Power is IndyCar’s reigning series champion, and he comes to Pocono with optimism despite being 59 points out of the lead and in fifth place.
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That won’t stop them from trying.
Juan Pablo Montoya believes he is “in good shape” for the IndyCar title despite having his lead cut to nine points with two races remaining.
If any of those top-five runners win the unpredictable 500-miler Sunday they will go to the double-point finale at Sonoma’s road course on August 30 with a strong chance of winning the championship.
What we should expect is all drivers fighting as hard as they can to grab that title.
-Jefferson Speedway last Saturday saw Edgerton’s Casey Johnson win the Late Model feature while Doylestown’s Jim Tate Jr. won the Sportsman feature; Beaver Dam’s Seth Reamer took the worldwide feature; Waterloo’s Dustin Ward won the Hobby Stock feature; Jefferson’s Chris Gottschalk won his third-straight Warrior feature; and Watertown’s Nick Schmidt won the Bandits feature. Last year’s attendance, on Fourth of July weekend, was perhaps 15,000. Montoya has the edge though – he won both the pole for 2014 at Pocono and the race itself. He has led the points all season but now is ahead of Graham Rahal by just nine points after two poor finishes, at Iowa and Mid-Ohio. The double points throws a huge curveball into the mix. Sixth through 10th are Sebastien Bourdais (379), Marco Andretti (378), Josef Newgarden (370), Tony Kanaan (354) and Simon Pageland (329).
Seven Verizon IndyCar Series drivers completed a one-day test session at Sonoma Raceway on Thursday. You can’t really know what’s going to happen, but I think we’ll be fine. It’s always exciting for me to race there. He is 95 points behind Montoya.
“We’re optimistic we’ll have a good crowd”, Igdalsky said earlier this week. “We had four DNFs that basically killed us”. “But at this point, our job isn’t only to catch Juan, but to keep ourselves in the top two or three in points”. What cost him dearly was the odd timing of a caution flag at Mid-Ohio on August. 2 that helped Rahal win and sent Montoya, who had been leading the race, to an 11th-place finish. The contenders at Pocono are the obvious ones: Power, Helio, Dixon, myself and obviously Montoya. “Turn 3 for me is definitely one of the toughest corners on any of these circuits we go to all year”.
“We’ve done a really good job all year – like everybody else, had ups and downs – and we’ll see what it brings”.
Steak ‘n Shake was the primary sponsor of the #15 entry for six races this season – included Long Beach, two events at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Detroit, and Mid-Ohio.
“The championship is right there – we’re close, we feel like we’re capable, and we’re ready to capitalize on it”. He drives for the single-car team of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Montoya won last year’s race by 2.34 seconds over Penske teammate Helio Castroneves. “But those chances are slim”.
Hang on-these two races should be interesting to say the least.
“The sheer level of downforce took me a little by surprise – that was the main difference from the Indy Lights auto, I would say”.
Dixon, like Montoya, also knows how to win a series championship.
– A.J. Foyt, who fields the cars of Takuma Sato and Jack Hawksworth, is the winningest driver at Pocono Raceway with four victories (1973, 1975, 1979 and 1981).
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“As far as speed goes, we’ve been right there”, Power said. Will we see the same “see no evil” approach be used by officials here? Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them. Dixon won the 2013 Pocono IndyCar race when the series returned to the track for the first time since 1989…
