INDYCAR: Carpenter Wins Wild Kentucky Indy 300

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Carpenter Wins Wild Kentucky Indy 300

After two years of finishing second at Kentucky, Sarah Fisher Racing's Ed Carpenter beat Dario Franchitti by .0098 seconds for his first IndyCar win.

Marshall Pruett | Posted October 02, 2011

Sarah Fisher welcomed her first child into the world on September 13th, and three weeks later, the former IndyCar Series driver and owner of Sarah Fisher Racing welcomed the first win for her team and driver Ed Carpenter since the team was founded in 2008.

After hovering inside the top 5 for most of the day, Carpenter began to look like a serious threat for the win during the 22-lap run the checkered flag. After Ana Beatriz brought out the yellow flag for her solo crash on Lap 167, race leader Dario Franchitti led the field back to the green, but despite leading the most laps on the day, it his grasp on first place began to look tenuous as Carpenter's yellow No. 67 started to inch forward as the laps wound down.

With the two drivers locked in a Push-to-Pass battle--Franchitti had more remaining than Carpenter and used them at will--the slight performance advantage held by Carpenter in the final minutes of the race allowed the Indiana native to edge across the finish line by .0098 seconds, earning a long overdue victory.

“First, that feels pretty good because Dario’s one of the best of all time," he said. "It felt way better than I ever thought it was going to feel. Once we were inside 10 to go, I was able to use Push-to-Pass to beat him to the line. The last lap he had a better run out of Turn 4 than me, but the No. 67 rolled. There was no stopping us today. I think the highest my pulse was the entire race was going down the back straight [after winning].”

Carpenter's surprising win wasn't without a bit of drama, as slight issues in the pits and even a faulty helmet visor conspired against him.

"It was a weird race because my visor was falling off in one of the stints and we had all sorts of stuff going on," he continued. "However, I wasn't going to let a visor coming off stop me from winning the race. I drove 15 or 20 laps with one hand holding on to my helmet til our next pit stop."

With a bit of duct tape added to his helmet during one pit stop, Carpenter was able to keep both hands on the steering wheel as he streaked to the finish.

Sarah Fisher Racing pulled off the second major upset of the season after fellow part-time team Bryan Herta Autosport won the Indy 500 with Dan Wheldon. (LAT)

Fisher, who revealed after the race that her longtime sponsor Dollar General recently informed her that they won't be returning in 2012, was in tears as she celebrated the biggest win of her career, and certainly the biggest upset victory by an small independent team in many years.

“I’m speechless," she said. "These boys have worked incredibly hard over the last four years. It’s just great to see all of the hard work pay off. Oh my God. I can’t believe this. It’s Ed’s first win, our first win as a team…”

PHOTOS: Click Here to view INDYCAR: Sarah Fisher Retrospective

With all of the David vs. Goliath ramifications of the win by Carpenter and SFR in mind, the last 22 laps of the Kentucky Indy 300 played out in a drastically different manner than the first 178 tours of the 1.5-mile Super Speedway.

Fairy tale wins aside, the headlines prior to the final restart involved the lead in the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series championship changing hands.

A mistake of his own making took Dario Franchitti out of the points lead at Motegi, while today, it was Will Power's turn to feel the sting from losing control of the championship as the result of an error.

Pit lane ruined the chances of many drivers at Kentucky--some through pit strategy errors, but mostly through spins, crashes and oversights.

Power turned his pole position and a low downforce setup into a dominating performance throughout the first 50 laps, pulling away from Graham Rahal by 2.5 seconds in clean air. The Team Penske driver appeared to have the field covered, and as Franchitti languished near the bottom of the top 10, Power's potential points lead stretched from 12 to more than 40.

All of that changed thanks to a bad decisions made by Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

With Power making his first pit stop on Lap 50, he began to turn his No. 12 car into his pit stall, but as replays later showed, Ana Beatriz's crew chief sent her from her stall while his back was turned to Power and the other cars coming down pit lane.

That mistake--of failing to look up to see if Beatriz was clear to launch into an open space--sent Bia's right front wing spearing into Power's left sidepod, creating a football-sized hole just behind his radiator. Beatriz was halted in her tracks and the DRR crew pulled her car back to replace the nose.

DJ McMahon is sent flying by Simona de Silvestro's car. (LAT)

Although Power was able to pull directly into his stall for his stop, he'd lose chunks of time once he returned to the track with a sidepod that began acting like a small parachute.

Power would start to tumble down the running order and despite numerous stops to apply duct tape to cover the hole, but with hot 215 mph air blowing from inside the sidepod out through the hole, applying tape to the outside was never going to hold.

Power would fall as far back as 28th, but recovered to finish 19th and now sits 18 points Franchitti as the series heads to the season finale in Las Vegas on October 16th.

"Nothing we could do about that one," said Power. "We lost 4 mph with the hole in the side of the car. [Our] guys had done such a good job with the car, we had the fastest car on the track, best car I've ever had on an oval. Handling was still there, just no speed."

With misfortunes falling on his main rival, Franchitti executed one of the more miraculous track position improvements of the year as he stayed out two laps longer than Power and went from eighth to owning the lead after the first round of pit stops were completed.

Franchitti would lead the race with some combination of Graham Rahal, Scott Dixon, JR Hildebrand, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe and Ed Carpenter in tow until pit lane claimed a few drivers and caused great pain to at least one crew member starting on Lap 137.

An overheating clutch gave Simona de Silvestro fits as she pulled away from her pit stall, and with the clutch initially slipping, it grabbed hard and turned her left into the stall of E.J. Viso's KV Racing team.

Viso's crew chief, DJ McMahon, who was standing in the box waiting for his driver, was sent flying by the sideways de Silvestro, and Viso's two new right-side Firestone tires were sent into the infield grass, bringing out a caution for their retrieval.

"When I took off, the engine went crazy," she said. "I have to apologize to the KV guys. I'm really sorry for the KV crew."

Eric Scheumann is looked after by the Panther Racing crew after he suffered a lower leg injury. (LAT)

McMahon was eventually diagnosed with a fractured knee, but his spill was about to look tame compared to what was going on elsewhere in the pits.

In a similar, but higher speed repeat of the Beatriz/Power contact, Marco Andretti hit and spun Alex Lloyd as Andretti launched from his pit stall and Lloyd was attempting to turn into his box.

Andretti, who continues to surprise in 2011 with a far more mature approach to his craft, took the blame for the incident after his father, team owner Michael Andretti, clarified the situation for his son.

"They were coming in and I was going out. It was my fault because I bogged coming out of the pit box."

The damage to both cars was too much for either driver to continue. After running as high as second, it was a major blow for Andretti.

The third mistake on pit lane during the same period pinned the right leg of Eric Scheumann, Panther Racing's left rear tire changer, to the wall, requiring an emergency medical team to descend immediately.

Rookie JR Hildebrand, who started fifth and also challenged for the lead, locked up his brakes and skidded into his pit box. After the nose of the 1700-pound car struck Scheumann and came to a rest, Hildebrand had to be pushed back while Scheumann was tended to.

The No. 4 was serviced once Scheumann was lifted over the wall, but a subsequent stop to replace his damaged nose took quite some time and put Hildebrand down a lap.

PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Kentucky Race 2011