IndyCar officials acted quickly Sunday and postponed the race at the triangular 2.5-mile track until noon Monday because of persistent mid-afternoon rain.
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To finish the season, IndyCar will race at Sonoma, California in September.
Mikhall Aleshin, of Russian Federation, (7) drives during qualifying for Sunday’s Pocono IndyCar 500 auto race Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016 in Long Pond, Pa. Aleshin qualified for the pole position in Sunday’s race. The race will resume at that point next Saturday night with the restart scheduled for 8 p.m., our time.
ASSOCIATED PRESS Will Power, right, leads Ed Carpenter through Turn 1 at Pocono Raceway during Monday’s Verizon IndyCar Series ABC Supply 500.
But after Team Penske continued to make adjustments to Power’s vehicle the Australian racer soon found himself in the lead of the race and with a ideal opportunity to secure his fourth victory of the season after a late caution caused by championship leader and team-mate Simon Pagenaud.
After such an enthralling race Pagenaud’s lead in the drivers’ championship has been depleted down to just 20 points to Power after his illustrious victory at Pocono. That’s what I was doing.
Following a late race caution Hunter-Reay got back on the lead lap and once again headed for the front, making daring passes to the inside and outside of competitors. “I think it was going to be a really good crowd (Sunday) – a lot more than it has been the past two years”, Power said. “I feel pretty cool going into these races”. Power now sits 11th on the all-time wins list in the IndyCar Series after leading 55 laps en route to Victory Lane. “I just wanted this win so bad”. “The older you get, the more you let the race happen”.
However, Hunter-Reay’s auto slowed between turns 2 and 3 when his engine inexplicably shut off. Power had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting Hunter-Reay, which allowed Aleshin to get past him for the lead.
Pocono Raceway painted JW on the track at the finish line and Union Jacks flew at half-staff in honor of the Englishman.
Haunting, too, is the memory of Justin Wilson, who died a year ago after being hit in the helmet by debris from a late-race crash at Pocono.
Ryan Hunter-Reay finished third, Josef Newgarden was fourth and Sebastien Bourdais rounded out the top five.
Around Lap 135, things began to turn in Hunter-Reay’s favor. His engine lost power on Lap 164 and put him one lap down, which that late in the day would’ve killed anyone else’s race.
And driving through the field he did, coming back to record a third-place finish after passing cars at a torrid pace in the final laps.
Kevin Harvick passed Denny Hamlin for the lead with 70 laps to go and held to win at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, ending a two-day, water-logged ordeal. Just not quite fast enough. Still, that his career-best IndyCar finish came on an oval served notice his No. 7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda is becoming a force to be reckoned with. Scott Dixon, Carlos Munoz, Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Kanaan and James Hinchcliffe rounded out the top 10. Through 24 career races, he has an average finishing position of 9.5 with a pair of wins and sixteen top-ten finishes. There were also tributes to Bryan Clauson, three-time Indy 500 starter who was killed in a midget auto crash several weeks ago.
Brown’s vehicle rattled and lost traction early while Force’s dragster backfired and released the parachutes just a little farther down track than Brown, allowing her to coast to the finish line in front.
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Indeed, Hunter-Reay has had misfortune strike often this season.
