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Short track smackdown: IndyCars set to battle Richmond bullring

It’s all for one as AGR teammates help Kanaan grab pole

Perhaps this weekend will eventually stand as the time where Tony Kanaan truly came to grips with his role as Andretti Green Racing’s team leader.

After a great run at Iowa ended in a crash with less than 40 laps to go last week, the 2004 IndyCar Series champion decided to call a team meeting to discuss the problems that have threatened to dismantle AGR this season. He told IndyCar.com’s Dave Lewandowski about what led him to force the round table huddle:

“We had some moves on the team this year, had a rookie coming in and it took us a while to adjust. We always helped each other, but they’re all very young and I think we got caught into bad momentum and we didn’t sit down and talk.

“I’ve been in the team for the last six years and we did that a lot in the past, and that’s why I called that meeting.”

It looks like the pep talk paid off, because after Kanaan won the pole for tonight’s SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway with a four-lap average of 167.876 m.p.h., he credited his teammates Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick and Hideki Mutoh for the tenth pole of his IRL career:

“I have to thank my teammates, Danica, Marco and Hideki. Danica and Hideki came and tested here a few weeks ago, and I think it helped us a lot. Me and Marco worked really well together this morning trying to find a good setup, and it was really good.

“I’ve been in the front quite a lot, but I haven’t been able to accomplish things in the front. So we start all over again.”

AGR had a somewhat mixed qualifying session last night at RIR. Andretti was able to grab a front row spot with a four-lap average of 167.795 m.p.h., while Mutoh will start seventh and Patrick from 14th. But Marco still hailed the evening as “a great day for Andretti Green Racing:”

“We really nailed the setup on the Blockbuster car today, especially when you consider that we didn’t get proper runs in practice because we caught traffic each time…It’s good to start up front, especially at this place. Tony and I both have very good race cars, so I’m excited about tomorrow.”

Graham Rahal managed to grab a third-place starting position as numerous changes to his No. 06 Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing car worked out well for him during his four-lap blitz. He rattled off an average of 167.250 m.p.h. around the 3/4-mile, high-banked track.

After languishing in 22nd and 16th in the two pre-qualifying practice sessions respectively, the American driver said he only had to deal with a slight gearing problem that kept him from gunning for the pole. Still, he was thrilled with the unexpected result:

“Everything really came together for us in qualifying. We’ve been struggling here all weekend. Luckily, if it was going to come together at one point, it’s good that it’s in qualifying.

“It would be even better if it came together tomorrow. Obviously, it’s important to start up front here because it’s really hard to pass, so we’re pretty happy.”

Scott Dixon wasn’t quite as enthused with his qualifying effort, which saw him grab the fourth spot at an average speed of 167.120 m.p.h. He chalked it up to he and teammate Dan Wheldon having to go early in the qualifying order.

But with his closest rival in the championship Helio Castroneves stuck in the 18th starting position, the Indy 500 champ found a silver lining:

“Going earlier was a big problem for us tonight. As you can see, a lot of slower cars [in practice] went quicker than us at the end [of qualifying]. It’s tough but [the order] is drawn out of a hat, so maybe it will help us out later in the season.

“All in all, it looks pretty decent. The Target cars are quite far up, and the Penske cars are back a little bit, and we’ve got very good race cars.”

Buddy Rice and Wheldon will share Row 3 for tonight’s 300-lap affair. Row 4 belongs Mutoh and A.J. Foyt IV, who enters Richmond coming off a nice fifth-place finish at Iowa last week. Row 5 features two IndyCar rookies in Bruno Junqueira and Oriol Servia.

You can check out the full starting grid here. Now, let’s get to the picks.

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Chris’ picks

Favorites — Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, Tony Kanaan

Something tells me that Dixie’s right about he and Wheldon’s machines for the race. I mean, they finished second and third respectively in last year’s Richmond event. But considering that AGR utterly dominated the ‘07 Suntrust Indy Challenge with winner Dario Franchitti (who led 242 of 250 laps), Kanaan will definitely be in the hunt. He just needs the racing gods to smile on him for a change.

Contenders — Marco Andretti, Hideki Mutoh, Buddy Rice

Andretti’s third-place finish at Iowa should set him up rather nicely for tonight’s event; same goes for Mutoh, who performed admirably last week. They just need to keep out of trouble that may emerge with the bigger grid as well as the smaller pit boxes when they need to make a stop. Rice has been quietly plugging along and has rang up three top-10s in the past four weeks. He was fifth last year at Richmond. Keep an eye on him.

Dark horses — Graham Rahal, A.J. Foyt IV, John Andretti

I see three former Champ Car drivers in the top 10 on the grid — Rahal, Junqueira and Servia. While I think Servia can do well tonight, track position is track position and Rahal’s really going to appreciate his third-place start if he keeps his nose clean and comes to the end of the race somewhere in the top five.

I’m also betting that Foyt will have a load of confidence after finally netting a solid finish at Iowa, as well as the theory that 21 NASCAR Sprint Cup starts at RIR can give some sort of knowledge to Andretti for his first IndyCar start on the Virginia bullring.

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All quotes used in this article have been taken from last night’s trackside report unless otherwise noted and attributed. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 11:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.