Sputtering cars, speeding Conway lead to big crash
Team owner Dennis Reinbold didn't have time to warn Mike Conway.
``I was just getting ready to tell Mike, 'Some guys are going to slow down, so give yourself some room''' Reinbold said, his upper lip quivering. ``I never got the words out.''
With cars slowing to save fuel, the 26-year-old hard-charging Brit entered the narrow short chute between turns three and four, ran into Ryan Hunter-Reay's sputtering car and flew into the catch fence.
The accident on Lap 199, prompted the final caution of the race and shook up the drivers.
``It's not comforting going underneath a car flipping in the air,'' Danica Patrick said. ``I got thru it, but I hope they're OK. It's never good when people are upside down and doing cartwheels.''
Reinbold didn't even realize it was Conway and teammate Ana Beatriz involved in the crash.
The small-budget team owner with four cars in Sunday's lineup had his eyes on IndyCars biggest prize - winning the Indianapolis 500 - and decided to send Conway after it.
``We had caught the pack. When you catch the pack and you're going that fast, it's a gamble,'' Reinbold said. ``But it's the Indianapolis 500 and sometimes you have to take a gamble.''
The risk didn't pay off, shaking Reinbold and his team as the car was unloaded in two long pieces and the destroyed chassis was thrown into a pile of rubble.
Conway was airlifted to a local hospital with a broken left leg. He was expected to be hospitalized overnight.
Reinbold acknowledged series officials didn't have enough time to react to the slowing field and the hard-charging Conway. Brian Barnhart, IndyCar president of competition and racing operations, said there was probably nothing he would have done anyway.
``It looked like the closing rate was pretty significant between the 37 and 24 and when you're in the middle of a corner like that,'' Barnhart told The Associated Press. ``It's one of the risks that happens when you come down to the end of a race.''
Hunter-Reay, however, thought it could have been prevented another way.
``In hindsight we should have stopped for fuel,'' he said. ``It's dangerous. ... There's no runoff lane. There's no bailout procedure. You've got to slow down or you're going to hit the car in front of you.''
Perhaps in spectacular fashion.
Beatriz couldn't believe what she saw.
``I saw him flipping over Hunter-Reay, and I lifted to try and avoid it,'' the Brazilian rookie said. ``That's the first time I've ever seen anything like that.''
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INJURED SPECTATORS: Two fans were taken to the hospital and treated for minor injuries after being struck by debris from the last-lap wreck. Parts of Mike Conway's car went flying when he and Ryan Hunter-Reay collided in Turn 4, sending his car upside down and into the catch fence.
One fan received stitches for a cut in his forehead, and another had a cut on his head that didn't need stitches.
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HOT, HOT, HOT: Indianapolis Motor Speedway turned into the world's biggest sauna Sunday.
Between temperatures in the high 80s and brutally humid conditions, fans scrambled to find shade, and drivers did the best they could on a slick track.
Officially, it wasn't the hottest 500 on record.
Though the ambient track temperature was 96 degrees, speedway officials said temperature of record is at the airport, where it was 88. The hottest Indy 500 in history: 92 degrees in 1937.
Most of the 1,500-plus fans who were taken to the hospital were treated for heat-related illnesses.
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PUSH TO (NOT) PASS: The introduction of the ``push-to-pass'' button during this year's Indy 500 didn't exactly provide much in the way of fireworks.
The button, which provided drivers 15 opportunities to receive an 18-second horsepower boost, didn't work in some cases or was forgotten about in others.
Will Power led early in the race before a pit stop miscue pushed him toward the middle of the field. He started mashing the button to help make up ground, but it stopped working.
Hunter-Reay spent most of the day in the top 10 without a lot of button pressing.
``I didn't get much effect from it, very little,'' Hunter-Reay said. ``As a matter of fact they needed to remind me about it because I stopped using it.''
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BLOCKED OUT: Brian Barnhart has made blocking a point of emphasis this season. On Sunday, the IndyCar president of competition and racing operations sent a clear message, black-flagging three drivers - John Andretti, Graham Rahal and Townsend Bell.
None were happy about the drive-through penalties, but Barnhart said he explained the rules in drivers' meetings Friday and Saturday and warned them again during the race before penalizing them.
``If you're on the inside half of the race track when you're overtaking someone, that's not blocking. If you're on the inside of the track when someone is overtaking you, that is blocking,'' Barnhart explained. ``So we're trying to open the inside half of the track up for racing.''
That didn't make it any easier for the drivers to accept.
Andretti complained that E.J. Viso also should have been penalized. Barnhart acknowledged that others might have been penalized but said league officials didn't always have a good view from the camera angles.
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IT'S A WOMAN'S WORLD: Danica Patrick spent the month trying to get her car in racing shape and hearing the boos.
On Sunday, she was back in a familiar spot - the highest finisher among a record four women in the 500. Patrick, who had a career-worst start spot of 23rd, wound up sixth after the finishing order was revised.
Switzerland's Simona de Silvestro, was 14th, second among the six rookies to Mario Romancini. Ana Beatriz was 21st. Sarah Fisher, the fastest of the four female qualifiers, completed 125 of 200 laps and was 26th.
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ENTERPRISING PETTY: Seven-time Cup champion Richard Petty made another early exit from Indianapolis.
For the second straight year, he started at the day at the Indy 500, then headed to Charlotte, N.C., for the Coca-Cola 600 later Sunday. The length of his Indianapolis stay was dependent of John Andretti's performance.
``We're going to stay a couple of hours and get a drift of how the race is doing,'' he said in Gasoline Alley before the race. ``If it's drifting our way, we'll stay a little longer.''
It didn't.
Andretti was black-flagged early in the race and crashed on Lap 65, sending Petty to Charlotte empty-handed again.
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THE BUTLER WAY: It was another rewarding weekend for the Butler men's basketball team.
One day after serving as grand marshal for the IPL 500 Festival Parade, the team was at the track mingling with two Butler graduates - Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher, one of a record four women in the starting field.
But it was the fans' reaction that made the Bulldogs feel right at home.
``Let's do it,'' guard Ronald Nored shouted over the public address system when he was asked about repeating their Final Four appearance. ``The city has really wrapped their arms around us. We see all the Go Dawgs signs and everything like this.''
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CELEBRITY CALL: Academy-award winning actor Jack Nicholson came to Indy to start the race, and not surprisingly, he wore a Los Angles Lakers hat to the track.
Among the other celebrities in Indy for race day were Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, actor Tim Daly, NFL Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz, and actor Mark Wahlberg, who was to ride in the two-seat car with Mario Andretti.
Jewel will sing the national anthem, and her husband, rodeo star Ty Murray, is eager to see the cars hit the track.
``Oh, it's exciting,'' he said. ``It's something we've heard about our whole lives. But we've never had the chance to be here and witness it for ourselves. I've heard about it from people who have been everywhere and done everything. And they say it's a day that you have to experience.''
