I love Indy but some
times that place can be so frustrating. It was one of
those years. We had good cars and we had fast cars but
they just didn't live long enough. Eliseo Salazar did
manage to survive a long afternoon to finish 7th in the
No. 14 Harrah's Dallara after starting 28th.
Robby Gordon, who started
third in the Conseco Dallara, had led the first 22 laps
and then ran in the top three until his first pitstop on
lap 41. Instead of taking 12 seconds, ours took 34
seconds because of a problem refueling.
Things went downhill from
there. Gordon's engine went down on power soon after. We
tried to fix it during the red flag for rain that didn't
help. I believe it was internal in the engine. It
finally blew up with 15 laps to go while Gordon was
running 7th. He placed 21st.
Salazar had a fairly
uneventful race which was a welcome change since he had
so much happen during the month. Although still second
in the Indy racing League standings, Salazar's top-10
finish allowed him to gain some points on the IRL point
leader Sam Hornish.
Donnie Beechler, who came
to Indy unemployed, qualified Salazar's Harrah's back-up
car and did a helluva job in the race. He got as high as
7th before an oil fitting broke and dropped him from
contention. He ended up 25th.
Roger Penske's team
finished one-two. His driver Helio Castroneves was so
emotional that I was happy for him too. It looked like
he could appreciate what winning Indy means.
But since we didn't win
Indy, there was no need to hang around for the Victory
Celebration. I jumped in my private plane and flew to
North Carolina to watch Ron Hornaday run the Conseco No.
14 car in the Coca Cola 600.
We had trouble there too.
We were headed for a top 20 finish when NASCAR called
him into the pits to check for an oil leak We lost some
laps, they didn't find the leak and Hornaday returned to
the race. He finished 36th.
I got back in my plane
after the race and headed home to Houston where I
arrived about 1 a.m. After being on the road for three
and a half weeks, my ranch looked really good to me. I
was glad to be home, if only for a little while.
