Teamspeeder Tony Kanaan finishes first in Iowa!
#1
06-20-2010, 08:19 PM
Teamspeeder Tony Kanaan finishes first in Iowa! 
Tony Kanaan, front, may have had trouble staying in front of Dario Franchitti if Franchitti's car hadn't suffered
a gearbox failure, but Kanaan ran away with the Iowa win at the end.
NEWTON, Iowa -- They all broke into Indy car racing within a year of each other in the late 1990s. Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves were rivals before they became friends, but their good-natured competition has endured for more than a decade.
They're the graybeard elder statesmen of the IZOD IndyCar Series now, but Sunday on the Iowa Speedway bullring, they raced again like hungry 20-somethings. And at the end of the Iowa Corn Indy 250, it was Kanaan who claimed what he called "a very important win at a very important time."
It was the first IndyCar victory for Kanaan since he won at Richmond International Raceway in June 2008, and it came at a track where the 35-year-old Brazilian had crashed out of all three of his race starts. The win came at the expense of Franchitti (who paced a race-high 69 laps and had just retaken the lead when his Target Chip Ganassi Racing car suffered a gearbox malfunction) and Castroneves. Kanaan blasted past his fellow Brazilian with 10 laps to go and pulled away to win by more than four seconds.
Afterward, Kanaan's relief at ending a personal 32-race winless streak was palpable and manifested itself in the form of a nostalgic stand-up act.
"Racing with Helio just brought me back so many memories," he said. "It's been 25 years we've been racing each other. I was trying not to hit him because we have to fly home [to Miami] together. It was going to be an awkward flight if that happened. But now I'm gonna make fun of him on the plane on the way home for sure."
Turning serious, he added: "The guy has three Indianapolis 500s and four poles, I have a championship. I always said he's my reference and I think he said that I'm his reference sometimes. Today I won the battle, tomorrow he will win the battle and that's the way it's gonna be. By doing that, I think we both push each other to the limit. He makes me better and I make him better."
While Kanaan and Castroneves were friends and rivals from their earliest karting days in Brazil, TK's friendship with Franchitti developed when they raced in the CART Indy car series from 1997 to 2002. They've been tight ever since; Franchitti tasted success earlier, coming within a tiebreaker of winning the 1999 CART title. Kanaan won the 2004 IndyCar Series crown, but since 2007, Franchitti has racked up two Indianapolis 500 victories and two overall IndyCar Series championships.
Despite his own disappointment at Iowa, the Scotsman was happy to see his great friend triumph.
"That was a great performance by Tony," Franchitti said. "He was very strong. We had a great battle and it was fun racing with him again. As usual there was a lot of respect for each other but we were at times less than inches apart. Good to see for him."
"The battle with Dario was awesome because I was smiling the whole time," Kanaan said. "I'm not kidding -- he's my best friend and we were just really having fun. It wasn't racing a race. I'm pretty sure he was laughing, too, because we were just enjoying the moment. With Helio too …"
Kanaan admitted he wasn't enjoying himself Saturday night after qualifying 15th. While Franchitti was happy for his friend, he was also convinced that he would have won the race without the gearbox glitch.
"I was playing around, seeing where I could pass," he said. "If it was going to come down to a run to the finish, I was trying to come up with a strategy to see where I could make it happen. I was quite comfortable with what I had."
Castroneves did his best to hold off Kanaan down the stretch, but the Andretti Autosport car was ultimately faster that the Team Penske machine at the end of the race.
"I was disappointed," Castroneves said. "With 10 laps to go, it doesn't matter who ends up beating you. It's 10 laps to go. But having Tony there for the championship and all the circumstances that start adding up, it was a very positive finish.
"That was just a good race, wasn't it?"
Yes it was. A good race among good friends.
Source [ESPN]
