Ryan Hunter-Reay took advantage of a mistake by favourite Scott Dixon to capture the IndyCar Series Camping World Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International.
It was Hunter-Reay’s first series victory in his 16th career start. The American also won twice while driving in the now-defunct Champ Car World Series.
Darren Manning was second, followed by Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice and Marco Andretti.
Preparing to make a run at leader Darren Manning after a long caution period, Dixon spun out under yellow and was hit from behind by contender Ryan Briscoe. That gave the runner-up spot to Hunter-Reay, who easily passed Manning on the ensuing restart and drove away with the fourth series win for Rahal Letterman Racing and first since 2004.
“Right when it was happening, it was like a scene out of `Days of Thunder.’ I couldn’t see where cars were or nothing,” Hunter-Reay said. “It was just black, a cloud of dirt in front of me. I picked the far left and, luckily, it was open.
“Immediately, I thought, `This is that point where everything finally pays me back a little bit for all the bad luck, pays this team back for all the bad luck its had, not only this year but over the past three years.
“But it wasn’t gifted to us,” added Hunter-Reay, who has run out of fuel or crashed while in contention several times since joining Rahal Letterman a year ago. “We had to go grab it from them.”
Dixon, trying to become the first IndyCar driver to win four straight races on any track, appeared to be in position, with only the vulnerable Manning — whose best previous finishes were a quartet of fourths — ahead of him as the field was about to get the green flag with 12 laps remaining
“I was a complete idiot,” an obviously embarrassed Dixon said after getting restarted and finishing 11th. “We lost a lot of valuable points today. I feel more down for Briscoe and the boys.”
Briscoe knew he had a shot at the win, but the incident with Dixon was just simply bad luck.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Briscoe, who finished 12th . “I guess all of us will mess up every now and then again, but I wish he would have messed up and not gotten me involved in it at that moment.”
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