Karam takes Indy Lights title as Munoz repeats 2012 Fontana race win - MotorSportsTalk

The Firestone Indy Lights Series signed off its 2013 season in style as Sage Karam captured the series championship, while Carlos Munoz repeated his Fontana race win in the Lefty’s Kids Club 100 over Gabby Chaves.

Karam’s title is Sam Schmidt’s fourth consecutive and seventh overall in Indy Lights. The 18-year-old native of Nazareth, Pa. ends his season with three wins, nine podiums, two poles and 163 laps led.

“I can’t explain it. I was crying on that last lap, just to know the dream is almost in reach and to be in the IndyCar Series racing with my heroes,” Karam said.

Karam had to start last in the nine-car field due to an engine change in his No. 8 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry. But within the first half of the 50-lap race, Karam charged through the field into the top three, and a position where he could take the championship. He ended the race in third place.

His teammate and title rival Chaves ran second behind Munoz most of the day, but despite several efforts to pass on the outside, he was unable to complete the move. Chaves needed a win and Karam to finish fourth or worse to overcome the 16-point deficit entering the race.

“I managed to burn up the tires,” Chaves explained. “My car would understeer a bit. We always had a great run off Turn 4, but it was not enough to get around Carlos. We fought until the last lap of this championship. It’s not over, plenty of championships to come.”

Munoz’s win was his series-high fourth this season, breaking a tie with Karam and Jack Hawksworth. Munoz finishes third in the standings, two positions shy of his goal entering his second Indy Lights season.

“I’m a little bit sad to not win the championship because that was the main goal,” Munoz said. “But with second in the Indianapolis 500 and a great win here, it was still the best year of my career.”

Munoz will start 10th as the last-minute replacement for E.J.Viso in tonight’s IndyCar race, the MAVTV 500.

Behind the top three, polesitter Zach Veach finished fourth ahead of the three Belardi Auto Racing entries (Jorge Goncalvez, Juan Pablo Garcia and Giancarlo Serenelli), and the two remaining SPM entries of Kyle O’Gara and Hawksworth.

The race was the last for Indy Lights on Firestone tires after a 20-plus year run, before the series switches to Cooper Tire in 2013.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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