More to this Indy than Patrick
INDIANAPOLIS – A tiny woman with a pleasing smile, an engaging personality and the ability to drive very, very fast has given the Indianapolis 500 and open-wheel racing in general a feeling of anticipation that has been lacking for the past decade.
The retirement during the ‘90s of the giants of American racing – Foyt, Unser, Andretti, Mears and others – followed by Tony George’s creation of the Indy Racing League in 1996 left an acrimonious split in the ranks of Indy car racing that is still festering.
Danica Patrick, a name few outside racing’s inner circles had known a month ago, has changed all that.
After posting 229-mph practice runs that none of her competitors could match on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile rectangular oval, and then coming within the blink of an eye of winning the pole for today’s 89th running of the “greatest spectacle in racing,” Patrick has created an interest in racing not seen since the death of Dale Earnhardt at Daytona in 2001.
A 5-foot-2, 100-pound rookie who has never competed at Indianapolis, Patrick has not won a race of any kind since the Long Beach pro-celebrity event three years ago, and has never driven in a race longer than 300 miles.
Despite those shortcomings, she will be the most watched person in today’s race, both by the more than 350,000 in attendance and the millions seeing it on television.
She will start in the second row, driving a Honda-powered Panoz for Rahal Letterman Racing, No. 16, behind pole-sitter Tony Kanaan.
While most fans will be keeping an eye on Patrick’s progress, the rest of the field will bear close watching. It is one of the most competitive in recent years with more than a dozen drivers having solid credentials to be the winner.
Three powerful teams – Andretti-Green Racing, Marlboro Team Penske and Rahal Letterman Racing – have a corner on the favorites.
Kanaan, one of five Brazilians in the race, is the anchor of Michael Andretti’s powerful foursome. He finished third in 2003 and second last year, then two weeks ago won the pole with a 10-mile average of 227.566 mph in one of the team’s Honda-powered Dallaras.
His teammates include Dan Wheldon, winner of three of four IRL races this year; Dario Franchitti, whose driving talents are sometimes overshadowed by being the husband of actress Ashley Judd; and veteran Bryan Herta, who was plucked from semi-retirement last year to provide leadership to the team.
“Having four cars, we have four chances to win,” Kanaan said. “We’ll help each other when we can, if we can, until the last 50 miles or so. Then it’s every guy for himself and hopefully we’ll drink the milk.”
Said Herta: “We all want to win, but we want to win especially for Michael. He raced here 14 times and never won. Every guy on our team wants to win for him. He has meant so much to all of us.”
Penske, with his imposing record of 13 Indianapolis 500 titles, has Helio Castroneves, who won two of the 13, and Sam Hornish Jr., whose two IRL championships have not been reflected at Indianapolis. In five starts he has not finished better than 14th, but Sunday he will start next to Kanaan on the front row.
“Everybody is so close, so competitive and it’s such a long race anything can happen,” Castroneves said. “It’s not always the fastest car that wins, it is about being the strongest car, the best balanced car. We think that’s what we have.”
Castroneves and Hornish have Toyota engines; the Andretti and Rahal teams are powered by Honda.
Rahal Letterman has been the focus of attention all month with Patrick, the injured defending champion Buddy Rice, and his replacement, former winner Kenny Brack, coming back from the accident that nearly ended his career two years ago.
A sleeper team is Newman-Haas Racing, although Paul Newman has distanced himself from this race, coming from the rival Champ Car World Series. Their drivers, Sebastien Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira, are as capable as any in the race but they are suffering from lack of track time.