The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 16

Page 2C Monday, June 25, 2007 The Des Moines Register Final IOWA CORN INDY 250 i A- THUMBS UP The weather The sweltering weather forecast never materialized, so it was comfortable for fans. Safer barriers jry XlUk TUBE TALK Nationwide audience sees Iowa, 'crashfest' 3 i II rrrn -ti" JOHN GAPS HITHE REGISTER Dario Franchitti (27) comes to the finish line ahead of Marco Andretti (26) to win the Iowa Corn Indy 250 race at the Iowa Speedway in Newton on Sunday. The race, the inaugural IndyCar event in Iowa, drew 35,838 fans. Sun shines on Franchitti in IndyCar curtain-raiser KEY MOMENT: The cushioned walls, built into Iowa Speedway, absorbed a crash with Dan Wheldon and Tomas Scheckter on lap 1 and a tie-up between Tony Kanaan and Jeff Simmons on lap 85. Excitement Who would have thought the crowds and noise generated Sunday were in Newton's future a handful of years ago? Health There was only one incident involving fans that concerned officials.

A fan in the grandstand was transported by ambulance to Skiff Medical Center in Newton for chest pains and shortness of breath, but was OK. THUMBS DOWN The weather Warmer temperatures would have made the track more slick, created more action and amped up late race strategy. Getting in One of the downfalls of the track location for a big event was illustrated by the hours-long, stop-and-go situations fans experienced at the first Newton exit. Phones Few, if any, could receive or make cell phone calls for hours. CABLE GUYS Television show stars appear at race The fullest press conference this weekend materialized for the cable TV stars of Orange County Choppers, who were there to promote an E85 Iowa Farm Bureau chopper they built for the race.

When Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Jr. left the media center, a mob of nearly 30 followed. Thirty seconds behind them, presidential candidate Sam Brownback walked down the same sidewalk with five people. Bryce Miller PIT STOPS Joy ride for Harkin Tom Harkin received the ride of his life Sunday morning.

g. The senator toured 'if" the Iowa Speedway track in one of the pace cars used for I Sunday's Iowa Corn 'i Indy 250 race. 1 "You feel all of uic u-iuiuea dllU VVG were only going along around 100 mph," Harkin lllllll M.Jll. II 'f AM fifth finish, as did Buddy Rice, who took fourth. Franchitti said a return visit to Iowa will likely send Indy Racing League officials and Firestone tire experts back to the tweaking board.

Pole-sitter Scott Dixon of Target Chip Ganassi Racing set the day's problematic tone by having to pit on lap 13 because of steering problems. He ended up 10th and had plenty of miserable company. Other than Franchitti, Sharp was the only top 10-ranked driver in points entering Sunday to finish on the lead lap. Team Penske's Helio Cas-troneves went into the pits on lap 71 as the leader, but spun out when exiting, prompting a caution, and dooming him to eighth. "It was weird what happened," said Castroneves, a two-time Indy 500 winner.

"The track was very slippery and there was no grip." Franchitti gripped the winner's trophy and pocketed $1 15,800 in earnings while reveling beneath Iowa's unexpectedly dense cloud cover. "That's always cool," Franchitti said. "It's great to win anywhere, but to be the first person to win at a track feels good." Crash on lap 99 JOHN GAPS HITHE REGISTER nearly impossible. "I don't think you can go two-wide around here," said Darren Manning, who nonetheless posted a season-best on turn 4 out the on lap 143 HOW it Started: Ed Carpenter (20), Danica Patrick (7), A.J. Foyt IV (22) and Dario Franchitti (27) go four-wide into turn 1 on a lap 99 restart.

What happened: Carpenter and Patrick make contact, with Patrick hitting the wall and Carpenter spinning. The crash also collects three-time series champion Sam Hornish Foyt and Kosuke Matsuura. End result: Franchitti zips past unscathed on the high side and eventually wins the race. Scott Sharp narrowly avoids Carpenter on the low side and eventually finishes in sixth place. FRANCHITTI, from PageIC the middle of the incident.

"It sucks." The pile-up caused the next 21 laps to be run under caution, but just 12 of the ensuing 130 circuits unfolded under the yellow flag. "(It) was definitely a game of survival," said Andretti, who averted a DNF for the first time on an oval in seven tries this season. "I said to Dario, this is just what he needed for points. "He said, this is just what I needed, too I just needed to finish, man. I'm happy to be second, of course, but no confidence lost here, for sure." Scott Sharp of Rahal Letter-man Racing snared a season-best third in a race that featured the 17th-closest finish in IndyCar Series history, and second tightest in 12 races on ovals shorter than 1 .5 miles in length.

"It's been- a roller-coaster weekend all the way across the board, when you factor in some of the off-track stuff, as well," said Sharp, whose team's hospitality tent was damaged by earlier storms. "I'm just ecstatic. We did three wholesale set-up changes (Saturday), and the guys IRL INCIDENT REPORT A look at the wrecks of the Indy 250. GRAPHIC BY CRAIG JOHNSON AND JEFF BASH THE REGISTER By JOHN NAUGHT0N REGISTER STAFF WRITER A pulsing bass line from Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" gave a national television audience a soundtrack to the Iowa Speedway in Newton as a field of growing corn swayed in a breeze. ABC-TV put the state on display coast-to-coast in a rare professional sports moment during the Iowa Corn Indy 250.

"Not exactly known for the glitz and glamour of professional sports, until today," broadcaster Marty Reid said as fans throughout the nation got a look at the track. The tight turns and damp conditions created numerous acci dents Sunday. A "crashfest," one of the TV commentators called it. It is a bullring," said Scott Goodyear, a former racer and the color commentator. Cameras gave viewers a quick glance at central Iowa: Des Moines' skyline, Interstate 80 exit signs, small businesses in a city square and the obligatory cornfield.

A subtle audio touch: the Hawkeye song "On Iowa" playing in one segment. Co-grand marshals A.J. Foyt, a legendary four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, and Knoxville farmer Kyle Phillips, who is the board chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, shared the microphone for the race's start. "Girls and boys Foyt said. start your engines," Phil lips finished.

Most of the race coverage fo cused on the on-track events rather than Iowa's scenery or character. There were some bitter reactions from drivers who wrecked in the race. "It sucks," Danica Patrick told a TV interviewer after she was sidelined. "Unfortunately, this is going to be a funny race." Sam Hornish Jr. was upset after being forced out in a crash.

"The restart was terrible," Hornish told a TV interviewer. "This is senseless stuff." FAN VIEWS The Register asked several fans who attended Sunday's race to comment about their experiences. Here's what they said: Shelley Gudorf, 42, West Des Moines The good: Race action "It was exciting, side-by-side racing," Gudorf said. The bad: Traffic "We left Des Moines at 9 a.m., and it took us over three hours I to get there," Gudorf -am. said.

"We got in there li about 12:05. We got to see the green flag." i Overall: "It was great. I looked forward to this for two years," Gudorf said. Richard Brown, 62, West Des Moines The good: "Overall, it's a class track, a welcome asset to -mwm central Iowa. For a first event, it was very i successful." The bad: "In the I second accident, they I took out a lot of the I I fan-favorite cars.

The second half of the race was boring. "They need a lot more kybos, a lot more entrances." Craig Smiens, 50, Ankeny The good: The venue "That facility is such a great facility," Smiens said. "Moving around behind the hf -J stands was easy. So was getting to your seat. Overall: "The stands were filled to overflowing, and at some of those IRL races you see only a smattering of fans in the stands," Smiens said.

"Hopefully 1 1 Foyt performed them flawlessly." Several other drivers' emotions swung southward of Sharp's sunny disposition on a day when passing proved Debris brings yellow A' TC a 1 The first IRL race lap at Iowa Speedway doesn't get past the second turn without the yellow flag coming out. Dan Wheldon spins and hits Tomas Scheckter, knocking him out of the race. Wheldon returns later and finishes in 11th place. 2 Helio Castroneves led from lap 13 through 69, but spun out on lap 73 during an exit from pit lane in turn 2. He wound up eighth.

-J" Debris on turn 2 I leads to yellow on I lap 226. I 3 Tony Kanaan makes contact with Jeff Simmons in turn 2 during lap 86, knocking both cars out of the race. 4 The day's biggest mishap involves six cars and ends the race for four of them on lap 99 entering the first turn. Ed Carpenter and Danica Patrick touch on a four-wide restart, causing an accident that Kosuke Matsuura, Sam Hornish Jr. and A.J.

Foyt IV can't avoid. Patrick's day ends as well. 6 Drivers slow in getting acclimated to track Harkin said. "I can't imagine the forces these drivers feel at higher speeds. "This (race) is a happening.

There's a lot of enthusiasm." Harkin, Gov. Chet Culver and Sen. Charles Grassley greeted drivers. Best seat, worst view Vince Welch may have the best seat in the house for Indy Racing League races, but the veteran ABC pit reporter said the fans in the stands see the most racing. "I'm so close to the action that I don't see what happens," Welch said.

"I can't see the track from where I am. I go home and watch the video of the race and see things I missed." Welch said the IRL stop in Newton is here to stay. "The people in the Midwest have a genuine appreciation for what racing is," Welch said. "It's obviously going to be a destination track and it's going to be a success." Traffic havoc Chris Hamlett of West Des Moines picked the wrong way into Iowa Speedway on Sunday morning. Hamlett was among thousands of fans who were stuck in traffic waiting to enter the track.

Hamlett said he exited Highway 163 south of Newton onto Rusty Wallace Drive, a road that borders the track, at 9:30. He exited his car an hour later. "My wife's expecting and it's her due date today," Hamlett said. "I'm on call, though we can't get cell reception here." So, is Danica going to be the name for your daughter? "I don't think my wife's going to go for it," Hamlett said. At noon, vehicles were still backed up along the entrance roads leading to the track.

A dream ful-fueled POET, a biorefining company that produces ethanol used by the Indy Racing League, brought two busloads of employees to the race. Brad Olson, a POET employee, watched the mechanics work in the garage area. "I've never been to a big race like this," Olson said. "It's once in a lifetime to come to one of these Compiled by Lance Bergeson KEELER, from PageIC were skidding everywhere. "It's extremely quick and obviously, it's quite dangerous," said Buddy Rice, one of only five drivers who completed all 250 laps.

"Once you sit on the bottom, it's very difficult to (pass) on the top side." Compounding matters was the fact that there was really only one great line a 'line' is the best spot on the track to drive and it was low. "I had no place to go," Tony Kanaan told a reporter. "I had nowhere to go," Jeff Simmons told another reporter. "I had nowhere to go," Danica Patrick told another. So basically your best strategy, if you want to call it that, was to try to scramble IRL headquarters, that means different wings.

"They brought short-track wings here," explained NASCAR legend Rusty Wallace, the track's spiritual godfather and designer. "So when they come back, they'll take some wing off these cars and that will let them run more side-by-side, let them pass more. "This was the inaugural event. We all learned about things here. I'm sure we'll have complaints about this and that, but overall, I didn't see one unhappy person in those grandstands." After all, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, even if it's a broken axle.

Of all the big hits Sunday, the biggest was the speedway itself. for a better place on the 'line' during restarts. And as anybody who's tried to navigate eastbound 1-80 east near Altoona will tell you, when three cars try to squeeze into the same lane at once, bad things tend to happen. "You always push hard on restarts," Dario Franchitti told the media after he'd left victory lane. "But there's only so hard you can push before you run into problems." Now imagine the Adventureland bottleneck, only at 180 miles per hour.

That'll give you a pretty good idea what transpired during the restart on lap 99, a spill that knocked Patrick. Sam Hornish A.J. Foyt IV and Kosuke Matsuura out of the race entirely. "There's nothing wrong with the track," assured Darren Manning, who wound up fifth. "It's just a mini-super speedway and we weren't expecting it." As for a grade? "It's gotta be a good B-plus, probably," Manning said.

Which, when you consider that this was a first run, is pretty darn decent. For both the Speedway and the Indy Racing League, the good news especially the paid attendance of 35,838 far outweighed the bad. Sunday was a little like taking the SAT for the first time. Now that you know what to expect, you dust yourself off, make some tweaks, and come back and try to do better next time. At Newton, that means a smoother traffic flow coming to and from the Interstate.

At ...0 they'll be back.".