The 26 year old, Ontario, Canada-born driver James Hinchcliffe driving the GoDaddy Chevy for Andretti Autosports won the 2013 Iowa Corn Indy Car 250 last Sunday. Hinchcliffe dominated the race and held off a late race charge by his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay to score his third Indy Car victory of the season — his first on an oval and he moved into fourth place in the point standings. Andretti Autosports Racing Team has three of the top four spots in the points chase but Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves is still at the top of the point count with 332 total points and leads the second place Hunter-Reay by nine points by virtue of his winning the Iowa pole. Helio won the qualifying heat but actually had to start in the eleventh spot because he changed engines which allowed his teammate Will Power to start from the pole.
Speaking of Power, this has been an unusually tough season for the 32-year-old Australian driver. His fans are used to seeing him dominate the series and contend for the championship. He did start from the pole at Iowa last Sunday but an ill-handling car quickly put him three laps down — while he was still running at the end of the race, he finished in seventeenth position. He has only two top five finishes this season and his third place finish at Milwaukee is his only podium finish of the season so far. He is currently in the tenth spot with 209 total points.
Castroneves and team Penske only have one victory this season, a race-dominating win at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth on June 8, but the wily 38 year old Brazilian has been in contention for just about every race he has run this season with four podium finishes to his credit so far. He still leads the 2013 series in championship points and could very possibly be the 2013 Indy Series Champ. It’s a bit odd to look at the popular Brazilian driver as one of the grand old men of the Indy Car series, but he has been driving the Indy Cars for Team Penske for fifteen years now starting back in the old CART days. He, of course, has a Dancing With The Stars mirror-ball trophy for his fancy footwork in season five of the show and is looking to join the pantheon of Indianapolis 500 Mile Race immortals Foyt, Unser, and Mears with four Indy 500 victories sometime in the future. He is still young enough for that to happen and maybe even more.
The next Indy Car event is at Pocono, Pennsylvania on July 7. This will be the second leg of the 2013 Indy Car “Triple Crown” as well as the last oval event until the Fontana California 500 race on Oct. 19 at the end of the season. There has not been an Indy Car Race at the Pocono Raceway since 1989, when Danny Sullivan took the last 500 race run there. The new event is 400 miles in distance and the Pocono track is more “D” shaped than an oval, but it promises to be a very exciting and very fast race. It’s really great to see the open wheel racers back at the Pocono racetrack.
The Indy Car “Triple Crown” was revived this year by Indy Car boss Randy Bernard. Fuzzy’s Vodka, who also sponsors Ed Carpenter’s Number 20 Chevy will give a million bucks to any driver who can win all three events in the same year. Right now Tony Kanaan is the only driver who is in a position to win this. If he doesn’t win at Pocono then the Fuzzy’s Vodka money is safe until next year. The old Indy Car Triple Crown, which was held in the 1970s and 80s, consisted of the Indy, Pocono, and Ontario California 500 mile races. The Ontario track is long gone so now the final race will be at the Fontana California race track. No matter where the races are held, winning all three will be tough to achieve.
It’s been a very interesting and exciting Indy Car season so far with three first time winners and the dominance of the Andretti Green Team. Tony Kanaan’s Indy 500 victory was extremely popular with fans and the emergence of some fresh faces such Simon Pagenaud and Carlos Munoz has created some new fan interest. Ganassi Racing has two of the most talented drivers in the series with Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, but has been all but invisible this season. Franchitti’s fourth place finish at Long Beach has been the only top five finish for the team this year. Likewise Rahal/Letterman Racing has struggled. The Honda engine just doesn’t have the power of the Chevy. Honda has won four races this season, all of them road courses. On the ovals, however, with their longer straightaways, the greater power of the Chevrolet engines makes the difference. The Dallara DW12 chassis which was introduced in 2012 has proven to be a much safer and sounder car than ever before, with record numbers of cars running at the end of races. In 2014 some new multiple aerodynamic kits will be introduced for teams to add to the equation and they will most likely increase the speeds of the cars.
So there is still a lot of racing left before the end of the season in October. Let’s hope the second half of the season is as exciting as the first.
snicewanger@yahoo.com