IndyCar Finale – Fontana Preview

Will Power is looking to wrap up his first Verizon IndyCar Series championship.  [John Wiedemann Photo]

The battle for the Verizon IndyCar Series championship will be settled Saturday at the MAVTV 500 in Fontana, California, but what looks like a lock for point’s leader Will Power could prove to be a bit more challenging than the Aussie would like.

The 33-year-old Power, who has led Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Helio Castroneves in the title chase since the MidOhio round four weeks ago, has been in this position before. He has gone into the season’s finale in the top spot three times (2010, 2011 and 2012), but has failed to win the title each time.

With Power leading Castroneves by 51 points as they head to the double-point’s race at the Auto Club Speedway’s high-speed, two-mile, D-shaped oval, memories of last Sunday’s Sonoma road course race must be fresh in their minds.

Power spun on cold tires after a restart midway through the event, lost eight positions, but recovered to finish tenth on fresh tires.

Castroneves was involved in two incidents, one involving multi-car contact, soldiered on, and finally finished 18^th.

Power did maintain his lead in the title chase, but what if those kind of things happen to the pair at a place like Fontana?

Crashing at 200 mph usually has greater consequences than it does at a road course, and spinning on cold tires is a driver error that could spell an end to any title hopes.

There are five drivers mathematically eligible for the title, but once Power starts the race Saturday, Ryan Hunter-Reay and 2013 Verizon champion Scott Dixon will be eliminated.

Enter Simon Pagenaud, who is aware that the Indy car title has been decided at the final race in each of the past nine years.

The French driver is third, 81 points behind the leader after finishing third at Sonoma.  But Fontana isn’t Sonoma, and the Schmidt Peterson Hamilton-Honda driver is more of a road racer than he is an oval master.

All of this may be a moot point however, as Power needs only a sixth-place finish to secure his first title.

But mechanical trouble, poor handling, crashes or ?? could hold the key to who will come home the champion.

“We maintained the points lead (after Sonoma), and we’re going to Fontana. I’ve got to focus on the job at hand and get the most out of every situation,” explained Power, who hopes those “situations” won’t dash his title hopes for a fourth time.

Stay tuned.

MAVTV 500 NOTES:

• Power and Dario Franchitti are the only two drivers to win from the pole at Fontana.
• This will be the 13^th Indy car race held here since the inaugural event in 1997; CART (1997-2002) and IRL/IndyCar (2002-2005 & 2012-2014).
• Power and Ed Carpenter are the only previous Fontana winners entered.
• No current IndyCar team has more than one win here.
• This will be the last chance for drivers Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Tony Kanaan, Carlos Munoz and Graham Rahal to grab a win this season. Hinchcliffe visited victory lane three times in 2013 and Kanaan won once.
• CART driver Gil de Ferran holds the all-time qualifying record here at 241.428 mph (2000). Castroneves holds the IRL/IndyCar record at 226.757mph (2003).  Friday’s qualifying will be two-laps, total time.
• This is the sixth year in a row that a Team Penske driver is eligible for the title going into the final race.
• TV: Race, Saturday, NBCSN, 9:00pm ET / Qualifying, Friday, 7:00pm ET (taped).
• Radio: IMS Radio Network, Sirius 213/XM 209.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

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