laps it is interesting to note some of the same aero enhancements at least mirror-wise that we usually see at Indy... Back under green this run will only be 15 laps before Sarah Fisher crashes, also in turn 2. The "event came during "side-by-side" coverage and all we saw was Sarah backing down the backstretch with the left side of the car in the wall. Actually Sarah backed the car hard into the SAFER. Fisher had run 97% of the race laps this season, and this would be her first DNF... During this 15 lap run, with Franchitti leading over Tomas Scheckter, the field split into two packs... Again back under green, this time with Dan Wheldon in the lead, Dario again asserted his dominance over the field in taking several laps to make an outside pass on Wheldon, who gave no quarter... NOW we began to see some of the side-by-side racing IndyCar USED to be famous for, but for a while it looked like a TMS rerun, with the outside car not being able to execute the pass. In this run we also saw Danica Patrick turn racy as well, and Hornish begin to find the handles on his car after some frantic pit road adjustments to his car. Hornish and Patrick went side-by-side for 7th and 8th for 10 laps, and while Franchitti was able to finally prevail over Wheldon on the outside, Hornish couldn't make the trip past Danica... Patrick was the next driver to try the long way around the outside against Scott Dixon, but finally had to get under him to get past. Franchitti led with Wheldon, Kanaan and Scheckter still fighting hard for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Meanwhile Patrick continued her run to the front, finally clearing Kanaan for 4th before Darren Manning crashed very hard in turn 4 in yet another hard-to-explain single car crash with extensive damage to the car. Manning, 9th at the time, simply lost the back end of the car and backed into the SAFER in much the same way as Herb and Fisher did earlier. Winters have been harsh and unkind to MIS in the past, while visible repair attempts have been made, I guess the track has just become too rough and bumpy. Manning was constantly in jeopardy of being hit by the left rear wheel and suspension pieces still tethered to the car... After pitting this time it was Dario in the lead over Wheldon, Scheckter, Patrick, Dixon and Kanaan, setting up the 24-lap run to the big crash... Patrick made the pass under Scheckter on the restart but couldn't keep it... Then it was Wheldon around the outside of Franchitti with Scheckter in tow. Franchitti would drop to 3rd momentarily and then work his way back to the front, only to be deterred by Kanaan 3-wide with Hornish behind him. This was great stuff, IndyCar back doing what it has always done best, side-by-side, wheel-to-wheel on a "cookie-cutter," but there is always the possibility of the huge crash we were about to see... Dario made the pass on Wheldon and was high on the backstretch and he NEVER VARIED his line, Wheldon came up on Dario and made right front tire to left rear and Dario was sideways. The nose of Wheldon's car and the air under Franchitti's lifted and launched Dario's car and drove right under him. Dario's car then did a half-twist, half-rotation, only to land upside-down, rear wing first, turn again 90 degrees on the roll bar, start to tumble again and be hit by Dixon in much the same way as  Wheldon hit him and it started all over again, Groundhog Day on wheels. Dixon wasn't as lucky as Wheldon, Dario's car came directly over his cockpit, I credit the cockpit "bubble" on the Dallara for deflecting the Franchitti car and saving Dixon. Dario wasn't in the clear yet, never able to get right-side-up, next to hit him from below was AJ Foyt IV, who would later show a tire mark from the Franchitti car on his helmet.  Franchitti would emerge from the once it was righted on it's wheels virtually unscathed. I was fortunate enough to get as much of a view of the race as I did. My daughter was kind enough to program in two hours on ESPN Classic on the DVR, and we needed three hours.. The last segment ended before the race was restarted.

***

Tony Kanaan wins the rain-delayed Firestone Indy 400 as Dario Franchitti gets some "big-air on an X-Game weekend and "walks away."
While I spent 15 hours in airports and sitting in planes in long ground delays and in the air in ATC holding patterns, most of the country was also missing the "action" at MIS once finally under way due to some "weird" and difficult to justify TV moves by ESPN. All I have seen of the Franchitti/Wheldon crash was the indycar.com footage, and I'm very happy to see everyone walking around today. This is a family outing day (Monday) and the reason for all my Sunday "air time," so until I get to see the TiVo, I'll direct everyone here for a recount of the race and link to the crash footage. Here's the unofficial results...

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

Last Lap

 

1

Tony Kanaan (11)

 

33.0918

217.577

3

200

 

2

Marco Andretti (26)

 

32.9565

218.470

4

200

 

3

Scott Sharp (8)

 

33.1523

217.180

55

200

 

4

Kosuke Matsuura (55)

 

33.0413

217.909

4

200

 

5

Buddy Rice (15)

 

33.2442

216.579

4

200

 

6

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17)

 

33.1878

216.947

55

200

 

7

Danica Patrick (7)

 

32.9067

218.800

4

199

 

8

AJ Foyt IV (22)

 

33.2676

216.427

123

167

 

9

Sam Hornish Jr (6)

 

33.2331

216.651

4

148

 

10

Scott Dixon (9)

 

33.1418

217.248

3

145

 

11

Tomas Scheckter (2)

 

33.0165

218.073

3

144

 

12

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

32.9968

218.203

3

143

 

13

Dario Franchitti (27)

 

33.0040

218.155

54

143

 

14

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

33.0822

217.640

53

143

 

15

Darren Manning (14)

 

33.2842

216.319

38

113

 

16

Sarah Fisher (5)

 

33.3454

215.922

38

83

 

17

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

33.1857

216.961

4

58

 

18

Vitor Meira (4)

 

33.0134

218.093

4

58

 

19

Milka Duno (23)

 

33.9544

212.049

4

43

 

20

Jon Herb (19)

 

33.8993

212.394

3

26

 

Dario Franchitti wins the pole position for the Firestone Indy 400 at MIS...
Earlier in the day I said that "unless there is a monstrous sandbag jog out there lurking somewhere, I think it will be very difficult for anyone to come within 1-mph of Tomas Scheckter's 2nd practice session speeds in qualifying." So what do I know, boy was I wrong. Franchitti probably made a good show of running in a tow as he bested Tomas Scheckter's fast practice of the day handily, but he was the only one even though Sam Hornish came close. Danica Patrick had some sort of "late-in-the-"Q" line problem that caused her to get only one "Q" lap, and the best she could qualify is 9th. Tony Kanaan and Vitor Meira had one-lap runs as well. Jon Herb crashed in the 2nd practice session and didn't make a "Q" run.

Pos

Driver

Diff

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

 

1

Dario Franchitti (27)

...

32.9810

218.308

1

 

2

Sam Hornish Jr (6)

0.0429

33.0239

218.024

1

 

3

Helio Castroneves (3)

0.0626

33.0436

217.894

2

 

4

Scott Sharp (8)

0.1025

33.0835

217.631

1

 

5

Dan Wheldon (10)

0.1303

33.1113

217.448

1

 

6

Tomas Scheckter (2)

0.1325

33.1135

217.434

1

 

7

Scott Dixon (9)

0.1424

33.1234

217.369

1

 

8

Tony Kanaan (11)

0.1694

33.1504

217.192

1

 

9

Danica Patrick (7)

0.2038

33.1848

216.967

1

 

10

Ed Carpenter (20)

0.3069

33.2879

216.295

1

 

11

Vitor Meira (4)

0.3589

33.3399

215.957

1

 

12

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17)

0.3711

33.3521

215.878

1

 

13

Marco Andretti (26)

0.3819

33.3629