The 88th version of "The Great American Race" is in the books, with the Honda's taking the majority of the prizes. The Indy 500 was the first race in which the new 3.0 liter engines were used, and everyone was on edge to see which manufacturers' engines would pass or fail the test.
Buddy Rice started from the pole and ended up drinking the mile in victory lane after cruising across the finish line at a paltry 80 miles per hour under caution. His first Indy 500 win made him richer by $1.76 million.
The start of the event was postponed due to inclement weather, then after just running a few laps there was close to a two hour rain delay before the event got under way again. With just about 25 laps left the rains came again, and after running under caution for a few laps, IRL Officials called the race 20 laps short of the scheduled 200.
Following Rice across the finish line were Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon, Bryan Herta, Bruno Junqueira, Vitor Meira, Adrian Fernandez, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, and Roger Yasukawa. The top ten starters and how they finished:
- Buddy Rice -- #15 Honda -- finished 1st
- Dan Wheldon -- #26 Honda -- finished 3rd
- Dario Franchitti -- #27 Honda -- finished 14th
- Bruno Junqueira -- #36 Honda -- finished 5th
- Tony Kanaan -- #11 Honda -- finished 2nd
- Adrian Fernandez -- #5 Honda -- finished 7th
- Vitor Meira -- #17 Honda - finished 6th
- Helio Castroneves -- # 3 Toyota - finished 9th
- Kosuke Matsuura -- #55 Honda -- finished 11th
- Tomas Scheckter -- #4 Chevy - finished 18th
It seems that the Honda engines passed the test with flying colors, having powered the first seven cars across the finish line, and eight out of the top ten finishers. The first Toyota to cross the line was in Scott Dixon's #1, and the first Chevy to cross the line was in Alex Barron's #12. Out of the 33 entrants, 10 were Chevy's, 12 were Toyota's, and 11 were Honda's. All of the Honda's finished in the top 14 with the exception of the unlucky #13 of Greg Ray which finished 27th.
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