Hornish Works It to a Turn

The racing was suspenseful, the pace was fast, the passing was often, the weather was chilly and the crowd was missing.

That about sums up Sunday’s Yamaha Indy 400, the inaugural Indy Racing League race at California Speedway.

Sam Hornish Jr., in talking about the race earlier in the week, said, “On this track, it will come down to who’s leading coming off the fourth turn of the final lap.”

Which is precisely how it happened.

Hornish, after taking the white flag with a lap to go in the 200-mile race, lost the lead to Jaques Lazier going through the second turn, then took it back in a 200-mph side-by-side duel through the fourth turn. The two were so close--Lazier on the inside, Hornish on the outside--they brushed wheels a hundred yards from the finish.

“I knew the only way to get a run [at Lazier] was from behind, because he was hugging the white line,” Hornish said. “I kept my foot in it and I tried to go as fast as I could through the checkered flag.”

The margin of victory for Hornish’s yellow Pennzoil Panther was 0.0281 seconds--a few feet--over Lazier’s blue Menard in a duel of Chevrolet-powered Dallaras.

It was 22-year-old Hornish’s second victory in three races this year in defense of his IRL championship. He also won the opening race at Homestead, Fla., and finished third behind the Marlboro Penske tandem of Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran a week ago in Phoenix.

“Congratulations to Sam, he ran a good race,” said Lazier, who lives nearby in Alta Loma. “We touched on the last lap.... There is a lot of side-by-side racing. The track is unbelievable. It’s nerve-wracking when cars start sliding next to each other.”

Hornish was surprised when he heard that the cars touched.

“I didn’t really know we bumped. I’m glad it wasn’t any more exciting than what it was. It’s always good to be able to run next to Jaques. I know he’s not going to do anything crazy, and I try not to either.”

The dramatic final-lap passes ended the day much as it began, cars passing and repassing in a high-speed chase around the two-mile D-shaped oval.

It had an IRL-record 39 lead changes among eight drivers--and that only counts changes at the start-finish line. Hornish led for 73 laps, the most of any driver.

It was the fastest race in IRL history, 179.345 mph, bettering the 175.276 mph set by Scott Goodyear, also in a Panther team car, at Texas in 2000.

The winning margin was the second closest ever, Hornish having edged Scott Sharp by 0.0188 at Texas in 2001.

Hornish’s victory increased his points lead over Castroneves, 141 to 115, with de Ferran next at 112. The Panther team also collected $121,500 for the win.

Rookie Laurent Redon of France was third, the highest-finishing Infiniti-powered driver. He was more than six seconds behind the leaders and just ahead of Penske’s de Ferran and Castroneves and Brazilian Felipe Giaffone in a blanket finish.

“It was a long day, but luckily it was a long day because we come back from the end,” Redon said in broken English. “I think I pass a really good time, especially at the end. It’s always good when you have a good car, because you can overtake people, instead somebody overtake you.

“I’m really happy because we all new, I’m new on ovals, I’m new in this series, and the team [Conquest Racing] is also new. I’m pretty happy by today, yes.”

Former motocross champion Jeff Ward thrilled the sparse gathering of an estimated 15,000 on the first lap when he got a hole-shot in his Chip Ganassi G Force, racing from sixth to first by the time the 27-car field reached the third turn.

Hornish took command the next time around and was never worse than fifth the remaining 398 miles. For much of the race, his main competition came from Eddie Cheever Jr. and his South African protege, Tomas Scheckter, in a pair of Infiniti-powered cars.

Both went out with sour engines, although Scheckter’s demise was more spectacular.

He was running with the leaders on Lap 164 when he slowed and was hit from the rear by Hideki Noda, sending both cars spinning into the outer retaining wall. Neither driver was injured. It was the only accident of the day.

The day was even more disappointing for Cheever, the pole-sitter. He was chasing Lazier, just ahead of Hornish, with only 10 laps remaining when a plume of blue smoke erupted from the rear of his car and his day was over.

“I think I could have run Jaques down,” said the 1998 Indy 500 winner. “I had Jaques, and then I didn’t, and then I did. We kept going back and forth. Hornish wasn’t even in contention because he was in our dirty air. I’m disappointed. I broke an engine with 18 miles to go.”

Cheever led for 33 laps, Scheckter for 28. Scheckter had the fastest lap, 222.559 mph, on Lap 79, when he was chasing Castroneves and Hornish. That was faster than Cheever’s pole-winning 221.411.

For a few laps late in the race, it appeared that the Lazier brothers, Jaques and Buddy, might battle to the end as they were racing side by side behind Cheever and Hornish. Buddy, the 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner, started 26th and the effort of getting close to the front took its toll on the car and he faded to seventh.

“This is last year’s car, and it doesn’t have the new aero update kit,” said Lazier, who crashed in Sunday morning practice and had to start in his backup car. “I did everything I could on the restarts to get myself up front, but after a while, the guys would just drive by me on the outside.”

Disappointing were the Penske cars, which finished 1-2 last week at Phoenix and 2-3 behind Hornish at Homestead. Although they finished fourth and fifth, it never seemed as if they were in the hunt.

Said de Ferran: “The car was fantastic all day, we just didn’t have quite enough speed. I did everything I could on the restarts and tried to stay in touch with the leaders, which worked out pretty well for us.”

Said Castroneves: “It was fun out there today, there was a lot of close racing. We had some trouble on our second pit stop, which put us down a lap.

“We worked hard for the rest of the race to catch up to the leaders and I was able to get back on the lead lap. I tried my best to get to the front, but unfortunately we just didn’t have the speed to win the race.”

John Menard, one of the IRL’s staunchest supporters since Tony George broke away from CART in 1996, was elated over the performance of his driver, Jaques Lazier, and the IRL overall.

On Lazier: “We were picking up a little push at the end and Hornish wasn’t. Every lap, Hornish was a little stronger, and we were a little weaker.”

On the IRL: “You’ve got a lot of very good racers in this series right now. Hemelgarn [Buddy Lazier], the Cheevers [Cheever and Scheckter] are right there with the two guys out in front today.

“It just shows how close the competition is.”

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TOP FINISHERS

Top finishers and car makes for the Yamaha Indy 400 at California Speedway:

1. Sam Hornish Jr....Dallara-Chevrolet

2. Jaques Lazier...Dallara-Chevrolet

3. Laurent Redon...Dallara-Infiniti

4. Gil de Ferran...Dallara-Chevrolet

5. Helio Castroneves...Dallara-Chevrolet