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Harrah's 200
By A.J. Foyt
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A.J. offers some advice to his drivers
before the start
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The Harrah's Indy 200 at Nashville
Superspeedway played before a full house Saturday night.
Buddy Lazier rolled the dice and came up
with the sevens, winning his third race of the year and the
seventh of his career, an Indy Racing League record.
The inaugural race at this 1.3-mile
concrete track came off pretty well. I think the fans that saw
it firsthand had to be impressed with the speed of the Indy
cars. The race leaders were running laps in the 198-mph range.
Those guys not only looked fast, they were fast.
Unfortunately, we weren't quite
that fast. Donnie Beechler was the quicker in the two Harrah's
Indy cars but his laps were closer to 194-195 mph.
Eliseo Salazar never got truly comfortable with his car
in traffic.
Beechler felt that his Harrah's No.
11 was just one pitstop away from being adjusted to
perfection. We kept adjusting the car as the race went on and
he got faster. Unfortunately, we never got to that last
pitstop because of the crash that happened just past the
halfway mark.
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The crew repair Donnie's car to get him
back in the race
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I guess I felt a little lucky after
seeing Donnie's accident because that could have been a whole
lot worse. Beechler was behind Eddie Cheever when Cheever
tagged Greg Ray whom he was lapping.
While avoiding the two cars
tangling just in front of him, Beechler started to spin, I
think because he lost the air (and downforce) on his wings. Al
Unser Jr., who had nowhere to go, hit Beechler's left rear
wheel. Then Airton Dare came into the scene at speed and rode
over Mark Dismore's wheel; Dismore had already slowed for the
accident. Dare got airborne and sailed between Cheever (I bet
he was surprised) and the wall. It looked pretty spectacular,
luckily no one was injured.
Donnie got out of his car thinking
he was done but he saw that his left rear tire was just flat
and there was some body damage on one of the air scoops. He
got back to the pits but
by the time we got him race ready, he was about eight
laps down. I told him to basically just ride around to make up
some laps and positions. He rode at speeds of 190 mph!
He got a 10th place
finish out of it. Eliseo wasn't as lucky. His engine blew on
lap 148 - it burnt a piston - and he was done for the night.
Because of the attrition, he ended up 11th.
Eliseo is now fifth in the point
standings and Donnie is 18th. My Harrah's team has
the next two weekends off. The next race for the IRL is at
Kentucky Speedway August 12th.
Me? I don't get a weekend off. I'll
be going to the NASCAR Winston Cup races to work with Ron
Hornaday and my Conseco team. Things are coming together over
there finally. Now if we could just have a little luck by
finishing some races, I think others would recognize that the
program is finally turning around for the better.
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