|
|
|
 |
|
The 2004 INDIANAPOLIS 500
In-Depth Race RECAP!
By Miles Nelson
|
Signs, signs, everywhere are signs,” or so the song goes, and the Indy 500 as well. There were enough signs pointing to Buddy Rice winning the Indy 500 that even Little Stevie Wonder should have been able to read them. But just like the way I missed the possibility of Buddy winning the Indy pole position, I couldn’t foresee him winning the 500 either. All month at Indy the team never played the “mine is bigger than yours” game, never won a Happy Hour Grand Prix, never collected $2,500 for fast speed of the day, in short all the signs were there that this team was focused on the race, and I was the one that couldn't read them. In fact, the only day that Rice showed any noticeable practice speed at all was on Pole Day morning, and even then he was only 6th fastest on the chart before sticking the G Force Honda on the pole. Even after that, in the 2nd week of practice, the team never played around with the 220’s others were posting. I mentioned before the race how foolish that is, the fastest lap in the race was a 218.4 set by Vitor Meira, 5 laps before the rains came. There was one 217 mph lap in the race, and Kosuke Matsuura did that one, the guy that wasted tires running 220’s in practice all month, never being able to race at that speed. The same can be said for teammate Adrian Fernandez, perhaps if they worked harder with the feel of the car at 216 they could have contended with Rice. In all, six drivers turned in faster laps then Rice during the 500, but Rice was fast when he needed to be, able to pass Tony Kanaan at speed and drive away in the laps leading up to the final green flag pit stop. Rice was so dominate that he was able to overcome two long pit stops, one for a wing adjustment, one because he stalled the engine, leaving him deep in the pack after the restart. While the race may have been shortened 50 miles by rain, and another handful of laps were lost before the race was halted, the right driver, team, engine, and chassis won the race. Now for “the rest of the story” of the 2004 Indy 500!
I have an easy-out parking space I like to use for the 500, so I spent the pre-dawn hours sleeping in Chez Mazda, with the sound of heavy rain to serve as a wakeup call around 6:JJ AM. Well, that being the case, I have walked to the track in the rain before at that time of the morning, and still saw the race start on time. This time it was fruitless, admiring the view from the SW Vista seats and being follicle challenged (bald), I was one of the first in the neighborhood to detect the rain that would delay the start of the race by nearly two hours.
When the race finally started, all fears that there would be little passing were quickly put to rest, but it wasn’t long before turn one and impatience ate another Dallara, the one of AJ Foyt IV. The caution period for the Foyt crash allowed the AGR team of Bryan Herta to make one of the best decisions of the race, to leave him out on the race track along with Alex Barron, while the rest of the field pitted for fuel and tires. While Herta, who had started 23rd, was fast enough to stay close to the top five the rest of the race, Barron couldn’t. Of course Herta had a Honda engine, and you needed one of those for the 500. The race was restarted on lap 15 and Herta went into the lead only to be passed by Wheldon two laps later. The restart was amazing, with several drivers trying to improve their position before the cars returned to race speed, this would become the trademark of the race. Again the rains returned and by the 22nd lap they had lost the race track and the race was stopped. In the first 20 laps, and in spite of probably being shy of the Honda horsepower, the Team Penske cars had begun a steady move towards the front, in spite of the duel for the lead between Rice, Wheldon and Kanaan. When the race was stopped, Castroneves was in 2nd, Hornish in 6th. I was beginning to think we had been hoodwinked by MTP all month. That team builds its own Toyota engines, and while that may have not been the ticket last year, MTP looks to have the better Toyota now.
After another track drying exercise, during which AGR/Herta and RBTC/Barron and all the other teams were allowed to fuel up, the race resumed at lap 29 with Buddy Rice making a wild dash up the inside to fall in behind Wheldon and Kanaan. At the start of lap 51, with Rice blocked by the slower car of Robby Gordon substitute Jaques Lazier, Sam Hornish passed Buddy Rice for the lead of the race, his first Indy 500 lead laps ever. On lap 56 the Larry Foyt G Force pushed up into the wall coming out of turn two for yet another caution flag, forcing another round of early yellow flag pit stops The too frequent caution periods would plague the race all through the first 100 laps, keeping the field bunched up with over 20 cars on the lead lap most of the time. The pit stop drag races were amazing, and ABC was quick to show the slow motion results from the pit-out line all day. Two laps after racing resumed rookies Ed Carpenter and Mark Taylor made contact going into turn three in an ugly crash that almost collected up several more cars. Alex Barron had passed Taylor on the inside and Carpenter was trying to follow Barron past as well, Taylor was being held up by the slower car of Sarah Fisher going down the backstretch. The best view of the accident came from the blimp, and it appears that Carpenter drifted high to contact the LR of Taylor’s car.
Racing resumed again with yet another frantic restart, this time, with Rice in the lead it was left to Dixon, Castroneves and Scheckter among others to mix it up for 3 laps on tires not yet up to temperature, often going four-wide. During this segment of the race, on lap #86 Buddy Lazier came into the pit slowly, the victim of a flat LR tire. Rice would lead this portion of the race until PJ Jones duplicated the Larry Foyt crash coming out of turn two. The Jones contact came on lap 96 as the AGR cars of Wheldon and Kanaan had entered pit road for what looked like the first green flag pit stop for contenders in the race. Kanaan was very lucky here, because he had punctured a left rear tire and actually thought something broke on the car. The timing of the crash and pit stop was impeccable, any earlier and AGR would have had to wave both cars around for another lap. Any later and both cars wouldn’t have gotten back out on the track ahead of the slowing field, losing a whole lap. As it turned out, both drivers exited the pits ahead of the field, and after those cars pitted, found themselves at the head of the pack. Jones was uninjured, the car lightly damaged, $50,000 should fix it!
During the ensuing pit stop sequence Sam Hornish, who was running 2nd to Rice; would have trouble in the pits, leaving with the vent hose still attached to the car, Hornish would return to the pits twice for repairs, leaving him close to the back of the pack when racing resumed. As often happens in these cases, the penalty ends up far worse than the crime, and in several laps, Sam would get caught up in the “squirrel’s” nest that is the back of the pack. In related events, both Rice and Darren Manning stalled the engines on their pit stops, putting Manning at the back of the pack, while Buddy, being first into the pits, restarted in 7th.
Racing resumed on lap 102 with Weldon in the lead for 100 yards as Kanaan passed him going into turn one, halfway through the race and AGR had the top three cars, Kanaan, Wheldon and Herta. Four laps later Darren Manning and Greg Ray, who was six laps off the pace; made contact coming out of turn four and Hornish was caught up in the carnage as the three cars headed for and clipped the pit wall attenuator. Manning was running a much faster pace than Ray and moved to the outside of him. Ray was being held up by the slower car of Al Unser Jr. and was drifting high to pass him as Manning passed, that was all it took and Hornish, who had been in 2nd place until the pit stop mistake, will have to wait another year to try and fulfill his Indy 500 winning dream. I was sitting in turn one, and the debris field from that crash was visible way down there, and while it only took 9 laps to restart the race, looking over my shoulder at the approaching dark clouds made it seem like an eternity.
With Kanaan in the lead this time on the lap 116 restart, it was Wheldon that turned the table and beat him into turn one, 16 laps later it would be Marty Roth’s turn to crash, leaving Matsuura and Simmons the only two rookies in the race. For those who wonder why it is so tough to get a seat for a rookie in the Indy 500, with 8 starters, all but two crashed out of the race by lap 132. Again on this pit sequence, Team Penske and this time Helio Castroneves made an uncharacteristic mistake, with Helio missing his pit and having to be pushed/pulled back into position to pit. This mistake would relegate Helio to the back of the pack and the driver that was near the front all day would never be a factor again. In this pit stop sequence, Newman Hass and Bruno Junqueira took a gamble and didn’t pit in what almost became a race winning decision. Junqueira led at the restart on lap 135 and drove away from the pack. At the same time the skies were becoming increasingly dark and many true IndyCar fans began to sense yet another embarrassing victory from a charter CART team the first time they returned to the Indy 500. It had happened in the past in 2000 when TCGR did an Indy one-off, and 2001 as well with Team Penske. Lap after lap Junqueira would come into my view in turn one, he had been out now for close to fifty laps, having pitted before the 100 lap-mark. Each time he came past I would listen for an engine miss and not hear one, each time I would look to the sky to the west, but the car never slowed, maintaining a fast enough pace to keep the lead; Bruno wouldn’t turn his fastest lap of the race until lap 155, after he pitted, and his best of the day was only a 214.8. Bruno finally pitted as he crossed inside the yard of bricks on pit road at the start on lap 152, he had run 54 caution-aided laps, and the engine was still running! Lost in the drama of the Bruno paranoia was the fact that just before he pitted, Buddy Rice passed 2nd place Tony Kanaan and drove away, never to be contested again. As tense as those 18 laps were, there was still more to come, with green flag pit stops due sooner than most expected.
All the leaders other than Junqueira had pitted after the Roth crash on lap 132 and by lap 162 Rice had his biggest lead of the race, over 3 seconds, enough so that he would be a safe bet to come out of the approaching pit sequence in the lead. On Lap 165 Tony Kanaan was the first of the leaders on pit road, he had run only 33 green flag laps, the first time in the race that mileage was seriously tested. If the rain held off, Kanaan wouldn’t have had enough fuel to finish. The lap after that Wheldon pitted. The Rahal team had a decision to make, the only way they could lose the race was to pit early and have a downpour before all the other contenders pitted. On the other hand, if they pushed the envelope too far, and ran out of fuel, all was lost. Rice pitted at the start of lap 168, giving up the lead to Bryan Herta, who pitted the next time around, yielding the lead to Adrian Fernandez. Adrian pits on lap 171, with rain drops falling, Rice assumed the lead as he passed Fernandez in the pits. By the time all the stops were completed Rice had spent a good part of his 3 second lead to a charging Tony Kanaan. It wouldn’t matter, moments later the caution came out for rain and I was heading to my easy-out parking space. As I said earlier, the right combination won the 2004 Indy 500, and that combination included Buddy Rice, who’s first win probably will be the first of many, I can see that now.
In review, there were no reported engine failures, if that isn’t a first, it hasn’t happened often. There has been much said about short fields, but if that is the price to pay to keep cars out that are nothing but rolling chicanes, so be it. Six drivers never turned a lap above 210.4, and most of them turned many laps slower than that. Most true IndyCar fans would have little trouble placing names with those numbers.
Kosuke Matsuura won the Rookie of the Year Award, mostly on the strength of great practice runs, but I was most impressed with Jeff Simmons who ran at total of 127 laps of practice. Simmons could have finished higher than the 16th he ended up with, but he chose to be safe and stay out of the way of the leaders. I hope he is able to continue in the series.
My quick departure was well-timed, heading for North Carolina and my granddaughter; we barely cleared I-465/I-65 south before a severe storm hit that area. The 3,000 mile drive over the next four days postponed my usual post-Indy blues, but finishing this recap has brought them to a head, it has always been about the Indy 500 and rain or not, this was one of the best ones. The engines and cars might be costly, but the teams that can afford them and are racing in IndyCar now are the best the series has ever had, and so is the racing. |
|
|
|
