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MILLER: A Costly Crashfest
The caution-filled Richmond race ran teams as much as $2m in crash damage, SPEED’s Robin Miller has found out…
Robin Miller  |  Posted July 03, 2008   Indianapolis, Ind.

Last Saturday night's demo derby at Richmond not only gave Indy-car racing a black eye on national television, it also put a big hurt on several teams.

Like somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million worth of damage in a little over two hours.

"I told Jimmy (Vasser) that I would bet him there was more damage inflicted in that one race than there was in the entire Champ Car series last year," said Mark Johnson, general manager for KV Racing, which Vasser co-owns with Kevin Kalkhoven.

"We'd been pretty lucky up until Richmond, just three relatively minor accidents until the last one. It was big."

From the time Will Power walloped the front-stretch wall on Lap 9 to the last hit by Jaime Camara on Lap 218, it was a non-stop display of poor judgment and amateur driving from a group that had put on such a good show the week before in Iowa.

Over a third of the 300 laps (102) were run under caution and the only happy face afterwards, besides Tony Kanaan, were the boys in the Dallara parts truck.

"That was embarrassing," declared Darren Manning in the most honest statement of the evening. "We can't have people driving like that because it's costly in so many ways."

And, did we mention, it was expensive?

Here's a little box score of this eyesore.

CONQUEST RACING: Rookie Camara led 44 laps and was running second before losing control and hitting the front stretch wall. Teammate Enrique Bernoldi crashed during Friday practice. "Both crashes totaled about $250,000," said owner Eric Bachelart. "We came back home with only one gearbox but my guys worked hard Monday and Tuesday and both cars are on their way to Watkins Glen."

DALE COYNE: A double whammy for DC as Bruno Junqueira and rookie Mario Moraes both ended up on the hook with major damage after separate crashes. "Brunos's car was a $400,000 hit at Iowa because it broke the gearbox, engine and tub but his Richmond crash wasn't quite as bad," said Coyne. Junky still lost three of four corners while Moraes mangled his car. It was about a $400,000 night.
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