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IndyCar Running Blog: Ryan Hunter-Reay wins at Watkins Glen!

Lap 1: Scott Dixon goes from fourth to second, Dan Wheldon busts suspension in the bus stop chicane, Justin Wilson falls from second to fifth; Dixon to drop back one position after passing Wilson before the start.

Lap 2: Dixon relinquishes 2nd to Ryan Hunter-Reay in order to appease officials.

Lap 4: Mario Moraes has jumped from 13th to sixth, while Wilson has continued to fall to seventh due to an “awful” race car; Moraes puts two wheels off the course in T10, but keeps going.

Lap 5: Looks like Wheldon got tagged on the backstretch during his first lap incident.  Ryan Briscoe, RHR, Dixon, Tony Kanaan and Oriol Servia are the top 5…Helio Castroneves slowing down near T10, and stops at entry of pit road. CAUTION!

Lap 6: Castroneves complains about gearbox problems, then gets pushed to Roth Racing’s pit in order to get his car started so he can get to pit road. ESPN’s Jack Arute says that Roth’s first starter fails, then the connector on presumably another starter falls off — which will force Helio to go behind the wall.

Lap 7: Some drivers, including Moraes, Danica Patrick and Wilson, pit. Wilson’s team is looking at the rear end of his No. 02 machine. Castroneves gets a new steering wheel and gets his car re-fired, but is now two laps down. Tim Cindric of Penske Racing calls it either an electrical or a gearbox problem.

Lap 8: IRL officials see Wilson’s machine leaking fluids in the rear end. Back to green at Lap 9.  13 cars hit the pit under that yellow.

Lap 9: Dixon takes second underneath Hunter-Reay at the entrance of the bus stop.

Lap 10: Wilson’s crew has diagnosed a gearbox problem according to Jack Arute.

Lap 11: Bruno Junqueira is moving from 11th to sixth…Top ten cars all stayed out.

Lap 12: Good racing for tenth between Vitor Meira, Buddy Rice and E.J. Viso. Meira currently has P10, but the three are nose-to-tail right now.

Lap 14: Oriol Servia on himself and other transition drivers from Champ Car returning to road course racing this weekend: “Now it’s our chance to shine a little more now.”

Lap 15: Dixon has set-up his car for straight line speed, while Hunter-Reay has set his up for quickness in the corners. Marco Andretti is complaining of problems on his No. 26 machine, while Will Power has been ordered to save some fuel. Vitor Meira is being told to pick up the pace, lest he be called for blocking.

Lap 17: Mario Moraes has fallen back to 13th as he waits for a front wing adjustment on his next pit stop.

Lap 18: Tony Kanaan, who didn’t pit during the Castroneves yellow earlier on, is starting the green-flag stops. He gets a wing adjustment on his No. 11 machine, four tires and fuel. Hunter-Reay then comes in, followed by Rice.

Lap 20: Pit stops are on-going as the race reaches its one-third point. Briscoe and Dixon come into the pits. Briscoe beats out Dixon, while the KV teammates Servia and Will Power make their stops as well. Vitor Meira stays out to take the lead; he pitted 13 laps ago.

Lap 21: Servia’s been slapped with a drive-thru penalty for speeding on pit road. That’s a kick in the you-know-what.

Lap 22: Meira gets orders to pit in the next four laps; Servia serves his penalty.

Lap 23: Wilson is getting out of his car, which is now stopped in the little straightaway cutoff area at the bus stop chicane.

Lap 25: Vitor Meira gives up the lead to go into the pits; joining him in the pits is E.J. Viso, the lapped car of Helio Castroneves, and Danica Patrick.

Lap 26: Briscoe and Dixon have re-assumed the top two spots. Hideki Mutoh and Graham Rahal are third and fourth, but both have not made a stop yet…and as soon as I type that, Mutoh hits the pits.

Lap 28: Briscoe has been able to keep a bit of distance on Dixon all race long; the gap has always been around one second. Meanwhile, Hunter-Reay is nine seconds back in third.

Lap 29: Dixon’s getting closer to Briscoe — he’s about four-tenths of a second behind now.

Lap 31: Halfway home here at the Glen. Briscoe, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Kanaan and Junqueira are your top five.

Lap 32: Briscoe and Dixon are looking at making this a one-stop race according to ESPN’s Vince Welch.

Lap 34: Tony Kanaan isn’t gonna make fuel strategy work as he is forced to pit. 7.2 second stop for the 2004 IndyCar champion.

Lap 36: Dan Wheldon, who got back in the race 19 laps down, is now getting out of the car. Briscoe is up by .66 seconds over Dixon.

Lap 37: Hunter-Reay and Kanaan duel for ninth position in the bus stop chicane, but the American holds on to the spot.

Lap 38: Darren Manning is in and out of the pits. Oriol Servia is also in his pitbox, but he’s got two problems: He got caught speeding again and the crew’s popping the engine cover.

Lap 39: Vitor Meira crashes in the tire barriers at Turn 8 and he’s not a happy camper. Looks like E.J. Viso got underneath him at the corner, but moved up in a regular line without apparently noticing Meira and knocked him into the barriers.CAUTION.

Lap 40: Pit road is still closed. Meanwhile, Meira makes a gesture at Viso as he goes by the scene of his accident.

Lap 41: Here comes the big stop for the leaders. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick has taken off the front wing of her machine after accelerating too much out of her pit stall and spin into a tire from Scott Dixon’s pits. She’s back out without her front wing, so we expect her to make a pit stop to get that taken care of.

Lap 42: Darren Manning will stay out to take the lead, but at the pit line, Dixon beat out Hunter-Reay with Briscoe falling to third. Manning last pitted on Lap 38. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick will stay on the lead lap after getting a new front wing on her No. 7 car.

Lap 43: Restart coming up soon with Manning, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Briscoe and Tony Kanaan as your top five.

Lap 44: Back to the green. Manning gets an awesome jump on the field, while we have an incident way back in Turn 1. It’s a local yellow there, but it’s green everywhere else. Briscoe gets under Hunter-Reay in the bus stop for second. Enrique Bernoldi is stuck in Turn 1, forcing the full-course yellow — a big break for Manning.

Lap 46: Manning may be a sitting duck as Dixon has been told that he can go full-tilt to the finish. The fuel situation for Manning isn’t as clear.

Meira on the wreck: “Viso just took us out…the IRL should do something about it. Looks like they’re not going to do it.”

Lap 47: Still no green flag yet…Sounds like electrical problems sidelined Oriol Servia and may do the same to his teammate Will Power, who’s sitting in the pits as his crew works on his car on pit road. Danica Patrick will have to serve a pit road penalty for hitting Scott Dixon’s tires earlier.

CAUTION: Milka Duno and A.J. Foyt IV’s machines are now at rest in the tire barriers somewhere in the Boot section of the track (actually, Turns 8 and 9)…Looks like Duno tried to get closer to the car in front of her for the restart, pushed too much and went to the right but got Foyt in the process on the straightaway. More good news for Darren Manning.

Lap 48: Another incident has ensued between Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe near Turn 10 and both cars are stalled there now. Briscoe says over the radio that Dixon spun in front of him and then he hit him — the replay confirms it. The No. 6 machine of Briscoe gets his nose damaged, while Hunter-Reay barely dodges Briscoe to take the lead under caution speed.

Briscoe gets a new nose for his car, and Dixon is back under power as well. What a bizarre turn of events!

Lap 50: Manning, Hunter-Reay and Kanaan (with a fractured wrist, no less) are your top three. Bruno Junqueira is also lurking in fourth. Great runs by the two Brazilians today.  Now let’s see if we can GET THIS RIGHT…

Lap 51: Holy crap, we get a clean start! Hunter-Reay goes past Manning on the restart at Turn 1 to take the lead, but Manning loses some major momentum when he tries and fails to get by RHR heading into the bus stop. Caution is now out again as Jaime Camara, the second Conquest driver, eats tire barrier in Turn 6. He quickly gets out of the car.

For the second straight week, we’ve got a bunch of problems.

Lap 52: Bobby Rahal to ESPN’s Brienne Pedigo on what his driver Hunter-Reay should do with eight laps left: “Go like hell.”

Lap 53: Pits are open but nobody’s taking the chance…Dixon and Briscoe are 13th and 14th respectively. ESPN replays Dixon’s apology to Briscoe: “I’m sorry. Bloody. Stupid.”

Lap 54: Restart — Hunter-Reay gets a great jump on Manning as they go back to green.

Lap 55: Hunter-Reay has opened up a lead of 1.74 seconds on Manning.

Lap 56: The lead is now at 1.96 ticks for Hunter-Reay, who’s been knocking on the door at several points all season. Give a shout out to Graham Rahal, who’s climbed from the back to eighth right now. He’s also trying to overcome a rebuild of his car after a crash yesterday afternoon. It took his team until 3 a.m. this morning to finish according to ESPN’s Jack Arute.

Lap 57: RHR’s lead is 2.3 seconds over Manning.

Two laps left: Hunter-Reay gets some sweet words over the radio: “No pressure. Nice and smooth…focus forward.” Meanwhile, Dixon’s trying to crack the top ten; he’s working on E.J. Viso for tenth as the white flag comes out.

One to go: Can Hunter-Reay hold on? He’s got a 2.6-second edge.

CHECKERED: Ryan Hunter-Reay scores his first IndyCar Series victory in the Camping World Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International! Darren Manning, Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice and Marco Andretti round out the top five.

This is Rahal Letterman Racing’s first victory since 2004, so needless to say, this has been a long time coming.

VICTORY LANE: “I’m so happy…I was driving my rear end off,” Ryan Hunter-Reay tells ESPN’s Brienne Pedigo as he wears the traditional laurel wreath of the Glen. “This is a dream come true.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm 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.