Sunday,
May 28,
The Fairy Tale Andretti
Indy 500 - Almost !!!!!!
The
ANNOTICO Report
Rookie
19 yr old Marco Andretti, and his 43 yr old dad
Michael Andretti were front row players in one of the
closest finishes, and one of the most exciting races in Indy History.
Both
Marco and Michael were among the top ten from the very beginning and slowly
inched their way toward the front during the 200 lap race.
With
about 10 Laps to go, It was like a Fairy Tale, the Father Michael, who holds
the record for the most leading laps without winning, and who came out of
a two year retirement, just to race with his son, was in First Place, with his
son behind in Second.
This
was the Fairy Tale. This was the Dream. That would have sent the already
delirious crowd into a frenzy.
But
then Sam Hornish started pressing Marco, who was
forced to pass his dad, Michael.
OK, so
it would be Marco the Rookie Winning, and poor
dad in Second, (STILL Not yet winning his First.)
Well
that's pretty sensational, and I could deal with that, BUT Hornish
then first passed dad Michael who dropped to third, and after dueling with Marco,
through several turns, Hornish used the
"drafting and sling shot maneuver" to eek out a 1 1/2 car length
victory.
Both
the Crowd and the Three Generations of Andrettis were
Disappointed with what Could Have Been, But Excited by
What Was!!!!!
In
my Report yesterday, I said: "Barring injury, and regardless of the
results, it will be a Proud Andretti Day!!!!"
With
a Second & Third by Son and Dad, it WAS a
Momentous Andretti Day!!!!!!
HORNISH SPRINTS TO
THRILLING INDY 500 WIN
By
Mike Harris
(AP
Auto Racing Writer)
From
Associated Press
May
28, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS -
This was exactly what Michael and Marco Andretti had
talked about: down to the end of the Indy 500, father and son running 1-2.
"A fairy
tale," they called it, and they were sure it was coming true Sunday. Sam Hornish Jr. thought so, too.
Then, with one
dazzling last-second move, Hornish whipped around the
19-year-old rookie on the final straightaway and won the second-closest Indy
ever, by .0635 seconds, a little more than a car length.
Michael Andretti, who came out of retirement at age 43 to race with
his son for another try at racing's biggest prize, was third, 1.0087 seconds
back.
A happy ending at
last for Hornish, who's had his own run of bad luck
here, but just another chapter in the Andretti
family's hard-luck drama that dates back nearly four decades.
"Second
place is nothing," Marco said. "They don't remember people who finish
second here. They really don't. You gotta take
advantage of every shot. How many times did my dad finish second? He never won
it and neither did I."
Hornish overcame a disastrous
mistake to finally win Indy in his seventh try: Late in the race, he left his
pit with the fuel hose still connected, and the ensuing penalty put him down a
lap. But his team stayed cool, and Hornish found
himself trailing only the Andrettis and Scott Dixon
when the green flew with four laps to go.
The newest Andretti at the Brickyard had brought the crowd to its feet
by passing his father for the lead with three laps to go. Hornish
followed and took aim at the kid, second-youngest ever to drive at Indy.
Hornish tried to dive inside on
the third turn of the next-to-last lap and the two almost collided, forcing Hornish to fall several car lengths back.
He figured that
was his last chance.
"Thank
goodness," he said, "it's 500 instead of 497
1/2."
Marco thought so,
too.
"I thought I
had won it," he admitted.
But Hornish, who failed to finish his six previous Indys, mounted one final charge.
He caught up on
the final lap, and Andretti, in only his fourth IRL IndyCar Series start, couldn't hold on.
"I think I
could have moved to the inside, but at that time he would have already made his
move and it would have been a big one," Andretti
said. "I wouldn't have done anything different except for coming off the
last corner. ... He just had that speed and I don't know where it came
from."
Hornish swung low,
pulled alongside and nosed ahead at the checkered flag. In 90 runnings of the Indianapolis 500, the only closer finish
was in 1992, when Al Unser Jr. beat Scott Goodyear by
0.043 seconds.
Hornish's mistake in the pits might
have cost him a shot at the victory if his team had panicked - but Hornish drives for Marlboro Team Penske,
the most successful in the sport's history.
"I said `Go!
Go! Go!' and the fuel probe wasn't completely
out," said Roger Penske, who now owns 14 Indy
victories, nine more than anyone else. "That was my mistake. But instead
of everybody falling over and folding their tent, we said, `What can we do
now?'"
What they did was
use the penalty - a green-flag drive through the pits on lap 163 - to add a few
gallons of fuel for an all-out run to the finish.
Asked what he was
thinking when he saw the hose tearing off the car, Hornish
said: "Probably the first thing that came to my head is, 'I can't believe
this is happening.' The second thing that came to my head is, 'The last two
years I put the car into the wall, so I better shut up and not say
anything.'"
After he won, a
choked-up Hornish lay on the track and kissed the
yard of bricks at the finish line.
"I keep
getting emotional about it," Hornish said.
"I got to try to figure out how to get through all this stuff without
starting to cry and not be able to talk. I don't think I'll ever be able to
fully appreciate what it means or be able to put into words what it means to
me."
Despite the
thrilling finish that introduced Marco Andretti as
perhaps the sport's newest young star, the third-generation driver wasn't
satisfied with second place.
"Man, I
don't want to wait for next year," he said. "It's a bummer. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I mean,
second place is nothing."
Michael and Marco
- who's only had his driver's license for a few years
now - hooked up early and stayed close to each other almost all day, often
nose-to-tail and rarely with more than a car or two in between.
Michael Andretti was obviously proud of his son.
"I just knew
he was going to surprise a lot of people," Michael said. "He didn't
surprise me. I was just a little surprised by how fast he got here."
It was one of the
hottest days in Indy history, with the temperature reaching 89 degrees, and the
action on the track was just as heated.
Defending
champion Dan Wheldon dominated most of the race,
leading 87 of the first 100 laps and 148 overall, but a tire puncture forced
him to pit earlier than planned.
Wheldon wound up fourth, followed
by Tony Kanaan, Dixon, Dario Franchitti
and last year's rookie sensation, Danica Patrick, the
only woman in the 33-car field.
Patrick ran a
strong, clean race, despite struggling all month to find speed. She started
10th and moved up as high as fifth before falling back when she was caught in
the pits on a yellow flag.
"I should be
happy, right?" said Patrick, who clearly wasn't. "I didn't stall, I
didn't spin, I didn't do anything stupid."
Michael Andretti led four laps, taking over when teammates Kanaan and Franchitti pitted on
lap 193. But he would only add to the dubious distinction as the driver who's
led more laps here than any other non-winner - 430 - and he was pretty sure he
wouldn't win this time, either.
"I knew I
didn't have the speed and I saw Marco making a run at me," he said.
"I started to move over to do a little block, but he was really moving and
I decided to let him go. I thought I could help him out by blocking Hornish a little, but he got by me a little too
quick."
Hornish, who was fastest here all
month and easily took the pole, led only 19 laps.
At that moment,
Michael Andretti, about a third of the straightaway
behind the leaders at the finish, thought for a moment that his son had won.
"I really
put my hand in the air, thinking he won the race," Michael said. "I
couldn't believe it. It's like - where did Hornish
get that speed? It's like he had a button in there to push.
"It's a heartbreak, another one," he said. "But in a
couple of days, I'll probably sit back and think, `Oh Wow!' I thought he had
won. It was a fairy tale, a dream."
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