Bourdais escapes trouble, cruises to Cleveland win
Once the first turn was over for Sebastien Bourdais, so was the race for everyone else.
Bourdais took the lead following a first-lap crash in Turn 1 that knocked out pole-sitter Paul Tracy, then ran away to win his second straight Cleveland Grand Prix on Saturday.
After avoiding a chain-reaction accident just seconds into the race involving Alex Tagliani and others, Bourdais dominated to win by 15.130 seconds over Bruno Junqueira, his Newman-Haas teammate.
“It was a pretty uneventful race,” Bourdais said, shrugging his shoulders.
Bourdais made it so with his third win in five Champ Car events this season.
He slipped around traffic in Turn 1, avoided contact and safely got through the track’s treacherous hairpin where there have been accidents at the start four times in five years.
Bourdais admitted it took as much luck as skill to wiggle through the accident that ended the race for Tracy and rookie Justin Wilson, who also started on Row 1.
“I saw smoke, I saw a lot of things flying over my head,” said Bourdais, who led 88 of 97 laps. “I came out of it, and I thought, ‘Well, everything is looking pretty good.’ So I aimed for the apex and realized there was nobody around me.”
Edwards recovers to win Truck race
Carl Edwards came back from a first-lap accident to win the Craftsman Truck Series Race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., his second victory of the season.
“I just can’t believe we won this race. It just doesn’t seem real,” said Edwards, who celebrated with a backflip after his Ford pulled away from Bobby Hamilton’s Dodge in the closing laps of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250.
Points leader Dennis Setzer was not so fortunate in the most caution-filled trucks race in the track’s four-year history.
After Setzer drifted wide and put Edwards into the wall on the first lap, Setzer dropped back into the pack — where he got caught up in a seven-car crash on the second lap.
He had to replace his oil cooler and radiator, fell 31 laps down before re-entering the race and finished 25th.
His lead over Edwards in the standings dropped from 131 points to 34, with Hamilton 61 points off the lead after his second-place finish Saturday.
Rice takes IRL pole
Buddy Rice won his third pole of the Indy Racing League season, turning a quick lap of 210.141 miles per hour at Kansas Speedway.
IRL points leader Tony Kanaan will start on the outside front in today’s Argent Mortgage Indy 300, after posting a top speed of 209.681 miles per hour.
“Buddy had a very, very good lap,” Kanaan said. “I don’t think I had the car to do a 210, but second place is not bad.”
Rice, whose first IRL win came at this year’s Indianapolis 500, had the pole in that race and at Homestead.
Kanaan, who leads Andretti Green Racing teammate Dan Wheldon by 15 points, has wins this season at Phoenix and Texas Motor Speedway.
Next Unser makes debut
Alfred Unser, the oldest son of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Jr. and grandson of four-time Indy winner Al Unser, finished third in his Menard Infiniti Pro Series debut at Kansas Speedway.
“My main focus today was to bring home the car,” the 21-year-old driver said. “It’s rolling back on the truck, and I did finish well.”
The younger Unser’s first race in the developmental series came three days after his father’s retirement.
“I’m the last Unser left in open-wheel racing, so I’m sure more eyes started to focus on me,” he said. “The timing was actually quite surprising. I wasn’t expecting him to retire.”
Three hit by lightning
Three men were struck by lightning but not seriously injured outside Daytona International Speedway.
The three unidentified men were struck while walking past souvenir trailers before the start of the Nextel Cup Pepsi 400. They were transported to the care center and held briefly for observation, then released.