Tony DiZinno, June 27, 2012
Iowa is in the books as the ninth of now 15 races on the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule. A rather abnormal race featured a spate of retirements but a substantial amount of action throughout the 25-car field, ending with Ryan Hunter-Reay’s second win in a row.
ANDRETTI, RHR ON A ROLL
Hunter-Reay called his second win in a row, the first back-to-back in his near-decade long open-wheel career, a “game changer.” More accurately, it was a blast to the past when Andretti Autosport – then called Andretti Green Racing – was as on form as it is now.
The last back-to-back period of wins for the team came in 2007 – its last title season with Dario Franchitti – when Tony Kanaan and Franchitti won the last two races of the year in Detroit and Chicagoland. The team had nine wins in 17 races that year including three sets of back-to-backs, and the first came at Iowa when Franchitti won the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250 and then at Richmond a week later.
The team was nearly in a position to secure a podium sweep had it not been for James Hinchcliffe’s accident in the waning moments. Nonetheless, Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti mastered the treacherous 0.875-mile Iowa oval. Marco, in his first 2012 race sans facial hair, secured his long overdue first top-10 result of the year.
With a top five of Hunter-Reay, Andretti, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and Simon Pagenaud, IndyCar only just missed a second successive race with a top five not including a Team Penske or Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver. Dixon’s fourth put pause to that possibility.
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