Dan Wheldon wins the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway...

(The start) Mario Moraes is running, they did manage to get the car repaired. Here they go, ragged but safe for a half-lap, nope, trouble on the Bernoldi car at the back, a spin by Enrique Bernoldi, dinged the nose and front inside wing...
 
(The restart) Bernoldi to pit road for the "nose job" and back out and running, it will be Dixon, Scheckter, Wheldon and Patrick, and Danica is upset that Tomas Scheckter pinched her at the start, and that he did, put her under the white line. Most of the tail end cars topped off their fuel. A clean start this time. This will be the same fuel story as Motegi, with a few laps of caution they should get close to lap 50 before pitting...
 

(Lap 24) A crash, Will Power spins in turn two. What happened is that Darren Manning and Justin Wilson came close to making contact, and Power, behind them, got on the brakes and went around and spun into the SAFER... Trouble on pit road, Roth hits a Scheckter crew member, the guy changing the front tire.  Apparently the man is OK, he finished the pit stop. One of the Scheckter crew went over and smacked Roth on the helmet as they backed Roth's car away from the contact.  The front tire changer was on his knees changing the tire as Roth, with brakes locked, hit him. Thankfully the wings passed over his legs. The stop was completed and Tomas had to fall in at the back of the field.
 
(Restart, lap 31) Justin Wilson, who had topped off his fuel on the first caution, has the lead with Dixon following. While Dixon  passed Wilson, none of the other drivers made the trip right away. Look for those that stopped under the first caution to stop by lap 55. We are seeing the two Vision cars as the only two non-TCGR drivers running up front and in touch with them. Having handling problems and out of the race Roth took the blame for the trouble on pit road. Roth said his brakes locked up on the pit stop. Justin Wilson ran up front until he had to head in for fuel, now-off-cycle. One of the few at the back of the pack not topping off on fuel under the first caution was EJ Viso, he is now running 8th.
 
(Lap 73) EJ Viso, Tomas Scheckter and others including Tony Kanaan were first in under green for a 2nd round of stops. All these cars will have to make at least two more stops for fuel. Milka Duno spun on pit road as she left her pit. The TCGR cars pit on lap 78, pushing the fuel limits an additional two laps. Ryan Hunter-Reay is having trouble on pit road, the cowling is off the car. Both of the Conquest cars are now on pit road. After the stops Dixon is in the lead with Wilson 2nd, still off-cycle and due in around lap 100. IF Wilson can stay on the track PAST lap 100 he could run race distance in one more stop should it go green all the way. Could we have a 3rd fuel management race in a row? Right now the two TCGR cars are running in lockstep and the only one close to them is Ed Carpenter, 7 seconds back.
 
(Lap 99) Tomas Scheckter and EJ Viso have crashed, or at least spun into the infield. Scheckter looked to be trying to pass Viso on the outside and Viso drifted up the least little bit and the two made right front to left rear tire contact. As they spun into the infield Viso's right rear tire made contact with the Scheckter car again, that contact will put the Scheckter car out of the race... Vitor Meira hit a loose tire off the Buddy Rice car exiting his pit, he is out of the race, damaged LF suspension...
 
(Lap 106 restart) All cars have pitted and are good to go race distance with one more stop. On the restart Tony Kanaan passed Dan Wheldon and into 2nd. EJ Viso, a lap down, got off to a good start and then made several questionable moves that have gotten him in trouble for blocking. Viso is probably trying just a little too hard. This is also the 2nd time he has had warnings about blocking, it was an issue at St. Pete as well.
 
(Lap122) We now have an IndyCar race, two TCGR cars, Kanaan in the AGR car and two Penske cars in lockstep. The top-10 cars are all within 5 seconds of the lead 35 laps into the run. Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti just had to go three-wide around Mario Moraes, who's best lap of the race is only 206-mph, Patrick got into the marbles big time, few drivers are able to drive out the other side of those things, but Danica hung on. She lost a lot of real estate, but she is still running with all the wheels on the car. I'm looking for stops within 5 laps...
 
(Lap 152) Scott Dixon to pit road just as the caution light came on as Buddy Rice crashed hard and is very angry getting out of the car, clearly something broke on the car or he lost a tire. Watching the replay, you can see Rice in the turn and then the car "drops" and you see the sparks come out from under the car. After that Rice straight-lined the car hard into the wall. Teams are now stopping before pit road has been opened, afraid they are too close to running out of fuel, they'll have to stop again, and at that time top off and change tires.  Almost all of them are back in the pits now. When she returned to pit road there was a right rear hub problem on Danica Patrick's car, she is out of the car and out of the race. The four alignment studs were missing from the hub. My guess is that they got the wheel misaligned on the previous stop. It is taking a very long time to clean up the mess from the Buddy Rice crash this caution ran for more than twenty laps. Dixon, Foyt and Carpenter will be at the tail end of the lead lap after the wave around. The track will be very dirty due to the clean-up from the Rice crash. Once back under green, if we didn't have a race, we do now. There will be no further fuel issues.
 
(Lap 173 restart) It will be Wheldon, Kanaan. Castroneves, Briscoe, Mutoh, Andretti, Dixon and Foyt. Kanaan is complaining of a vibration, but once under green he cleared the lapped car of Oriol Servia easily. Back around 6th place Hideki Mutoh was running Dixon hard and clean for 5th, delaying Scott's move toward the front. Once past Mutoh, Dixon had Ryan Briscoe to deal with.
 

(lap 183) Dixon got past both Penske cars, first Briscoe, than Helio on the same lap and is 4 seconds behind Wheldon now.
 

(Lap 190) Dixon isn't gaining ground, he's losing it. Wheldon and Kanaan are running 213-mph laps. With 5-to-go the race is for 5th between Andretti and Briscoe, advantage Marco, who takes Hideki Mutoh with him. Marco now working Castroneves. Up front with two laps to go Wheldon clears lap traffic and boxes in Kanaan, Dan Wheldon wins, Kanaan 2nd, Dixon 3rd, Helio Castroneves 4th and Marco Andretti 5th... Here are the unofficial results...

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

Last Lap

 

1

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

25.6867

213.029

82

200

 

2

Tony Kanaan (11)

 

25.7468

212.531

11

200

 

3

Scott Dixon (9)

 

25.5084

214.518

175

200

 

4

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

25.8673

211.541

110

200

 

5

Marco Andretti (26)

 

25.7946

212.137

12

200

 

6

Hideki Mutoh (27)

 

25.7875

212.196

89

200

 

7

Ryan Briscoe (6)

 

25.7408

212.581

13

200

 

8

A.J. Foyt IV (2)

 

25.8497

211.685

177

200

 

9

Justin Wilson (02)

 

25.8823

211.419

39

199

 

10

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

25.7988

212.103

176

198

 

11

Oriol Servia (5)

 

26.0496

210.061

36

198

 

12

Graham Rahal (06)

 

25.9434

210.921

111

198

 

13

Jay Howard (24)

 

25.8565

211.630

35

197

 

14

EJ Viso (33)

 

25.9112

211.183

41

197

 

15

Bruno Junqueira (18)

 

26.0719

209.881

14

196

 

16

Milka Duno (23)

 

26.1185

209.507

35

195

 

17

Mario Moraes (19)

 

26.5223

206.317

106

193

 

18

Ryan Hunter-Reay (17)

 

25.8591

211.608

10

169

 

19

Danica Patrick (7)

 

25.7965

212.122

82

156

 

20

Buddy Rice (15)

 

25.9856

210.578

44

150

 

21

Jaime Camara (34)

 

25.9657

210.740

35

148

 

22

Vitor Meira (4)

 

25.8220

211.912

80

101

 

23

Tomas Scheckter (12)

 

25.7855

212.212

35

96

 

24

Darren Manning (14)

 

26.0248

210.261

11

76

 

25

Enrique Bernoldi (36)

 

26.3034

208.034

13

54

 

26

Marty Roth (25)

 

25.8419

211.749

18

41

 

27

Will Power (8)

 

26.2012

208.845

21

22

 

Target Chip Ganassi Racing, Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon capture the front row for the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway...

The usual T&S link I use for P&Q sessions didn't work this afternoon, the best I can get from it is the starting order, I'll have to plug in the speeds later. Dixon won the pole in dominant fashion and Dan Wheldon was about a half-mph slower. Danica Patrick qualified 3rd, Tomas Scheckter 4th, AJ Foyt 5th, Ed Carpenter 6th, Marty Roth surprised everyone in 7th, Helio Castroneves 8th, Ryan Briscoe 9th and Vitor Meira rounded out the top-10... Here are the "Q" results...
***

Practice has ended for the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300, 4-lap qualifying up next at 3:30 p.m., EDT.

INDYCAR PHOTO BY RON MCQUEENEY

Here's Tomas Scheckter in the stunning looking #12 under Will Power in the 2nd practice session this afternoon at Kansas Speedway...
***

(2:00 p.m., EDT) If you had to use two words to describe the 2nd practice session it would be "pack practice." Just about everyone except some of the new drivers packed it up in the afternoon session, and most of them ran a lot of laps. It was Dixon and Wheldon again at the top, and they posted those numbers early. Danica Patrick ran 3rd for just about the entire session, and was in a draft the entire time. Vitor Meira continued to run well, and this time Helio Castroneves; who hasn't won an IndyCar event in over a year (St. Pete, 2007), was 4th in the session, probably in his case because of a tow. Tomas Scheckter was late getting out after the 50-minute break, so I suspect a gear change, but once back out he was pretty quick in what is a very sharp looking car. Again I have highlighted the new drivers in bold type. Tossing out the 214's of the two TCGR cars (I'm not sure I can ignore them), I'm very impressed with the 4.15 mph speed differential for 24 drivers between Patrick and Bernoldi. I'm also impressed again with EJ Viso, 15th on the chart and fastest of the new drivers/teams.

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

 

 

Last Lap

 

1

Scott Dixon (9)

 

25.4758

214.792

20

 

 

55

 

2

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

25.5685

214.013

13

 

 

51

 

3

Danica Patrick (7)