By Andy Hamilton, The Des Moines Register
NEWTON, Iowa – Ryan Hunter-Reay climbed into his car at the Milwaukee Mile eight days ago as a driver on the periphery of the Izod IndyCar Series points race.
Hunter-Reay climbed out of his car late Saturday night at Iowa Speedway as the winner of a wild and caution-cluttered Iowa Corn Indy 250. He passed Scott Dixon with 12 laps remaining and held off teammate Marco Andretti to win for the second consecutive week in a race that ended under caution.
The back-to-back wins have sliced Hunter-Reay’s points deficit to leader Will Power from 75 to three. He’s in second place in the standings after a race that took its toll on championship contenders and high-profile stars.
Hunter-Reay climbed out of his car late Saturday night at Iowa Speedway as the winner of a wild and caution-cluttered Iowa Corn Indy 250. He passed Scott Dixon with 12 laps remaining and held off teammate Marco Andretti to win for the second consecutive week in a race that ended under caution.
The back-to-back wins have sliced Hunter-Reay’s points deficit to leader Will Power from 75 to three. He’s in second place in the standings after a race that took its toll on championship contenders and high-profile stars.
“Two in a row is a game changer,” said Hunter-Reay, who in the 12 races before Milwaukee had led a total of five laps. “(But) we’re at a point now where we’re halfway through the season, so there’s still a long, long way to go. I, for sure, don’t feel like I’m almost there. I have the same feeling I had when I left Milwaukee. It’s not good enough; we need to dig deeper.”
Hunter-Reay said there has been a different feeling in the cockpit recently. Maybe it stems from the new car on the IndyCar circuit this season and the handle his Andretti Autosport team seems to have on it. He credited part of Saturday night’s win to the setup used by Andretti in a test session earlier in the month at Newton.
It was the fourth win for Andretti Autosport in six races at Iowa Speedway. Andretti snapped a 78-race winless skid in 2011, and Tony Kanaan won here in 2010.
“Obviously, I wanted the top spot,” said Andretti, who notched his first top-10 finish of the season. “I’m still in that winning drought, which is killing me inside. Hopefully this will bump us up a little in points … but (this season has) been horrendous.”
Saturday night wasn’t a smooth ride for some of the biggest names in the series.
Pole-sitter Dario Franchitti’s engine failed before the green flag dropped and the four-time IndyCar champion fell further behind in his bid for another championship. Franchitti trails Power by 72 points after nine races.
It marked the second consecutive week Franchitti failed to finish – a first for the four-time series champion since the last race of the 2004 season and the first race of 2005.
“It was making a very strange noise and I had just come on the radio to say, ‘Is this thing making an odd noise?’ “Franchitti said. “Just like that, it let go. It’s really disappointing. I believe this was our Indy winner engine, too.”
Power accepted the blame for a wreck with E.J. Viso that knocked both drivers from the race on lap 68.
Ryan Briscoe claimed the lead on lap 176, but his stay at the front was short lived after rookie Josef Newgarden, trailing by a lap and coming up quick at the bottom of the track, slammed into the leader.
“It’s disappointing, but he’s a rookie and he’ll learn from it,” Briscoe said. “It’s a shame because I think on fuel we were in position to win the thing. We’d made the car handling a lot better from the start and I was looking forward to the finish.”
James Hinchcliffe’s bid to overtake Power in the points standings came to a crashing end with 54 laps remaining when he lost control and smacked into the wall.
“It’s a kick in the pants, man, this late in the race and the finishes we’ve been having, it really sucks,” said Hinchcliffe, who dropped to fifth in the standings.
In the end, Hunter-Reay kept his car clean, stayed out of danger and walked away with a 3½-foot tall green gas pump trophy.
“I’ve wanted that trophy for a long time,” he said early Sunday morning as he walked out of the media center. “I came here and did a media advance a couple years ago and I saw it and I think it’s the coolest thing. It’s got a plug in the back and it lights up. It’s going front and center.”
No comments yet.