“I’m Going To Enjoy My Win For Sure"- Kanaan
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Jul 01, 2008
Ron McQueeney/IMS
On the tail end of a frustrating first half of the IndyCar Series season, Tony Kanaan found relief on a steamy night at Richmond International Raceway.
Kanaan avoided the single- and multi-car mishaps that led to nine caution periods on the 0.75-mile D-shaped oval - the shortest on the circuit populated by a race-record 26 entries - to win the SunTrust Indy Challenge for the first time.
The Andretti Green Racing driver made up some ground on series points leader Scott Dixon (82 points arrears), who finished third. Of course, allotted some better luck on three other ovals and the tables might have been turned.
Kanaan was leading late in the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway when the spinning car of rookie E. J. Viso clipped the No. 11 7-Eleven car. Result: Eighth place. He was leading on Lap 105 at Indianapolis when the car white-walled Turn 3, spun and was broadsided by an approaching car. He was running third on Lap 212 at Iowa Speedway when the car spun at the exit of Turn 1 and made contact with the SAFER Barrier. Result: 29th. Result: 18th.
Thanks a considerable sum to throw away, especially when the three drivers in front of him - Dixon, Helio Castroneves and Dan Wheldon - have consistently been in the top five.
“I’m going to enjoy my win for sure, “ said Kanaan of his 13th victory in the IndyCar Series, which included five in 2007. “I knew that I had to keep fighting. There’s nothing else I can do. If you’re going to have the season you expect every year, then it’s going to be pretty boring I would say.
“I knew it was going to turn around. I didn’t know when. I thought it was last weekend and I made a mistake. When those kinds of things happen, I have a tendency to actually have more strength to turn the situation around. I think I work better when I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I came in determined to win this race and it worked out. “
Kanaan led a field-high 166 laps - more than his total in the previous eight races (133). He inherited the point when teammate Marco Andretti had to make a green flag pit stop (after completing 135 laps on a 22-gallon load of ethanol) on Lap 206 and ran away from Castroneves down the caution-free stretch.
“I was just sweating with 10 laps to go—what’s going to happen now? “ Kanaan said. “It’s like, OK, something is going to blow up; it’s going to rain. Actually, if it rains, I was going to win, but maybe I was going to spin in the rain.”
“I knew that we had a good car, but that’s how funny racing is. Sometimes it comes when you least expect it. “
