Monday, September 08, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

JOLIET, Ill. -- It was unlikely that Sam Hornish Jr. could improve on his Indy Racing League IndyCar Series victory last year at Chicagoland Speedway.

After going wheel-to-wheel for the final 20 laps, Hornish beat Al Unser Jr. to the checkered flag by 0.0024 seconds, the closest finish in series history. In the Delphi Indy 300 yesterday, Hornish surpassed that drama.

On the final turn, Scott Dixon dove to the bottom of the track, squeezing Bryan Herta up into Hornish for a three-wide sprint to the finish line. With all three traveling more than 217 mph and Hornish perilously close to the wall, Hornish's Chevrolet-powered car surged slightly ahead of Herta's Honda while Dixon's Toyota nearly beat them both.

After a moment of stunned silence to try to absorb what just happened, the scoring revealed it was the closest three-way finish in series history.

"It was a tough race out there," Hornish said. "A lot of people were very close together, probably one of the closest as far as competitive fields that I've ever seen."

Dixon, who drives for Fox Chapel's Chip Ganassi, finished 0.0099 seconds back followed by Herta, who was 0.0100 behind Hornish.

A two-time series champion who earned $113,400 for his 10th career victory yesterday, Hornish has won the three-closest finishes in series history.

"He must be cheating," Dixon joked.

"If you're going to cheat to win by a couple of inches, you might as well cheat to win by a mile," Hornish replied.

The finish mirrored the entire race, where side-by-side action left nerves frayed but caused no accidents. Team Rahal's Kenny Brack was the only driver to crash when he spun 180 degrees into the wall between turns three and four.

"Shocked," Herta said about the fact the close racing caused no wrecks. "We got no business not having had some incidents, for sure. I think every guy out there has probably got 10 stories to tell."

Trailing the leaders over the final five laps, Dixon couldn't believe no one crashed.

"I think probably a lot of us could have been a little nicer to everybody," he said. "Because it is so close, so many cars right up there, it gets pretty messy sometimes. You know, when three cars try to go three-wide into a two-wide corner, it doesn't always work.

"Looking from where I was looking, I thought there would have been a lot more, to be honest."

Fortunately for Dixon, a three-time winner this season, he escaped any trouble. The finish was especially rewarding because it moved him from fourth to second in the standings. With only two races remaining, he is only12 points behind Team Penske's Helio Castroneves, who brought out the final caution when his gearbox broke with 17 laps to go. Dixon is trying to earn Ganassi his fifth open-wheel championship and first since 1999 when the team competed on the Championship Auto Racing Teams circuit.

Castroneves' caution shuffled the field, though, costing Ganassi's other driver, Tomas Scheckter, a chance at victory. Scheckter, who led a race-high 76 laps, was on pit road for fuel when Castroneves' troubles brought out the caution. It dropped Scheckter deep in the field when the race restarted but he was able to work back to a fifth-place finish.

"It has been like that all year long for us," Scheckter said. "We had another dominant car and Lady Luck wasn't on our side."

For a moment, Ganassi thought that luck might have shifted to Dixon.

"I'm glad I don't drive these things anymore," Ganassi said. "It's not for the faint of heart. Dixon came off of turn four like a bandit, didn't he? I mean man, oh, man. He came off of turn four like he stole something. He almost stole the finish."

But Hornish, who will switch to Team Penske next season, had secured the victory, his second of a tough season for Chevrolet-powered cars. Honda and Toyota made their series debuts this season and dominated until engineers at Chevrolet retooled their engine. Riding the strong Penske and Ganassi teams, Toyota already has captured the manufacturer's championship.

"When we had cars that weren't capable of winning this year, we stayed there, stayed in the draft, picked off the people that had problems, and just tried to be as consistent as we could," said Hornish, who is fifth in standings but only 41 points behind Castroneves. "It's anybody's championship to win or lose. If you can't get first, you've got to try to get second. You don't want to be fifth best."

E-mail this story   Print this story