By Dave Lewandowski
indy500.com
Sunday, May 28, 2006
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That wasn't perspiration Sam Hornish Jr. wiped from his eyes in Victory Lane.
Excuse Hornish, the 26-year-old Ohio native. Hornish has been dreaming of this moment since he was 4 years old and watched Danny Sullivan spin and win the Indianapolis 500. In his six previous trips to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, two-time IndyCar Series champion Hornish has been haunted by misfortune and mistakes.
Redemption never tasted sweeter than with a cold bottle of milk.
Oh, he had to literally sweat this one out (the official high ambient temperature was 89 degrees; 126 degrees on the racetrack). The drama – early and late in the 200-lap race – rivaled Sullivan's improbable victory 21 years ago.
Hornish passed IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500 rookie Marco Andretti low on the frontstretch – about 300 yards from the yard of bricks – to win "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" by .0635 of a second. It was the second-closest margin (.043 in 1992; Al Unser Jr. over Scott Goodyear) in the race's long history.
Michael Andretti, who came out of retirement to race with/against his 19-year-old son, finished third (tying his 1986 high in 15 starts). Dan Wheldon, the 2005 race winner and IndyCar Series champion, was fourth. Tony Kanaan was fifth, followed by Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Danica Patrick.
"It's been a long month, and not everything went our way as we saw today," Hornish said. "But we stuck together as a team. We had a good plan, and we were fast when we needed. I thank God for giving me a lot of talent, not so much the fact for what I can do driving but the fact that I didn't want to give up. And then He also put me with such a great team and gave me great parents and a great wife to support me very much."
Hornish sat atop the speed chart after all but one practice session during the three weeks of preparation. Of course, the race presents its own set of challenges, as Hornish knows all too well. Last year, he started in the middle of the front row and led 77 laps but came up empty. Accident on Lap 146. In fact, he did not have a top-10 finish at the race.
This time around, WorldPoints Visa Card pole sitter Hornish didn't lead the first lap, and had to overcome a Lap 150 drive-thru penalty for leaving his pit stall with the refueling nozzle still attached to the No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Dallara/Honda/Firestone. After a Lap 196 restart (Felipe Giaffone's car making contact with the Turn 2 SAFER Barrier), Hornish had worked his way to fourth.
Michael Andretti had moved to the point with Marco Andretti and Dixon trailing. Marco passed his father in Turn 1 for the lead on Lap 197, and Hornish also got past Michael.
Marco, 19, led Hornish by .5644 of a second on Lap 198 and by .9454 of a second on Lap 199. Marco had rebuffed a move by Hornish in Turn 3 on Lap 198, and it appeared there would be a new youngest winner in the race's history. But Hornish put it all on the line on the last trip around the 2.5-mile Speedway oval.
"I thought that it was over when I didn't get him going down into (Turn) 3," Hornish said. "But we dug down, put her back in there and took off.
"It's a great feeling. I wouldn't trade it for anything else. I've had a lot of friends and family pass away over the last couple of years, and they rooted us on today, so I'm real happy with that. I want to thank Marlboro Team Penske. They did a heck of a job. It may not always go the way you want it to, but it makes it a lot sweeter this way."
Marco Andretti, the highest rookie qualifier (ninth), was confident when he passed his father.
"I knew I had a shot, the green flag, I knew I had a shot at this race, and that's what you want," said Andretti, driver of the No. 26 NYSE Group Dallara/Honda/Firestone. "To be completely honest, I thought I did it with one lap to go. But I don't know where that speed came from. I was on the overtake the last three laps of the race just holding it, but I don't know where that came from. I think I could have put a pretty decent block on him, but that's a very risky thing to do.
"I know I have a lot of shots left, but you have to learn from my dad's career that you have to take advantage of every one of them. Man, I don't want to wait for next year. It's a bummer.
"I thought that I had won it because I knew if I -- to be honest, any other car on the racetrack, if that would have happened to, I would have had the race won. But woulda, shoulda, coulda. Second place is nothing here."
Michael Andretti was equally "bummed," but accepting of the third place. He's been bitten too many times at Indianapolis to not be appreciative. And the Andretti Green Racing co-owner is "glad (Marco) is not happy."
"I really believe it's right now the heartbreak, another one," said Andretti, driver of the No. 1 Vonage/Klein Tools Dallara/Honda/Firestone. "But I think in another couple days we're going to sit back and think, 'Oh, wow, who would have ever thought it would come down to that?' You know, we were running one and two with just a few laps to go in the Indy 500, and he almost pulled it off.
"I literally put my hand in the air thinking he won the race, and I couldn't believe it. Where did Hornish get that speed? It was like he had a button in there to push. It was just unbelievable."
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