By DAVE CALDWELL – The New York Times
BALTIMORE — Stacks of tires lined the sharp right turn at the end of the long main straightaway at the Grand Prix of Baltimore, and Ryan Hunter-Reay probably lucked out after the biggest restart of Sunday’s chaotic race by not barreling into them.
But he made the turn, kept the lead and swept to his fourth victory of the IndyCar Series season, making a double winner of the owner of his car, Michael Andretti, whose sports-marketing company was hired in May to resuscitate the financially troubled race.
“You can’t even do a wedding in 100 days,” Andretti said.
Andretti even caught a bouquet Sunday: Hunter-Reay moved closer to the points leader, Will Power, heading into the 15th and final race of the season, a 500-mile race in Fontana, Calif., on a 2-mile oval on which Power has never raced.
Hunter-Reay, a gregarious, 31-year-old Texan, stands 17 points behind Power. The difference between first and fourth in an IndyCar Series race is 18 points. Andretti, the 49-year-old son of Mario Andretti, said his driver would win the title.
“We’re making it a show in Fontana, and that’s what it’s all about,” Andretti said.
After peering into the grandstands on the muggy, overcast afternoon at the Inner Harbor and wishing to see a few more fans, Andretti pulled on a headset in the pits and made calls to Hunter-Reay, one of his three drivers.
Hunter-Reay started 11th in the 25-car field, but Andretti made a decision early in the 75-lap, 150-mile race that benefited his driver enormously. Andretti opted not to change to treaded rain tires when it began to drizzle.
“We just thought it was going to sprinkle,” Hunter-Reay said.
And the rain soon stopped. As other drivers, Power included, switched from rain tires back to slick tires, Hunter-Reay charged from 12th to 3rd place in seven laps. He stayed in contention the rest of the race.
After the eighth caution period of the race — caused when Charlie Kimball’s car came to a stop, then caught fire — Ryan Briscoe, Power’s teammate, led the field back to the start-finish line on Pratt Street. Hunter-Reay was in second place.
“The fact is, you’re supposed to pair up, and he didn’t,” Briscoe said.
Hunter-Reay lurked just behind Briscoe entering the main straightaway, on which a speed-scrubbing chicane had been built earlier in the weekend. Hunter-Reay had noticed on previous restarts that the starter paused before throwing the flag.
Hunter-Reay said he accelerated to the line next to Briscoe, lifted his foot off the gas until he saw the green flag, then floored it, cruising past Briscoe down Pratt Street and entering the first turn in first place and holding onto it, just barely.
“I didn’t think he would make it,” said the rookie Simon Pagenaud, who finished third.
Hunter-Reay held off a surge from Pagenaud and held the lead the rest of the way. After Mike Conway, a driver for A. J. Foyt, thumped into a pile of tires entering the fourth-turn of the two-mile street course, Hunter-Reay made a smooth restart.
Hunter-Reay beat Briscoe by 1.4391 seconds, and got yet another bump when Rubens Barrichello knocked aside Power, dropping him two spots. Power finished sixth. He pretended to slam his fist on a table at a news conference but did not follow through.
Earlier, he said of Hunter-Reay’s audacious restart: “They didn’t do anything about it. Strange. I would have done the same thing. This is the championship, right?”
Race officials did not provide a crowd estimate for this year’s race, but the stands appeared to be emptier than they were for the inaugural street race in Baltimore last Labor Day weekend, which was an artistic but not financial success.
Other than reinstalling the chicane because of a bump in the racetrack, Andretti said his marketing company did not encounter a glitch. A rainy forecast might have limited the crowd, but the organizers seemed happy with the turnout.
“Did everything go smoothly? No,” said Tim Mayer, the general manager of the race. “Were we able to fix it and react to it? Absolutely.”
Mayer said organizers wanted to connect to Baltimore neighborhoods better than last year, make sure people knew Baltimore was a Labor Day destination, stage a good race and establish a baseline for the future. Fewer free and discount tickets were also given out. Andretti shared what he considered a successful weekend as a race promoter with his employees, and with local businessmen J. P. Grant III and Greg O’Neill, who provided financial backing at a time when the 2012 race was in doubt.
“Without them, this wasn’t going to happen,” Andretti said.
Hunter-Reay extended his chance to win a championship. He said later that he had used his brakes so much that his tires might as well have been square by the end of the race. But he needed a memorable run Sunday, and his boss helped give him one.
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