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A Strange Day At Watkins Glen
By Andrew Cutler July 7 2008
With the possible exception of Tony Kanaan, the events of Sunday's IndyCar race at Watkins Glen were NOT what any of the championship points leaders needed. The problems started on the opening lap and, by race's end, bad luck had bitten five of the top six in points.

Dan Wheldon was the first to come to grief, suffering a suspension failure on the opening lap. A little later on it was Helio Castroneves' turn as his transmission & electrical systems went haywire. Danica Patrick fell victim to her own competitive nature by charging a bit too hard out of her pit box on cold tires, looping her car and crashing into Scott Dixon's pit area.

Finally, Scott Dixon threw away a shot a another win in the closing laps when he spun out on-track under yellow while trying to keep his tires up to temperature. The incident also collected polesitter and early race leader Ryan Briscoe, who had no chance to evade spearing Dixon's car from behind. Like Danica, both drivers were able to fix their damage and continue on, but would not be a factor for the rest of the day.

"I feel bad. I was a complete idiot," said Dixon afterwards. "My guys lost very valuable points today. It seems like a lot of people have been having a bad day. I still can't believe I did it."

As the laps wound down, Darren Manning and Ryan Hunter-Reay found themselves at the head of the pack. Ryan easily passed Darren on the final restart, and then crusied home to his first IndyCar Series victory. "I just got a good run on Darren, stuffed it down in there, and said I'll deal with it when it happens," Hunter-Reay said. "Then I got to the top of the hill, Darren popped to the outside so I stuck to the inside and we held on to it from there."

Manning held on for a career-best second place finish, and Tony Kanaan cut into Dixon's championship points lead by finishing in third.

Here are the complete race results:

http://www.indycar.com/stats/boxscores/2008/watkinsglen_07062008.pdf

On Saturday, the Firestone Indy Lights Series held two races at Watkins Glen, with Rapheal Matos & Richard Antinucci finishing 1-2 in the first event, then reversing their order in the the second. Antinucci retains a 27 point lead over Matos for the series championship.   

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