This is going to be a super brief bit of news on the 100th running of the Indy 500. I’m not an IndyCar fan, I don’t watch it that often at all. But today’s race hit some incredible highlights of racing drama that endeared the 2011 Indy 500 to my memory.
First up, it’s awesome to see that IndyCar racing has adopted double-file restarts and that adds an entire depth of dramatic excitement to the ESPN on ABC telecast already. Heck, I think they need competition yellows every 35 laps so we can see more of those!
Back to the 2011 Indy 500: But as the race wore on, as a casual fan of the series, the coverage seemed fine enough for me. For a moment, I got the coverage aspects of a race for the generic fan.
With the laps winding down, the optimal media sound-bite finally hit the air as teams were pitting and Danica Patrick took the lead of the Indy 500. It was short lived as she too had to pit, but it was a gamble on her team’s part, hoping for a yellow. If that yellow had come out while other teams were down a lap, that would have been a huge boon to their efforts. Considering that two cautions of the day bit the team with terrible timing for them.
After Danica Patrick pitted, another driver, Bertrand Baguette, took over the lead but he too had to pit. Then the lead went to J.R. Hildebrand… who had the race fully in-hand, but as he came around turn four, he decided that if he ran out of gas (it was a close call), he didn’t want to jam the teams up behind him… and pulled up out of the groove but he hit the marbles and slammed into the outside wall!!!
With that, the 2nd place driver, Dan Wheldon throttled past Hildebrand to win the race!!! What an amazing move. Dan Wheldon won the Indy 500 for the 2nd time in his career, the first time being in 2005.
Check out the results of the 2011 Indy 500:
- Dan Wheldon
- J.R. Hildebrand
- Graham Rahal
- Tony Kanaan
- Oriol Servia
- Scott Dixon
- Bertrand Baguette
- Tomas Scheckter
- Marco Andretti
- Danica Patrick
- Ed Carpenter
- Dario Franchitti
- Charlie Kimball
- Will Power
- Vitor Meira
- Justin Wilson
- Helio Castroneves
- Buddy Rice
- Alex Lloyd
- Pippa Mann
- Ana Beatriz
- John Andretti
- Ryan Hunter-Reay
- Davey Hamilton
- Paul Tracy
- Townsend Bell
- Ryan Briscoe
- Alex Tagliani
- James Hinchcliffe
- Jay Howard
- Simona de Silvestro
- E.J. Viso
- Takuma Sato
The 2011 Indy 500 was a fun race for this part-time fan.
[Full race results snagged from SB Nation. A great site!]
