Category: Featured Other Series

Racing three, four and sometimes five-wide for the lead, the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers put on a show at Auto Club Speedway in Saturday afternoon. In the end, Graham Rahal got to take his first trip to victory lane since winning in his rookie season at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

“Our weakness has been these ovals and I said to these guys this morning that these next three races would define our year,” he commented. “I knew yesterday that the car was good in race trim but qualifying we couldn’t find speed. I can’t thank my guys enough for believing me. You don’t know how good this feels – it’s been so long coming.”

The day wasn’t smooth for Rahal as starting deep in the field, he had to make his way to front. Then once he got to the front, he would have a fueling issue on pit road at lap 188 as the fuel man tried to insert for a second time, with Rahal pulling away and taking the insertion point with him.

“I knew my car was really good,” Rahal comments. “It wasn’t quickest out front – frankly, struggled out front – but those last couple laps hung on the bottom line and stayed out there .it’s all these guys. I couldn’t be more honored to have a group like this behind me.”

Restarting near the back of the field, Rahal made his way back to the front, taking the lead with nine to go as the caution flew for an incident between Will Power and Takuma Sato. Sato would get a little sideways, bouncing off of Scott Dixon, before taking Power with him into the outside wall.

“I was hearing three-wide from spotter…and I held there and Dixie just kept coming up and up, and then I became ping pong ball and we tangled,” Sato commented.

The restart would come with three laps to go and immediately, Rahal would have both Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan to his outside. Kanaan was able to stay alongside and the pair battle for the lead till the caution flew shortly after the white flag for an incident involving Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Sage Karam would come down, getting into Hunter-Reay, resulting in Hunter-Reay taking Briscoe to the grass with him. Briscoe would fly up in the air, before coming down hard in the grass. Both drivers would be uninjured.

“I wasn’t expecting Montoya coming up – obviously he had a lane there,” Hunter-Reay commented. “He came up and clipped the front of the car. It was pack racing, it was crazy up there. I didn’t have anywhere to go – I’m just glad Ryan is okay. That was nasty out there. It was looking like a good finish for the DHL car today and we’ll look to do that at Milwaukee.”

“I think she’s more distraught than any of us. I’m just thankful that I’m okay,” Briscoe said. “Nobody made that happen intentionally – the racing was close all day and unfortunately, something bad happened and we all are okay. I wish it didn’t. Starting second on the restart and having a shot to win, this isn’t the way we wanted to go out. it would’ve been nice to bring a strong result home.”

The resulting caution handed Rahal the victory, while Kanaan had to settle for second after battling for the lead all-day. Kanaan felt that he was out front at the end, but was more frustrated at day’s end with the racing as he did not like the pack racing.

“It’s a new package so we keep guessing and guessed on the wrong side,” he said. “It was a good race for the fans, but I get critized a lot but people aren’t in the racecar to see going 200 mph doing this. It’s stressful and makes you think if you want to keep doing this. Hopefully we get together and come up with a better solution.”

Kanaan wasn’t the only driver frustrated, as Team Penske executive Tim Cindric and driver Will Power expressed their frustration with the package post-race, as well. Marco Andretti, who rounded out the podium, admitted that the race was crazy but admits that it’s a form of racing that he likes.

“It’s definitely crazy – pack racing is always like that,” he said. “You’ve got guys that don’t want to back off and guys going forward, going inside and outside. I personally like it. It’s extremely dangerous – but that’s what I signed up for as a driver.”

Points leader Juan Pablo Montoya finished fourth, extending his points to 46 points ahead of Power.

“Honestly, I felt it was a little too stupid,” Montoya said of the racing. “When I saw Indycar yesterday, I told them that we shouldn’t be racing like this and sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt. But we had a good car and I did what I could do out there.”

Rookie Sage Karam would round out the top-five for his best career Verizon IndyCar Series finish, followed by Scott Dixon, James Jakes, Charlie Kimball, Simon Pagenaud and Jack Hawksworth.

“The car was quick all day and to be mixing it up at front with the season that we’ve been having, it felt good and that’s the confidence that I need to go to these races going forward,” Karam commented.

Championship contender Helio Castroneves didn’t have the day that he wanted after leading a bunch of laps early as he would get wrecked out at lap 136. Running three-wide, Briscoe would come up and make contact with Castroneves, resulting in Castroneves spinning and making contact with the backstretch wall.

“Unfortunately, Rahal was coming after me and squeezed me on the top,” Castroneves said. “I was like, ‘What are you thinking’ You don’t need to be squeezing me like that?’ It put me in a position that I didn’t want to be up there and I backed off a little. They all just closed up like that and Briscoe got into me a little – I don’t know why he had to get into me there.”

It also wasn’t the day that CFH Racing was looking for after finishing 1-2 in the Honda Indy Toronto as Ed Carpenter would start sliding up the track with a loose car, making contact with Josef Newgarden and taking him to the outside wall with him.

“I got into three with a pack of cars and didn’t really want to get in the second lane but got shoved down there,” Carpenter said. “There are just guys racing like crazy on these restarts. I would’ve left more room there if I knew someone was coming. It’s pretty unfortunately. Not much worse than getting in the a crash and taking out of my teammate.”

“It’s racing,” Newgarden commented. “The only reason we got together was because we were next to each other at that moment. I could’ve lifted, too, but I had a full head of steam and didn’t want to get out of it.”

During one of his scheduled pit stops, Tristan Vautier would make contact with front tire changer Owen Trower upon leaving his stall, hitting the crewmen’s leg.

Trower was helped to a cart, before being taken to local hospital with a lower-extremity injury, per INDYCAR officials.

This marks the third time a Dale Coyne Racing member has been injured on pit road after an issue for the organization during the Indianapolis 500 and at Barber Motorsports Park.

In a one-two sweep for Team Penske, Simon Pagenaud would top the charts in qualifying with a lap of one minute and 5.7679 seconds. Pagenaud is searching for his first win of the season since leaving Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to join Penske during the off-season.

“Thanks to my crew for the preparations and it’s exciting to get a superspeedway pole,” Pagenaud said. “Qualifying is one thing. It’s a reward for performance. We have a 500-mile race and hopefully I can reward the team for its hard work. It’s a brand new team that is gelling really well.”

For Pagenaud, this marks his first career pole award. For Team Penske, it marks the fifth straight race that the team has occupied the front row. Helio Castroneves will start in the second spot, after posting a lap a tenth off of his teammate.

Marco Andretti would qualify third quickest as the only Honda within the top-eight in qualifying, followed by Ed Carpenter and Juan Pablo Montoya.

“We maximized everything in qualifying, and I’m really happy with the race car for the long race. That’s the important thing,” Andretti said.

Tony Kanaan will start sixth, followed by Texas Motor Speedway winner Scott Dixon, Will Power, Takuma Sato and Sage Karam. Honda Indy Toronto winner Josef Newgarden was 12th quickest.

The MAVTV 500 is scheduled to start at 4 pm EST at Auto Club Speedway.

In the pair of practices ahead of qualifying for the MAV TV 500 at Auto Club Speedway, it’d be Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon topping the pair of sessions.

Briscoe topped the first practice with a lap of 33.1109 seconds as he continues to fill-in for the injured James Hinchcliffe with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

Marco Andretti was second quickest as surprisingly, Honda swept the top-two spots despite the fact that Chevrolet has dominated thus far this season. Simon Pagenaud was third quickest, followed by Charlie Kimball and Tony Kanaan.

Josef Newgarden was sixth quickest, followed by Carlos Munoz, Scott Dixon, Juan Pablo Montoya and Takuma Sato.

Dixon was quickest in the second practice with a lap of 33.0839 seconds as he looks for his third straight top-10 following a victory at Texas Motor Speedway and an eighth place finish at the Honda Indy Toronto.

Pagenaud was second quickest, followed by Ed Carpenter, Sato and Montoya. Andretti was sixth, followed by Briscoe, Sage Karam, Kanaan and Tony Hawksworth.

After a race filled with strategy and speed on the streets of Toronto, the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers are set to focus on solely turning left in the next three races as they begin a stretch of three unique oval events. That stretch will begin on Saturday night with the MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway.

Josef Newgarden enters this weekend with confidence on his side after his CFH Racing team swept the top-two spots at the Honda Indy Toronto as Newgarden picked up his second career victory ahead of teammate Luca Filippi. The ovals haven’t treated him as nicely this year, though, as engine issues took him out of contention at Texas Motor Speedway and he finished ninth in the Indianapolis 500. He also only posted one top-10 in three career starts at Fontana.

“I am really excited to get to Auto Club Speedway,” Newgarden said. “We’ve had a lot of work to do since Texas and have put a lot of effort in at the shop to be as prepared as we can going into Fontana. Hopefully we can keep the good results rolling after Toronto. I have a lot of faith in all of our guys. We have a lot of good, smart people on the team and I am looking forward to a solid weekend in California.”

While Filippi won’t be behind the wheel of the second entry for CFH Racing, it will be past Fontana race winner Ed Carpenter. Carpenter, who solely runs the oval events, won the event in 2012 and boosts an average finish of 8.5 in six starts, highlighted by three top-fives. The previous two ovals events this year haven’t gone well, though, as engine issues took him out of Texas while a wreck took him out of the Indianapolis 500.

“It is always exciting to go back to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana,” Carpenter commented. “It has been a track that we have had a great history at the past three years, with a podium each year. We have really been struggling on the ovals so far this year, but I feel like Fontana is a great track to get things turned around. We have been working very hard to make sure we go there with a good plan to address some of the struggles that we have had. I can’t wait to get on track and get back up to speed.”

Though if CFH Racing wants to score a second victory in a row, they’re going to have deal with the Team Penske quartet. Leading that quartet is Juan Pablo Montoya, who enters this weekend as the points leader, 27 points ahead of Will Power. He has only made one career IndyCar start at Fontana, finishing fourth in last year’s event. He has also been real strong on the ovals this year, winning the Indianapolis 500 and finishing fourth at Texas. He is looking to bounce back after finishing seventh in Toronto. A victory would be great, and put him one step closer to winning the Triple Crown.

“I’m definitely excited to get to Auto Club Speedway this weekend for another 500-mile race,” Montoya sounded off. “This No. 2 PPG Chevy team excels on the speedways and on the longer races. The Triple Crown is not something that I really focus on, but it’s something cool that the Verizon IndyCar Series brought back a few years ago and we are proud to be competing for it. Only one team is able to win the Triple Crown this year and it’s ours, so that is a cool feeling.

“Now that we had an off weekend to catch our breath and regroup, I am happy with where we are as we head into the final six races of the year. We’ve been able to mix in a lot of consistency with our two wins, but we need to get at least one more before the end of the year. Fontana and Pocono would be great tracks to do that for the Triple Crown.”

Another driver within the Team Penske organization to watch will be Will Power, as he continues to get stronger on the ovals despite being known as a road course expert. That was evident by his victory at Auto Club Speedway in 2013. He didn’t have the run that he wanted at Texas, finishing 12th, but he kicked off the oval races with a second at the Indianapolis 500.

“It’s going to be a bit different going to Auto Club Speedway this year and not having it as the season finale,” Power said. “You know, I’m always going to think back to winning my first Verizon IndyCar Series championship there last year, so it’s always going to have that ‘end of year’ feeling to it. For me, Fontana has been a rollercoaster of emotions over the last few years. We missed out on the championship there in 2012. I came back to score what I consider one of my greatest wins there the next year. And last year we finally closed the deal there to win the title.

“I love racing there; I think we all do. It’s amazingly fast, but it’s wide enough where you don’t really feel wheel to wheel. It’s just a great place for our cars and I’m excited to go back and try to put the Verizon Chevy in Victory Lane there once again.”

The other big team to watch will be Chip Ganassi Racing as they have won this event twice, with Dario Franchitti winning the event in 2005, followed by Tony Kanaan last year. Kanaan was solid in Toronto two weeks ago, posting a sixth place finish as he currently sits ninth in points. The ovals have been a sweet spot for him this year as he in contention for the win at Indianapolis before a wreck took him out of the running. He then posted a second place finish at Texas.

“I’ve had some solid finishes at Auto Club Speedway, especially last year with finally getting a win on the oval, and I’m just a big fan of this track,” Kanaan said. “It’ll definitely be an adjustment for us as drivers as well as the team and engineers to race here in the middle of the afternoon and without the added pressure of it being the season finale, but I have full confidence in the NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing team to make those adjustments happen and work for us.”

“The little brat beat me….”

Dealt with the challenge of racing in the rain, Robby Gordon knew that he had to beat Sheldon Creed on Sunday if he wanted to win the overall victory for the Honda Indy Toronto. The pair would battle back and forth but ultimately, a spin by Gordon on the last lap resulted in Creed finishing second for the Overall victory, while Gordon finished third.

“Obviously, I knew it was going to be slippery and when you go slippery, you got to go off-line. I went off-line in every single corner except for coming off the backstraight,” he commented. “(Race winner) Keegan Kincaid and his blue Traxxas truck was long gone. I was trying to beat Sheldon and I went inside to protect my line and when you go on the concrete, I don’t know what it is going to be like for the IndyCars but for us, it’s like hitting an ice patch. It is really slippery and I just came in a little too hot – I was going about walking speed – and it just spun out on me.

“That’s disappointing because if Sheldon and I switched positions, we were going to beat him for the weekend and I need to put some points on him.”

It also allowed Creed to increase his points lead, now 11 points ahead of Gordon in the series points standings.

“It’s important that I push him hard and challenge him, which is only going to help him for the future of his career, outside of Stadium Super Trucks if he wants to go somewhere else besides this,” Gordon shared. “I know he likes Stadium Super Trucks because they’re not boring, and they’re very fun and hard to drive. I think the fans are liking it and that’s good to.”

In each of the events that the Stadium Super Trucks have run in Toronto, Gordon has finished on the podium and he says that he enjoys coming to Toronto each season.

“I appreciate what Green Savoree do in promoting the race. I want to thank them for allowing the Stadium Super Trucks to be here,” he said. “I want to thank the fans for being out here in the rain, standing up and cheering like you are. Stadium Super Trucks is definitely a series that’s on the rise and I went another weekend without a win so there’s a lot of extremely competitive drivers driving.”

After making the early race pass on E.J. Viso for the lead, Keegan Kincaid didn’t look back as he led the rest of the way en route to scoring the victory in the second event of the weekend on Sunday for the SPEED Energy Formula Off-Road presented by TRAXXAS Series. It marks Kincaid’s second victory of the season.

“I knew I had to get to the front right away because Sheldon (Creed), Robby (Gordon) – all these good guys – and run,” he commented. “It kind of caught me off-guard that I caught E.J. so fast and he made a mistake and opened the door for me. Traxxas 1-2-3 – couldn’t be prouder.”

Behind Kincaid, the battle was on for second as Sheldon Creed and Robby Gordon traded the spot back and forth over the course of the second half of the event. The deciding factor would come on the final lap when Gordon would go for the spin at the end of the backstretch heading into turn three, handing the advantage to Creed.

The second-place finish for Creed gave him the Overall victory of the weekend as he finished second on Saturday. It also allowed him to extend his points lead to 11 points over Gordon.

“I think that’s the funnest battle we’ve had, switching positions every lap,” Creed commented. “Then he caught me and passed me and I was just following his line. Then we started pushing on each other and we’re going down the backstretch waving at each other, just laughing. It was fun, but I knew when I saw him go on the concrete, I was going to go on the asphalt and I saw him spin out – just came gave it to me. It was so much fun battling with him.”

Gordon would round out the podium, giving him his series-leading 10th podium finish of the season in the 12 events.

“Obviously, I knew it was going to be slippery and when you go slippery, you got to go off-line,” Gordon said. “I went off-line in every single corner except for coming off the backstraight. Keegan Kincaid and his blue Traxxas truck was long gone. I was trying to beat Sheldon and I went inside to protect my line and when you go on the concrete, I don’t know what it is going to be like for the IndyCars but for us, it’s like hitting an ice patch. It is really slippery and I just came in a little too hot – I was going about walking speed – and it just spun out on me.

“That’s disappointing because if Sheldon and I switched positions, we were going to beat him for the weekend and I need to put some points on him. He’s leading the championship and he’s going to put some more points on me this weekend in Toronto so that’s a little bit of a bummer.”

Matt Brabham would finish fourth in just his second Stadium Super Trucks start, followed by Charles Dorrance, Bill Hynes and Canadian Russell Boyle. Following the victory on Saturday, Scotty Steele would run into mechanical issues on Sunday, resulting in an eighth place finish. EJ Viso rounded out the field in ninth.

Coming off a pair of top-six finishes for their drivers at Texas Motor Speedway, Andretti Autosport looked to keep the positive momentum rolling. That wouldn’t be the case, though, as mechanical issues resulted in poor finishes for Carlos Munoz and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Munoz, who finished sixth at Texas, ended up finishing the Honda Indy Toronto after the 22nd spot. It marks the second time in the last three races that he has plagued by mechanical issues as he fell out of the second race in Detroit for the same reason.

“We were having a great race; I was fourth before everything and I think we had the speed to finish in that position or to fight for the podium,” he commented. “Once again, something out of the team and my hands – it’s racing. We really need to check to see why this is happening, but we put our heads down and head to Fontana.”

Hunter-Reay, a past winner in Toronto, would finish the 85-lap race in the 19th spot after having rear-brake issues throughout the course of the event.

“I had no rear brake pressure at all and had to pull it in with one lap from the end,” he said. “Wish we could have brought home a better result in the No. 28 DHL.”

Marco Andretti finished all the laps, finishing the event in the 12th spot. Andretti is the only driver to complete every lap of every race this season.

Racing on a tricky track and battling wet conditions, Juan Pablo Montoya didn’t have the day that he was hoping for after qualifying third for the Honda Indy Toronto. Rather than being upfront battling for the win, Montoya ended the race in the seventh spot.

Montoya started off the race solid, running inside the top-three during the beginning stages. However, on lap seven, he would go off course in turn three while battling with Scott Dixon. As a result, he fell back outside of the top-five. He fell back further in the running order mid-race through pit strategy in switching from the wet tire compound to the firestone red tire compound, but managed to battle back for a solid finish.

“The PPG Automotive Refinish boys did a great job today despite the changing conditions,” he commented. “We sort of struggled when the track was wet and I made a couple small mistakes on track, but we recovered pretty quickly from those. After that it was a good race and we were really good on black tires from that point on. It was a nice, solid finish that allowed us to keep the points lead going into three straight oval races. I’m excited about that.”

Even though he did not finish in the top-five, his string of success this season with only one finish outside of the top-10 allows him to maintain the points lead, 25 points ahead of Will Power heading into Auto Club Speedway.