Stoneman Wins Freedom 100 For Indy Sweep
- Updated: May 27, 2016
In a finish reminiscent of the four-wide thriller from three years ago, cancer-survivor Dean Stoneman edged pole-winner Ed Jones by 0.0024 sec to capture the Freedom 100 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper race Friday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Stoneman, from Southhampton, England, started fifth, stayed in the top-five throughout the 40-lap race on the 2.5-mile oval, and made his move on a green/white one-lap restart after the final caution.
“On that last lap it was close. But I got hit on the restart; the car behind me caught my left rear,” Stoneman said. “I knew I had him (Jones). It’s so hard to get a jump on the restart when you’re leading and breaking through the air, the other cars behind have an advantage.
“I was hoping we could finish under the yellow because it would have been a relief.”
But the winner of a race here earlier in the month at the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the road course did have the advantage over a disappointed runner-up who may have played the run to the finish too conservative.
“At the moment it’s going to take me a few days to get over that. Obviously, I want a chance for the win, but I wasn’t going to take too many unnecessary risks,” explained Jones who also won a road course race here earlier in the month. “Because how things fell in that last lap after the safety car, I managed to get a good run and I took the lead.”
But a side-by-side sprint to the flag off Turn 4 saw Stoneman edge the 21-year-old UAE native in a photo-finish that only slow-motion TV replays could see.
Dalton Kellettt avoided the last lap dash and finished third after starting near the back of the 16-car field. “We started 14th; I got started on points and was able to make my way through the field. Starting back there was a silver lining when it came down to the last couple laps. I had already made a bunch of passes so I knew how to set everyone up and get my runs off the corner,” Kellett said, smiling to have gotten a podium finish.
The winner led twice for 30 of the 40 laps while Jones led ten. Four caution periods for ten laps slowed the field to an average race speed of 140.830 mph, but the final yellow on lap 36 may have setup that one-lap dash for the win.
The field was set by points as rain washed out qualifying.
The finish was 0.0002 sec closer than that infamous four-wide record win by Patrick Dempsey back in 2013.
Stoneman reportedly signed a contract with his Andretti Autosport perhaps to move to Indy Car in the future.
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.”
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