FORT WORTH, Texas – Saturday night certainly was worth the wait.
Seventy-seven days after the Verizon IndyCar Series tried to throw the green flag for a race at Texas Motor
Speedway, the checkered flag waved at side-by-side cars.
Graham Rahal’s margin of victory over James Hinchcliffe was a scant 0.008 of a second, the closest at a track versed on thrilling finishes. The finish ranked as the fifth-closest in series history overall, which is saying something given the way the Indy Racing League drove through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
That Rahal won wasn’t as much the story as how he won: Becoming the first driver to lead only the last lap since Hinchcliffe snookered Takuma Sato in the final corner of the race in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This was the 14th time that has happened in IndyCar history.
Hinchcliffe had led 188 of the 248 laps – 139 of them when the race resumed Saturday night after it was red-flagged for rain June 12 – and appeared to have staved off the late charges of Rahal and Tony Kanaan. All three were seeking their first win of the season.
Rahal came off Turn 2 on the final lap, showed his nose to the outside of Hinchcliffe, then filled the gap between the leader and Kanaan, who has slipped slightly to third place. On the backstretch, Rahal shot to the bottom lane, a place he’d only been once before in the late going, and used that momentum to surge to the front.
“Man, Graham just pulled through (Turns) 3 and 4 like no one had all night,” Hinchcliffe said.
Rahal raised his arm victoriously coming to the finish line, then saw Hinchcliffe charging on the outside. Nervously, he withdrew it, and he was wise to do so. The cars were almost too close together for the eye to separate.
“When I came out of (Turn) 4 and I looked in my mirror, I thought I was going to get it,” Rahal said. “When I got to the stripe I started to like raise my arm and then I was like, ‘Make sure his roll hoop says 2 (for second place).’ ”
Whew, that was close, and the third try at completing the Firestone 600 – the first two were rained out – had many close calls.
A few moments to consider:
–If Simon Pagenaud wins the series championship, circle his decision to withdraw from a four-wide approach to Turn 3 with six laps left as a defining moment. There wasn’t enough room for Hinchcliffe, Kanaan, Rahal and Pagenaud to go side-by-side, so the last man in chose to be the first man out.
Pagenaud settled for fourth place but finished four positions ahead of fellow title contender Will Power, which extended his lead to 28 points heading to the final two races. Power had closed within 20 points coming into Saturday thanks to four wins in six races. Next weekend’s road race is at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International
How did Helio Castroneves finish fifth? First, on Lap 213, he couldn’t avoid Scott Dixon’s sliding car in Turn 1 and ran over the right front wheel of the reigning series champion. Then, 11 laps later, the Brazilian was collected in Ed Carpenter’s Turn 4 slide caused by a cut right rear tire.
Said Rahal of Castroneves’ patched-up car: “It looked like a tank driving around it had so much stuff on it.”
–Hinchcliffe’s decision not to take new tires at any of the three late-race opportunities will be second-guessed, but those were no-win situations. If he pits, he almost surely loses the lead and probably gets mired in the pack. If he stays out and others pit, as they did, he’s at a disadvantage in the late going.
Inside 20 laps, IndyCar moves lapped cars to the back, so Rahal and Kanaan got to line up behind Hinchcliffe with much fresher tires.
“Well, it’s my fault because I lapped everybody up to fifth place before those cautions started flying,” Hinchcliffe said.
–Argue the merit of harrowing racing, but social media was abuzz with supportive comments, and the drivers seemed to enjoy it.
“We put ourselves in some pretty precarious situations and everybody came out OK,” Hinchcliffe said. “Nobody did anything stupid and everybody played nice, very respectful. There was some great racing. I had a blast.”
It wasn’t pack racing either, even though the late restarts created that tight craziness.
“A great event, a lot going on,” said Rahal, whose front wing finished with an embedded piece of Kanaan’s car. “Geez, four wide and pretty nuts.
“But it’s also a lot different than what it used to be. It is not just flat-out easy pack racing anymore. I mean, you were lifting a heck of a lot in traffic, but the way these cars suck up nowadays, the draft is huge so it just makes the racing awesome.”
Said Kanaan: “I feel bad for the people that didn’t come back to watch because it was a hell of a show.”
–Rahal won on the day his paternal grandmother, Barbara, died. Bobby Rahal’s mother was 88.
Cavin writes for the Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.
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| James Hinchcliffe (5), Simon Pagenaud (22) and Tony Kanaan (10) vie for position during the Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway. (Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports) |
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