The race was filled with bad driving and bad decision making, and one of those bad decisions by Target-Ganassi driver Dario Franchitti sent Penske’s Will Power spinning, while Franchitti advanced.
A few laps later Power, stuck mid-pack, got rammed and had to retire, while Franchitti, ahead of all the mayhem, went on to win.
Replays show that Franchitti tired to squeeze by when Power ran a little wide into Turn Three, then thought better of it and tried to back out. Power held his line to block the pass, causing the Target-Ganassi driver’s front wing into power’s wheel.
Franchitti told Versus after the race, “I will take 50 percent of the blame there, but he takes some too.”
Had Power left six inches more room, he would have been perfectly positioned for the next corner, and would have had the momentum. Instead, Power failed to finish his second race in a row.
After the incident Will Power had some harsh words for the Franchitti and the race officials.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t get a penalty, because he never gets penalized, it’s pretty typical,” the Penske driver told Versus. “It was a pretty dirty move. He just turned me around. Does anyone ever penalize this guy? He’s as dirty as you like.
“I left the inside open on the brakes. I’m really disappointed with Dario. I always race him clean, and he always races me dirty. Disappointed in Dario. The guy who mouths off about everyone and whinges about everyone, and he’s the guy who races the most dirty, never gets a penalty from IndyCar. It’s just not right.”
Franchitti told a different tale at the post-race press conference on Indycar.com.
“I was trying to get out of it, and I couldn’t—that was my part in the accident. I couldn’t get out of it quickly enough to avoid hill hitting him, but I think Will has equal blame in that in the fact that he came down across like I wasn’t there when it was clear that we could run through that corner side by side
“I understand his anger, but hopefully when he watches the replay on television he'll realize it was a racing incident.”
To make matters worse, the Versus TV race announcers said that Franchitti was going to be penalized, then announced that he wasn’t. This led to speculation that team owner Chip Ganassi had used his influence, though Ganassi later denied he had even heard the report.
Apparently a radio broadcaster speculated about it, and the Versus announcers reported it as fact. The confusion increased the tension of the situation.
Crash After Crash
The Power/Franchitti fracas was one of many; with eight cautions, the pace car led as many laps as any driver did. The action started on lap one when Ryan Briscoe hit Alex Tagliani; then on lap three, he hit Tony Kanaan.
Takuma Sato rammed Danica Patrick on lap seven; Helio Castroneves hit Tagliani on lap 30. Paul Tracy hit fellow Canadian James Hinchliffe five laps later, and James Jakes went off a few laps after that.
The race went green for five laps before Tracy and Victor Meira collided and collected Sébastien Bourdais and Charlie Kimball.
The next green-flag session lasted three laps before Mike Conway rammed Ryan Briscoe, causing a local caution. On the next lap, Power and Franchitti had their contretemps.
After five more green laps Tagliani rammed Power, causing another caution. After less than a full green-flag lap a bunch of cars piled up in Turn Three (the site of most of the accidents,) bringing yet another yellow flag.
As soon as the track went green Marco Andretti set off a six-car wreck, bringing on the final four-lap caution period.
When the race restarted, Rahal nearly took lead, but couldn’t get by. On the next lap, Dixon squeezed inside to take the position, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, looking to follow Dixon through, spun Rahal, dropping him to 13th—an excellent drive ruined by another driver’s error.
A Good Race Regardless
While there was racing on the track, it was good—highly competitive and highly aggressive. On several occasions cars went two wide around corners and managed to make it work.
Scott Dixon drove an excellent race. He contested the lead until lap thirty when he was caught out by a caution; he had to pit, giving up track positions to the drivers (including Franchitti) who had pitted early.) Dixon was able to work his way back through traffic to finish second; he trails Power by only 22 points now.
Justin Wilson and Oriol Servia also turned in great drives, until they were wrecked. Graham Rahal gave his best performance of the season. If he hadn’t been spun by Hunter-Reay, he likely would have finished in the top five.
IndyCar stays in Canada for its next race the Edmonton Indy on the grounds of the Edmonton City Centre airport on July 24. Tickets are available through the Edmonton City Centre Airport website.
The race will be televised in the U.S. on Versus at 2 p.m. ET.
