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Briscoe Nips Carpenter In Exciting Kentucky IndyCar Race

Sparta, KY (August 1, 2009) – Ryan Briscoe spoiled the party. Ed Carpenter’s coming out party that is. This is Briscoe’s first win at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, his first on an oval since his Milwaukee Mile win last year. However, Carpenter may seek consolation by earning his career best finish by coming in second place in the Meijer Indy 300.

Many in the paddock will admit the last several races on ovals and even some road courses have been stinkers. Thus, many were hoping that a new rules package in place for tonight’s race would improve racing. It certainly did. Fans tonight saw great side-by-side racing as well as great fights for the lead. The Briscoe-Carpenter fight till the finish line is easily the best conclusion to a race this year.

Hardluck, Tony Kanaan rebounded from his scary pit lane fire in Edmonton last week to place third in the Andretti-Green Team 7-Eleven car. Kanaan said after the race, “It was a great race tonight and I’ll take third place any time after not finishing so many races. I’m extremely happy. The last time I was on the podium was April. We took a few months off and now we’ll start again.” He added in the press room, “The last two months was not fun. It has to be fun again, otherwise there is no use to do it (race).”

The final margin of victory was .0162 of a second, the 11th-closest finish in series history. Briscoe’s average speed of 200.893 mph was the second-fastest race in series history. Several key changes were made to the Indy Car itself. The changes included, re-legalizing parts which were previously banned several years ago. Teams can now use wheel rim backing plates. These were not legal at speedways – but were required at short ovals. The changes the IRL has made both increase downforce and reduce drag. Also added were rear tire ramps and sidepod extensions. The added downforce, gave the driver more comfort in traffic, which is what the IRL wants to achieve. Honda added additional functionality to the overtake button. This device provides brief bursts of additional horsepower (approx 5hp) and about 200 RPMs. After you use the button, there is a period of time where you cannot use the button. The driver needs to be smart about when to use the pass button because you only get 20 shots of it for duration of 12 seconds. And once you use a shot, you have to wait a bit (10 seconds) before your next one. So far it looks like it works as Kanaan attested to, “I got to thank the (Indy Racing) League, Brian Barnhart and all the officials and the guys that came up with this package, and for the push to pass, and Firestone did a great job to. I can still hear the fans, so I want to thank them for coming. The old IRL is back. We’ll have some exciting races on the superspeedways again.” Carpenter added, “It helps with the series listens to the fans and the teams and makes the changes. This was the most comfortable I felt in traffic in a long time.” Both drivers believed taking the wicker bill out of the rear wing helped too. Drivers were able to come in tight behind the car in front, whereas in the recent past the car would get very unstable.

Briscoe’s teammate, Helio Castroneves finished fourth as Graham Rahal finished fifth in the Newman-Haas-Lanigan McDonald’s car. Castroneves tried to assist his teammate at the finish but ran into problems, Helio said, “It was incredible. I got a little greedy towards the end, tried to help my teammate so we could do a 1-2 finish and man, I went way high and then I started coming back again and it was awesome, awesome. I had a lot of fun.” (You weren’t trying to get around Briscoe, you were just going to push him to the win?): “I was just pushing him so he could be over Ed and then I would be on the outside and it would be a fantastic finish. I still had, push to pass, quite a lot left.”

Rahal was equally excited with his top-5 finish and participating in such an exciting race, “I just don’t think that oval racing can get any more exciting than that. The McDonald’s car was really good tonight. And if people aren’t impressed with that race I don’t know what will impress them. Chicago will be better because you can run three wide but the amount that we ran three wide in the last two stints of this race I think I passed more guys – both ways, forward and back – than I have in my whole oval racing career so I think that says a lot. The cars were very comfortable to run side by side so I think they’ve done a very good job with the technical changes. People can say what they want about Push to Pass but I was on it the last 10 laps and I came from a second back of those guys to get past the Ganassi guys so I would have to say that it works somewhat. They were dicing it out up front but certainly the McDonald’s car was very good tonight and when we were on the button we were catching up so it works.”

Briscoe said after his win, “Now I know how Sam Hornish Jr., used to feel when he would win all of those races on the outside. I’m pretty happy to get another one for Team Penske. I just wanted to keep doing what I had been doing. Ed (Carpenter) would get a little bit in front of me in the middle of Turns 3 and 4 but with my momentum on the outside I was able to edge him down the backstraight. I would time my push to pass button so I would get the extra power through Turns 3 and 4. It was getting tougher and tougher, and I was just jumping in my seat trying to get in front of him across the finish line. It just worked out perfectly.”

Notes – The Team Penske crew members went to the Vision Team’s pit before going to victory lane to congratulate the crew. This is Team Penske’s second win at Kentucky as Sam Hornish won in 2006. This is Briscoe’s second win this year (won at St. Pete) and his fourth IndyCar Series victory in 48 starts.

Spoke to Dan Wheldon before the race and he is still nursing a sore wrist from his Edmonton crash last week. Two-time World Champion driver Sir Jackie Stewart was a guest of Roger Penske for the race. “He’s been a great friend of mine for many years but I don’t often get to motor races like this,” he said. “We get (the IndyCar Series) on television (in Scotland) so I’m pretty close to it.” Stewart, who posted 27 Formula One victories from 1965-73, competed in the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 and ’67.

The flyover after the national anthem was spectacular. The AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship came real low over the grandstands from behind the fans. It proceeded to fly around the track and ‘crab’ sideways along the front straightaway facing the crowd. As the gunner looked around the helicopter’s 30 mm automatic M230 Chain Gun moved with the gunner’s Helmet mounted display. The crowd loved it as flashes from camera flickered across the grandstands.

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