Kanaan Takes Texas

The slower speeds at the Indy 500 are also spilling over to the Bombardier 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the second race of the season since the IRL reduced the size of the engine and also made serious aerodynamic changes. Qualifying speeds were more than 13 miles per hour off of the mark set at the Texas facility last October by Gil de Ferran.

Dario Franchitti, the Scottish national husband of movie actress Ashley Judd, and driver of the #27 Honda, turned a pole winning qualifying speed of 209.609 miles per hour. Practice speeds were just a little quicker in the 210/211 miles per hour range.

The engine and aerodynamic changes seem to have a different meaning at the Texas facility, as only the regular IRL drivers are competing. The competitors qualifying speeds for the event were all within 72 hundredths of a second, which has been recorded as the fifth closest starting field in series history. Speculation surrounds the idiom that the closeness of the speeds will bunch the field together as likened to the 190 mile per hour parking lot style restrictor plate racing of NASCAR.

Tony Kanaan won the Texas event over teammate and pole sitter Dario Franchitti by 0.2578 of a second in one of the closest finishes at the facility. The victory was the second of the season for Kanaan and the third of his IRL career. Following Kanaan and Franchitti across the finish line were Alex Barron, Sam Hornish Jr., Adrian Fernandez, Vitor Meira, Greg Ray, Darren Manning, Felipe Giaffone, and Tora Takagi. The top ten starters and how they finished:

1. Dario Franchitti -- #27 Honda - finished 2nd
2. Buddy Rice -- #15 Honda - finished 15th
3. Tony Kanaan -- #11 Honda - finished 1st
4. Kosuke Matsuura -- #55 Honda -- finished 16th
5. Bryan Herta -- #7 Honda - finished 19th
6. Helio Castroneves -- #3 Toyota - finished 12th
7. Ed Carpenter*-- #7 Chevy - finished 21st
8. Tomas Scheckter -- #4 Chevy -- finished 20th
9. Adrian Fernandez -- #5 Honda - finished 5th
10. Mark Taylor* -- #2 Chevy - finished 17th

Even though the event was close quarter racing due to the changes, there were plenty of lead changes at speeds well over 200 miles per hour, keeping spectators on the edges of their seats when they actually had a chance to sit down.

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