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2005 INDYCAR IRL - KANSAS

2005 INDYCAR - R7, July 3, 2005 Kansas Speedway, Kansas City

• COURSE:
• 1 1/2 mile tri oval
• Race: 200 laps
• 2004 KANSAS RESULT
  1 Buddy Rice
  2 Vitor Meira,
  3 Tony Kanaan
  4 Dario Franchitti
  5 Bryan Herta
  6 Adrian Fernandez

CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER, DAN WHELDON, BEFORE RACE: "I'm looking forward to going to Kansas and getting back into victory lane."

RACE RESULT

• 1 Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing)
  "I like that, racing like that with my teammate. I knew he was going to race me clean and it was good racing between us. It’s been a long time since Nashville last year, so we needed this. I’m happy for the team, and happy for Dan. We are a solid first and second in the championship, and that’s what we need. This team needs to win the championship again. I had a good race car, I just couldn’t find the speed we needed in qualifying. We worked on race setup during the first two practice sessions yesterday, so I knew I’d have a good car for the race, and that’s the way it turned out."
• 2 Dan Wheldon (Andretti Green Racing)
  "We didn’t have the fastest car out there today, so to lead the most laps and finish second to my teammate is pretty good. But we still need to work on our superspeedway setup. The car was very consistent throughout the race, and I was pushing every button I had in the cockpit trying to make it faster, but we still weren’t as quick as some of the other guys out there, especially in clean air. I can’t be too grumpy, but I want to win races and to come up just twelve-thousandths of a second short is pretty frustrating."
• 3 Vitor Meira (Rahal Letterman Racing)
  "My crew was awesome today. They picked up two or three spots on the last pit stop and that put me right up with Dan (Wheldon). Tony was able to get around to the high side; that was his big break. I now know how he felt last year when Buddy [Rice] and I were side-by-side. There was just no place to make a pass. The high side of the track was working when you were in traffic, but at the end and by myself I couldn’t make it stick. I have lost the last two races [at Kansas] by about four feet and under three-hundredths of a second. Man, that is pretty close. I would like to win one of these (races) pretty soon."
• 4 Dario Franchitti (Andretti Green Racing)
• 5 Tomas Scheckter (Panther Racing)
• 6 Scott Sharp (Delphi Fernandez))
• 7 Darren Manning (Target Chip Ganassi Racing
• 8 Helio Castroneves (Marlboro Team Penske)
• 9 Danica Patrick-R (Rahal Letterman Racing) *started from pole*
  "Fifth gear was a bit too long for the conditions today, and I got dropped back pretty badly at the start and couldn’t fight back. Then we had an electronics problem and had to turn the traction control off, and we lost time at every pit stop as a result. I think I was running 15th at one point today, so to come back and finish ninth is pretty good. It seemed like I was fighting for position throughout the whole race, so I learned a lot about establishing a ‘comfort zone’ alongside someone and a lot more about side-by-side racing in general."
• 10 Buddy Rice (Rahal Letterman Racing)
• 11 Tomas Enge-R (Panther Racing)
• 12 Sam Hornish Jr. (Marlboro Team Penske)

ANDRETTI GREEN RACE REPORT

KANAAN AND TEAM 7-ELEVEN TAKE NARROW VICTORY AT KANSAS

• KANSAS CITY, Kan. (July 3, 2005) - Team 7-Eleven driver Tony Kanaan edged teammate Dan Wheldon for the victory Sunday at the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series Argent Mortgage Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway. The defending IndyCar Series champion nipped Wheldon by just 0.0120 of a second in the sixth-closest finish in series history.
• Starting from the eighth position, Kanaan quickly moved towards the front of the field, battling with teammates Dario Franchitti and Wheldon as well as Tomas Scheckter and Vitor Meira for virtually the entire 200 laps of the event. Making a final green flag pit stop on lap 192, taking on just enough methanol to make it to the finish, Kanaan rejoined the race in fourth place. As first Meira, then Buddy Rice made their final stops, Kanaan was left to battle Wheldon to the finish. The two raced side-by-side with Kanaan taking the high line, for the final four laps with the Team 7-Eleven driver taking the victory by 36 inches at the line.
• Kanaan earned his first victory of the season, followed by Wheldon, Meira in third, Franchitti fourth and Scheckter in fifth place.
• Through eight events, Kanaan resides second in the driver point standings with 259 points, 76 shy of Wheldon.

HONDA RACE REPORT:

Kanaan Leads Honda Sweep in Kansas

• In the sixth-closest finish in Indy Racing League history, defending series champion Tony Kanaan held off teammate Dan Wheldon by just twelve-thousandths of a second for his first – and Honda’s fifth – IndyCar Series victory of 2005 Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
• Wheldon, the runaway championship leader with four wins this season, led the most laps in the Argent Mortgage Indy 300, taking over for the final time on Lap 197 as Buddy Rice made a late stop for a splash of fuel. But using the faster outside line, Kanaan was able to edge past Wheldon one lap later and hold on for his fourth career IndyCar win.
• Rahal Letterman Racing’s Vitor Meira, who finished second here last year to teammate Rice by just five-thousandths of a second, went down to the track apron to make it a “three-wide” finish, but once again came up just short, this time taking the checker in third place, another twelve-thousandths behind Wheldon. In another strong run, Dario Franchitti finished fourth after spending the entire race as part of the lead pack, making it a 1-2-3-4 sweep for Honda.
• Scott Sharp struggled early with the handling, but his Delphi Fernandez Racing team improved his car at every pit stop. Sharp responded by moving up through the field to finish sixth, his fourth top-six result of the season. Pole qualifier Danica Patrick fell back at the start, but also had a strong second half of the race to finish ninth. Next was Rice, her Rahal Letterman Racing teammate, who tried to stretch his fuel mileage into a race win, but was forced to stop for a splash of fuel on Lap 197, dropping him to tenth.
• Bryan Herta struggled to a 15th-place finish, still on the lead lap but out of touch with the front pack. Kosuke Matsuura dropped out of the race on Lap 134 with mechanical problems, while Roger Yasukawa crashed out of the contest, without injury, on Lap 53.

QUALIFYING

GRID

• 1 Danica Patrick , 25.491s
• 2 Buddy Rice +0.002s
  "Any 1.5-mile oval we go to we're strong at. With three cars now we've got that much more info. Our cars excel on this kind of track and we know we're going to run strong"
• 3 Vitor Meira +0.014
  "I know we've got good cars for the race. It's not a bad thing for all three cars to start up front."
• 4 Tomas Scheckter
  "The team did a great job and I'll be happy to be in the top 8-10"
• 5 Darren Manning
  "You always put more on the line for qualifying and taking the green the second time by put a little less push in the car. I couldn't do anything better"
• 6 Dario Franchitti
• 7 Scott Dixon
• 8 Tony Kanaan
• 9 Scott Sharp
• 10 Sam Hornish Jr.
• 11 Briscoe 12 Enge 13 Wheldon 14 Castroneves 15 Matsuura
• 16 Herta 17 Yasukawa 18 Barron 19 Carpenter 20 Carpentier
• 21 Kite 22 Foyt IV

RACE PREVIEW

• WHELDON: "I did what I had to do in Richmond by scoring some good points in the championship after Tony (Kanaan) and Sam (Hornish Jr.) fell out. Kansas is obviously a track where you have to be quick if you want to win the race. So far, the Klein Tools/Jim Beam team has had quite a bit of success on tracks where we've needed to be quick to contend, so I'm looking forward to going to Kansas and getting back into victory lane."
• KANNAN: ""Team 7-Eleven has had good results in Kansas; we've finished in the top five at Kansas in each of the past two years. We're second in points right now, so we'll be looking to finish strong and put a bit of a gap between ourselves and the others. Let's hope we've put all our bad results behind us and we can start some new streaks beginning this weekend."
• PATRICK: "To be honest I am pretty happy to be going back to the big tracks where I have more experience and as a team we have had a lot more success. We always knew that Texas and Richmond would be two of the toughest races of the season, because I simply didn't have any kind of experience on those kind of tracks. I am a rookie and as a rookie I am going to have some very good weeks and some weeks that aren't so good. Bobby told me at the start of the season the most important thing I could do this year was finish races and gain experience."
• RICE: "I am glad we can follow up a race like Richmond with a race like Kansas. We had a lot of success on the big tracks last year and I am hoping we can jump start our season with a couple of strong races. Nothing has changed in our approach, it just seems we can't catch a break for the No. 15 Argent/Pioneer car. It is only a matter of time until things start to go our way. I think we had some momentum heading into Indy after we had a strong race in Japan. The injury certainly curtailed any positive momentum and we have been fighting to get back on track since."
• MEIRA: "It will be important for us to bounce back at Kansas and have a big race. We lost some ground in the championship and as we saw with Buddy last year those DNF results can really hurt you late in the season. Fortunately it is still pretty early in the season and we have a lot of races left. Still we can't afford to let the leaders get too far in front."
• FRANCHITTI: "I enjoy racing at Kansas. Last year we started at the back, but raced to the front and finished right up there. At those types of tracks you have to have the car set up just right or there's not much you can do. Hopefully we (AGR) will do better than we did at Texas and will run the way we did at Homestead. We really did things right at Homestead, which is another 1.5 mile track. Plus, Kansas is a two-day race weekend and those are always a bit frantic, but I'm looking forward to it."
• SCHEKTER: "Kansas is another track I really enjoy on this schedule, and everybody at Panther is pretty excited about the success we've had the last two weeks. The Pennzoil team was strong here last year until we ran out of fuel while running up front. I think Chevrolet has brought us another strong engine, and the last time we were in the Pennzoil Platinum car we ended up in victory lane. So, for sure, we're trying to ride that momentum into another race weekend."
• ENGE: "I am going to another new track for me but I have heard that it is similar to Chicago where I did my rookie test last year. Richmond was also a new one for me and I would say it is more difficult from the driving point of view. However, every oval is unique because you have different radius or banking of the corners. I definitely want to build on our performances from the recent races where we were among the quickest. It is much easier for me to adapt to the oval right know because I have got more experience and also there is better understanding within the team, so we are able to tune the car quicker. Both the RockStar crew and Chevy have been doing a great job and I do not see a reason why we should not fight in front at Kansas Speedway."