Sunday, April 19, 2009

Franchitti Wins at Long Beach


Welcome to Long Beach, one of the greatest street car races in the world.

The VERSUS team gets right to it with the story of Helio’s court case
(Thanks: WFOR-TV)

He was welcomed back with open arms in the pits.

And then there was the mistakes of Helio was he tried to get used to his car and team again.

His hit during qualifying hurt resulting in a headache.

But Helio’s troubles including the headache are gone and he is ready to race.
Over to Grahm Rahal, “We want to do well for them.” (Paul Newman’s friends and family) Long Beach was one of Newman’s favorite tracks.

Paul Tracy is back for the Indianapolis 500 and presumably Edmonthon and Toronto.

Yes that is the GEICO geko with Max Pappis inder the head. “I am going back to the Indy 500 with hopes of coming back to the series.” According to PT, a win at Indy should equate to his return to the series.

Kick the tires and light the fire, Will Power is one the pole but didn’t immediate roll off with the grid. No worries, he is off and rolling.

We are green!

Unlike last weekend there are now circus antics lake last weekend at St. Pete. In fact there were no incidents on the first lap. Mr. Barnhardt’s lecture must have been effective.

Lap 14 and Mike Conway meets the tire barrier.

Soon after leader Will Power slows and in the backup ScottDixon and EJ Viso touch and Viso goes airborne.

Now to lap 23 and we have a big mess.

Bring in the clowns.

Dan Weldon, Darren Manning, Mario Moraes, Hideki Mutoh and Junsin Wilson were involved in the traffic jam.

Stanton Barrett goes off course bringing out a local yellow.

Later, Ed Carpenter noses into turn one.

Mike Conway looses it and puts it into the wall.

Now under caution, Graham Rahal goes to leave the pits and the fuel hose is attached.

It looks bad and could have been much worse but thankfully VERSUS did not report any injuries.

Mario Moraes hits the rumble strips and buries himself deeeep in the tire barrier.

Ed Carpenter got a little off and pulled up besides Moraes but all was good.

Under caution, Ryan Briscoe gets into the back of Scott Dixon coming out of the hairpin spinning him around and damaging Briscoe’s car.

Briscoe is called to pit lane for a penalty as a result of the hit under caution.

In the final laps, March Andretti gets into Dan Weldon in the hairpin but both continue.
As Vitor Meira gets into the tires on the final lap,

Dario Franchitti takes his first win since returning to the series as his wife celebrates.

The win is Franchitti’s 9th in the series and comes on his wife’s (Ashley Judd) birthday.

IndyCar Series Long Beach Finish
Dario Franchitti
Will Power
Tony Kanaan
Danica Patrick
Dan Weldon
Marco Andretti
Helio Castroneves
Raphael Matos
Robert Doornbos
Alex Tagliani
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Graham Rahal
Ryan Briscoe
Vitor Meira
Scott Dixon
Darren Manning
Stanton Barrett
Ed Carpenter
Mario Moraes
Hideki Mutoh
Mike Conway
Justin Wilson
EJ Viso

Ideas, thoughts, questions? Drop me a line at bjohnson_292@comcast.net.

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of IMS Productions and VERSUS.
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