Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s (TCGR) Scott Dixon started from pole, led 58 of 228 laps and claimed his third win of the season at Texas Motor Speedway Saturday night. The race ended under caution after Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay made contact while battling behind Dixon for second place with five laps remaining. Dixon was a contender from the drop of the green flag in the No.9 Target car, running in the top-three for the majority of the event. Flawless pit work again was the theme for the Target team as Dixon was able to stay out front and survive eight caution periods for 52 laps. The turning point of the race came when he passed Andretti on lap 222 – just before Andretti and Hunter-Reay tangled and brought the race to its conclusion under the yellow flag.
Results from Texas
1. Scott Dixon, No.9 Target Honda Dallara 2. Helio Castroneves, No.3 Honda Dallara 3. Ryan Briscoe, No.6 Honda Dallara 4. Dan Wheldon, No.10 Target Honda Dallara
Terry Blount of ESPN thinks...the IndyCar Series needs to take a hint from NASCAR on this one and think about a green-white-checkered overtime finish.
"I was thinking about that," said Helio Castroneves, who finished second. "I definitely had the car to make something happen. But we can't compare ourselves to what NASCAR does. It would be a mess."
If ever a driver was due for luck, it was Ryan Briscoe. Over the last two weeks, he hasn't hesitated cashing in. After an early season of bad breaks, culminating at the Indianapolis 500 with his now infamous contact with Danica Patrick while exiting the pits (which knocked them both out of the race), Briscoe was in desperate need of something positive to happen. His racing fate changed June 1 at The Milwaukee Mile when he won his first-ever IndyCar Series race. Briscoe finishes third in Fort Worth.
Dixon's teammate Dan Wheldon rebounded from a practice accident in the No.10 Polaroid car, made up seven positions on a sore ankle and finished fourth. Wheldon’s weekend started with a practice crash on Friday which sent him into the turn four wall and eliminated the No.10 team’s primary car. The team rallied to prepare the backup car for qualifying and Wheldon came from the infield care center to qualify the car 11th. Wheldon had moved up to fourth by just lap 11 but had to restart near the rear of the field after Briscoe stopped in his pit stall under yellow. Briscoe would serve a penalty for the incident and Wheldon managed to rebound up through the field to finish fourth.
Dixon Not Slowing Down - Helio Not Dancing - Wheldon Crashes
Following his win at the Indianapolis 500, Scott Dixon backed up with a second place last weekend at the Milwaukee Mile and heads to the Texas Motor Speedway looking to get back to his winning ways. In finishing second at Milwaukee Dixon has now had five top-three finishes so far this season and has led 100 or more laps in four consecutive races. With stats like these, he looks good for another podium finish in Texas as he strives for his second IRL title. Dixon leads the IndyCar Series by 28 points from Helio Castroneves (206), and his Target Chip Ganassi team mate Dan Wheldon (185).
Helio Castroneves was asked about his interest in dancing with NASCAR earlier this week and responded, " I'm doing everything I can to clinch the championship and run here in open wheel. Right now we've merged and the series is in a good spot and I would say the opportunity, I don't think, is there to go to NASCAR. I would consider it in that you should always leave doors open.
Dan Wheldon had a sore right ankle after crashing during practice on Friday, but was cleared by doctors to take part in qualifying later in the day for the Bombardier Learjet 500 IndyCar race on Saturday. Wheldon, the 2005 IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500 champion, hit the outside wall coming out of the fourth turn on the high-banked Texas track. The car slid down the track, losing a rear wheel, then tumbled after bogging down in the infield grass and came to rest upside down.
Dan Wheldon recorded Target’s second win of the season through four rounds, becoming the first repeat winner at Kansas Speedway in the process. Wheldon opened up a 2.1778 second gap over Tony Kanaan and notched his 14th career victory. Wheldon’s last victory came at Kansas Speedway last season. The win is the 18th for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in the IndyCar Series, and 58th overall in open wheel racing.
Wheldon moves up from fifth to third in the Indy racing League points standings with 135 points. Next up for the team is the Indianapolis 500, May 25th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (NOON ET on ABC).
Apparently Chip Ganassi stays on Wheldon pretty hard. First there is a fuel mileage issue.
I told a few people in interviews already about this" Wheldon says, "Chip gets on my #### so much about not saving fuel. He's on me all the time. Apparently he says that I just like to lead from the front and that's lost me a lot of races. So every possible opportunity, I was saving."
Then there is the whining thing.
"Last year there were situations where I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not allowed to say too much because Chip says I sound like a spoiled brat when I complain about stuff like that."
Too bad the Englishman has a bit in his mouth. You would think a former IRL champion would be free to speak as he sees fit. I guess not. It's disappointing that a young veteran of Wheldon's stature, just hitting his stride, feels like his owner is acting like his daddy.
Dario Franchitti became the third driver in IndyCar Series history to capture the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series championship in the same season as he drove the Canadian Club car to victory at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday. The victory was Franchitti's fourth of the 2007 season and the first career championship for the winningest British driver in American open-wheel racing history.
In Turn 3 on the final lap of the 200-lap event, Scott Dixon, who was still leading, began to run out of fuel. Franchitti went around the 2003 IndyCar Series champion and crossed the finish line in first place, clinching Andretti Green Racing's third IndyCar Series championship in four seasons.
"We came down that backstretch and I was drafting him trying to get a slingshot. Just as I pulled out I saw him slow down and I almost hit the back of him as I was just going out," Franchitti said.
Dario Franchitti, #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone
“The Canadian Club car was pretty good today. There is so little difference here between the top-five drivers. If we can get the car right and do our job a little better it can make all the difference for us this weekend.”
From PaddockTalk.com:
Practice for the Motorola Indy 300 at Infineon Raceway Sears Point got underway today on the 2.26-mile, 12-turn undulating circuit. From the start, top position on the speed charts traded back and forth between Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti, with the Brazilian pipping the Scot in both morning and afternoon sessions to earn the choice of going first or last in tomorrow’s qualifying line.
Castroneves, who had to sit out the first 25 minutes of the two-hour morning test session following a meeting with Brian Barnhart over his antics in Kentucky two weeks ago, quickly rose through the ranks and was quickest, both in the morning session (108.193 mph) and this afternoon (108.158 mph).
“I was driving my butt off out there,” said the ebullient Castroneves. “This place is very challenging; it’s like a roller coaster. We hit the right spot on the setup but tomorrow, the times will improve,” he noted. Although Castroneves thought the track would be “way better this afternoon, it was different. The grip was changing from one end of the car to the other.” His best tour came on the ninth of 12 total laps in the second, quicker group of cars.
Franchitti ended up second in both the morning (107.861 mph) and afternoon (107.971 mph). Hoping his spate of poor luck at Michigan and Kentucky is over for now, the championship leader since he won the Indianapolis 500 in May – only eight points ahead of Scott Dixon – would “prefer the 65-point lead I had” before things stopped going his way.
Although Franchitti hasn’t got a championship yet – and all four of his closest pursuers have made that jump – he is firm on the conviction that he just needs to “have fun and do the best we can as we have all season long. Good luck stops eventually and this has, no question, been the luckiest year of my career.”
Tony Kanaan finished third for the day and improved his position from morning practice, when he experienced a few incidents that included a mid-session spin at the very popular second turn. Kanaan ended up with third this afternoon and for the day, with his 10th of 13 laps at 107.764 mph, nearly half a mile per hour better than his earlier best (107.222 mph). Kanaan is third in points, 52 behind Franchitti.
Last year’s winner here, Marco Andretti came fourth for the afternoon with his afternoon lap of 107.737 mph, using his 12th or 13 laps to make that speed. 2003 IRL champion Scott Dixon came fifth for the day, based on his morning lap of 107.727 mph).
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