After The biggest prize in American racing, the richest prize in motorsport and his name alongside the greats of the Indianaplis 500 on the huge Borg Warner trophy, its a fantastic honour for any driver to earn their name to be engraved on the famous cup for all eternity, but for Helio Castroneves, it really was a sense of dejavu as he joined a prestigious group of drivers who have won the great american race three times and also the only non American driver to do so.
Below though is a very scary reminder of how dangerous open wheel oval racing can be as Vitor Meira (who started 14th) crashed out on lap 173 in an accident so bad, it looks like it has ruled out the popular brazilian for the rest of the 2009 season with a serious lumbar vertebrae fracture
THE RACE
LAP 1 - With a massive 33 car field, it did not take long for the first incident to occur and it was unlucky for Mario Moraes who had shown good pace throughout practice and qualifying, but in this isntance it was his fault as he squeezed Marco Andretti up to the barrier which tipped himself into it and out of the race, Andretti was able to continue but only after major repairwork was carried out putting him over 50 laps down, as for upfront, Franchitti had managed to snatch the lead from the Penske pair of Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe.
LAP 20 - One team though that did have a pigs ear of an Indy 500 was the Vision team and Ryan Hunter-Reay in particular, many bookes pick to pull off a shock. His race ended in the pit wall on lap 20 after losing it at turn 4, Franchitti held the lead
LAP 56 - A momentary blip for Franchitti allowed his Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon to retake the lead from the scot, meanwhile another pre-race favourite Graham Rahal crashed his newman-haas car out.
LAP 98 - The lead remained with Dixon ahead of Franchitti, Kanaan, Castroneves and an increasingly threatening Danica Patrick who had worked her way up well due to some canny pitwork. Unfortunately for Andretti Green, their day would get worse as perennial Indy underachiever Tony Kanaan crashed out heavily with a broken driveshaft and broken steering column, he was fine however ald will be ok for next weeks race at Milwaukee.
LAPS 130 to 139 - This period changed the race completely, after Nelson Philippe was eliminated after an incident, Dixon had led from Franchitti who was acting as a tail gunner to keep Castroneves and Patrick at bay, but at the round of pitstops that followed Philippe's crash that forced the full course yellow flags, Franchitti was koncked out of contention with a slow pitstop after his refuelling rig became jammed. Dixon could not hold off Castroneves at the restart as he took a lead he would not relinquish, Patrick also got by Dixon but Dan Wheldon (who started down in 18th) had at that point driven superbly to work his way up the field, he would pass both Dixon and Patrick to run 2nd and Townsend Bell had driven himself into contention too also passing Dixon to take 4th.
LAP 173 - The most frightening incident of the race and arguably the season so far involved Vitor Meira and Raphael Matos, Meira was fighting for 19th spot with his fellow brazilian when he suddenly drove very wide into turn 1, not knowing Matos was still there, Meira was tipped round and ploughed face on into the wall and travelled on his side down the wall for a good 300-400 yards before coming to a rest on the entrance of turn 2, both were taken to hospital where Matos was soon discharged without injury, Meira however was kept back for further tests on a suspected broken back.
Castroneves went on to take an easy win ahead of Wheldon, Patrick, Bell, Power, Dixon, Franchitti, Carpenter, Tracy and Mutoh rounding out the top 10.
RACE RATING - 7/10 - Not what you expect from oval racing, fast and frantic paced action, but only 4 drivers led the race and nearly all the overtaking occured further down the field, despite that though it allowed some lesser lights to shine.
RACE RESULT - TOP 20
1. Helio Castroneves - Team Penske ................ 3h 19m 58.001
2. Dan Wheldon - Panther Racing ................ + 1.982
3. Danica Patrick - Andretti Green ................ + 2.335
4. Townsend Bell - KV Racing ................ + 2.704
5. Will Power - Team Penske ................ + 3.622
6. Scott Dixon - Target Chip Ganassi ................ + 4.299
7. Dario Franchitti - Target Chip Ganassi ................ + 4.916
8. Ed Carpenter - Vision ................ +5.510
9. Paul Tracy - KV Racing ................ + 6.518
10. Hideki Mutoh - Andretti Green ................ + 7.331
11. Alex Tagliani - Conquest Racing ................ + 10.531
12. Tomas Scheckter - Dale Coyne Racing ................ + 10.987
13. Alex Lloyd - Target Chip Ganassi ................ + 11.194
14. Scott Sharp - Panther Racing ................ + 11.426
15. Ryan Briscoe - Team Penske ................. + 12.670
16. AJ Foyt IV - Foyt Enterprises ................. + 15.487
17. Sarah Fisher - Sarah Fisher Racing ................ + 15.977
18. Mike Conway - Dreyer & Reinbold ................ + 16.349
19. John Andretti - Richard Petty Motorsports ................ + 18.087
20. Milka Duno - Dreyer & Reinbold ................ + 1 LAP
INDYCAR DRIVERS TOP 20 AFTER ROUND 4 OF 17
1st Dario Franchitti 122pts, 2nd Helio Castroneves 117 pts, 3rd Ryan Briscoe 114pts, 4th Scott Dixon 111pts, 5th Tony Kanaan 110pts, 6th Danica Patrick 109pts, 7th Dan Wheldon 106pts, 8th Will Power 99pts, 9th Ryan Hunter-Reay 84pts, 10th Marco Andretti 83pts, 11th Graham Rahal 82pts, 12th Justin Wilson 77pts, 13th Hideki Mutoh 71pts, 14th Ed Carpenter 70pts, 15th Robert Doornbos 69pts, 16th Vitor Meira 62pts, 17th Raphael Matos 60pts, 18th Alex Tagliani 59pts, 19th Mario Moraes 53pts, 20th EJ Viso 49pts
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