Sunday, September 07, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

JOLIET, Ill. -- With three races remaining to determine the 2003 IRL IndyCar Series champion, the difference between first and fifth place is only 81 points.

Considering the 2002 title chase went down to the final lap of the season, the Delphi Indy 300 today at Chicagoland Speedway figures to tighten the standings even more.

The Team Penske duo of Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran lead the way, followed by Tony Kanaan in a Michael Andretti-owned car, Scott Dixon in a car owned by Chip Ganassi of Fox Chapel, and two-time Indy Racing League champion Sam Hornish Jr.

Hornish figures to be tough in this event today -- last season, he edged Al Unser Jr. by inches -- but Dixon believes a victory in each of the final three races will earn Ganassi his fifth open-wheel championship and first since 1999, when the team raced on the Championship Auto Racing Teams circuit. After today, the series will compete at California Speedway before concluding the season at Texas Motor Speedway.

If three wins in three races sounds unlikely, consider that Dixon, 23, a quiet New Zealander, leads the series this season with three victories and set a record by leading consecutive laps throughout three consecutive races, winning at Pikes Peak and Richmond before leading the first 53 laps at Kansas. Yesterday, he qualified in the fifth position for the race today with a lap of 221.674 mph around the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval. Team Menard driver Richie Hearn blazed to a track record 223.159 mph to win the pole position, his first since 1996. The pole-sitter has won the previous two IRL IndyCar Series races at Chicagoland.

"It's come down to these last three races," Dixon said. "We're 42 points out, and we've got a shot at the title. It's going to be very exciting for all of us. We'll probably have to win a few of these last races to have a shot at the championship, but I think we've shown that we're capable of doing that. Team Target has proven that they can win championships, and I believe that we can get it done.

"I think on some of these bigger circuits we have a little bit more of an advantage over Penske."

This season has not featured the regular race-to-race, side-by-side breathtaking finishes as it did in 2002, partly because of the introduction of Honda and Toyota motors to a series that competed with only Chevrolets last season. A Chevrolet-powered car did not win a race in 2003 until a revamped model was put in use a month ago and Hornish put it in victory lane at Kentucky Speedway.

"I think some of the racing has gotten maybe a little worse," Dixon said. "This year it doesn't seem like the great side-by-side stuff I saw last year. I think it might be because more people are on the edge whereas it wasn't like that in the past. And you've got teams like [Ganassi's] Team Target spending a lot more money that advances the car and makes it go faster."

For Dixon, this will mark his first race at Chicagoland and he still must get past Penske's Brazilian tandem of Castroneves and de Ferran, who won the Indianapolis 500 in May and will retire after the season. In Penske's debut at Chicagoland last season, Castroneves was part of the lead pack all the way to the finish but early on de Ferran crashed hard going into turn two and had to be airlifted to a hospital.

"I've only raced at Chicagoland Speedway once and, unfortunately, I don't have the best memories of it as I was involved in a crash," de Ferran said. "In fact, I don't really have any memories of the race so I'm literally starting from a clean sheet of paper."

Through practice leading up to the race today, the fastest car has been driven by Ganassi's second driver, Tomas Scheckter, a South Africa native. He will start second today after turning a lap of 223.083 mph in qualifying. That's impressive because Scheckter, who turns 23 later this month, had never raced on an oval-shaped track before coming to the IRL in 2002.

"I'm just a year-and-a-half into ovals and a lot of these guys have two or three years in CART and before that Indy Lights," Scheckter said. "I've really just come. For me, it's an ongoing learning curve and understanding what's going on, understanding the setup of the cars and making sure I'm driving quick as well."

NOTES -- Four-time ARCA series champion Frank Kimmel won the ReadyHosting.com 200. Norm Benning of Level Green finished 21st. ... Mark Taylor surged past Ed Carpenter at the finish line to win the IRL Menards Infiniti Pro Series Chicagoland 100 by 0.0170 seconds. It was the closest finish in series history.

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