By Tom Reck
Tribune-Star Correspondent
INDIANAPOLIS
June 19, 2008 11:46 pm
—
Scott Dixon will try to keep a good thing going Sunday in the Iowa Corn 250, the eighth IndyCar Series race of the season.
Dixon has won three times this season — including the Indianapolis 500 — and has a 35-point lead over Helio Castroneves in the point totals going into Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway. ABC-TV will carry the action beginning at 1 p.m.
While Dixon has won three times, three drivers have won for the first time in the series this year: Ryan Briscoe, Danica Patrick and Graham Rahal.
One of the drivers still looking for victory in the series is veteran driver Vitor Meira, who has started 83 events without a victory. He’s due and could duplicate the feat of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who ended a long drought in NASCAR on Sunday.
Meira finished second to Dixon in the 500 and led 71 laps in the inaugural race at Iowa a year ago before finishing ninth. He also led 38 laps in the last race in Texas as he placed seventh.
One of the drivers who will be driving at Iowa for the first time is Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was series rookie of the year in 2007 and rookie of the race in the 500 this season. The Rahal-Letterman Racing driver has had experience on ovals and won a Champ Car event at Milwaukee.
“With the number of cars we have had, I know it will be a great race to watch. I have not raced at Iowa or Richmond [site of the next race] but I know Milwaukee is more like a road course,” said the 27-year-old driver this week on a teleconference.
He was running third at Texas before being sidelined due to an accident.
“We will just keep doing what we have been doing. I think we are close to a breakout performance,” he said.
Dixon was on the pole for the 2007 Iowa race which was won by series champ Dario Franchitti with Andretti Green Racing teammate Marco Andretti second.
Buddy Rice was a season-best fourth at Iowa for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing and will have a new sponsor this week with Express Auto Delivery signing on for the race.
Robbie Buhl, a former driver, is co-owner of the team, and says progress is being made. “[The key] is good consistent race cars, solid finishes in the top 10 … then we’ll be in the top five, top three and the opportunities will present themselves,” he said.
Dixon is bidding for his second series title for Target Ganassi Racing with the Iowa race being the ninth in 10 weeks. He has had success at Watkins-Glen, site of the next race following Richmond.
In the pits — The Indy Racing League and IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights teams will combine efforts to help victims of recent floods in Iowa, presenting a check for $60,000 to an Iowa chapter of the American Red Cross.
Earlier in the week, a group of Iowa-based businesses announced a major effort to assist victims of tornados and floods that occurred in 80 of the state’s 99 counties. Race2Recovery is established under the Iowa Speedway Foundation.
Various radio broadcasts will emanate from Iowa Speedway between 9 and 11 a.m. in a bid for donations.
• Castroneves will be out to make his 105th start in the series and his 103rd consecutive start. He would establish a series record by winning — it would be his eighth straight season with at least one win.
Castroneves and Dan Wheldon are the two drivers to complete all 1,336 laps of the season. They also are the only two to be running at the finish of each race.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.