Sam Hornish, Jr., survived a lap 198 restart to
win the XM Satellite Radio Indy 200 at Phoenix International Raceway
source:
irl.racing-live.com
Dario Franchitti chased Hornish into turn one as the field returned to green
but he was unable to keep his car on the bottom of the race track as he slid
high through turn two eventually losing positions to both Helio Castroneves and
Tony Kanaan.
"I came off the last restart and tried to make a move around (Sam) Hornish Jr.
on the high side and just got up into the marbles and brushed the wall," said
Franchitti. "I was going for the win and we ended up fourth."
Franchitti was strong throughout the race and set the event's fastest lap on the
188th circuit at 170.720 mph.
"We were going for it," said Kyle Moyer, team manager for Franchitti. "We didn't
come here to run second."
Despite having the fastest racecar, Franchitti was unable to overcome the Team
Penske decision to take only fuel on Hornish's lap 187 pit stop. Spending just
4.7 seconds stopped on pit lane would gain Hornish important track position over
Franchitti who took 7.2 seconds to get both tires and fuel on lap 179.
"These cars have good enough mirrors on them that you can see quite a bit,"
said Hornish who saw Dario charging back late in the race. "I knew he was going
to be a lot better when we were running 65-lap tires and he was running 10- lap
tires."