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*****That's
all for now, more Tuesday, post-sleep*****
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(Lap 13 restart) Dan Wheldon made
short work of getting past Taylor and into the lead, Kanaan moved
into 2nd two laps later, but it was the MTP car of Helio
Castroneves that was headed for the front. On lap 16 Helio passed
both Wheldon and Kanaan for the lead. Two laps later Sam Hornish
moved to 2nd. Helio would lead 145 of 200 laps, but didn't
have anything for the field at the finish, slipping back to 7th at
the finish as Hornish was top-Toyota in 4th!
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(Lap 9 caution) Vitor Meira
brushed the wall exiting turn two. Vitor pushed up into the dust
and made light contact. 18 miles into the race and every car
in the field but mark Taylor visited the pits. The early caution
was a welcome break for Tomas Scheckter and panther Racing, they
were slow at the start of the race with an "engine
miss," and Bryan Herta also had gearbox problems as well.
Meira's car was apparently undamaged, because four laps after the
restart he would turn a lap of 216.9 mph, the fastest lap of the
race. With Meira starting in the back of the pack, I expect he got
quite a tow from the pack ahead of him.
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(The Start) Tony Kanaan's had to
make an engine change and he started 21st and last. Darren
Manning was unable to start because of the injuries sustained in
the 2nd "Q" lap crash. Kanaan would be the show at the
start of the race, passing almost one car per lap and often more
to work his way up to 2nd in 15 laps. While some may have liked
the split screen view of Kanaan's march to the front, I didn't. I
was listening to the Mike King webcast as well, and the broadcast
crew was going nuts over the great pack racing going on at the
same time that the smaller picture didn't do justice to. In the
first lap Kanaan passed 4 cars, 5 on the 2nd lap, one on the 3rd
and 1 on the 4th lap before the split screen went away, perhaps
because ESPN realized the big picture was even better. Before the
start the TV people did post Kanaan's amazing stats for the
season, I don't think any driver in a major series has ever posted
these kind of numbers,
1, 13 consecutive top-five
finishes, 14 consecutive top-ten finishes. Make that read 14 and
15 now, in 15 races.
2, 13 top-five's in a season,
now 14. Led 859 laps, now 884 of 3125 total laps, or 28%.
3, Finished every possible lap
this year.
While Michael Schumacher might
equal or better some of those results, he can't come close to the
total package Kanaan and AGR have amassed this season.
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