Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud were able to make late moves to finish second and third respectively in today’s GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma.
But only Pagenaud will be able to go to next weekend’s Verizon IndyCar Series season finale at Auto Club Speedway with a chance at the 2014 series championship.
Pagenaud is down 81 points to Will Power ahead of Saturday night’s MAV TV 500, which will have double points on offer. As for Hunter-Reay, he was eliminated from title contention despite finishing runner-up to winner Scott Dixon.
“Second…is not what we needed but, you know, it’s a pretty good day,” said Hunter-Reay, who is 92 points behind Power and needed to be within 88 after this next-to-last race of the year.
“It’s nice for sure. When you have the championship on the line, though, we needed Will to have two really bad weekends. Well, he had one and we needed to win today.”
Following his third-place effort, Pagenaud said that he didn’t see such a result coming after qualifying 15th yesterday.
“Sonoma is such a hard track to pass on, so we made the race in the pits really,” he said. “The pit stops were awesome and that’s what made us jump so many positions. Strategy was very frustrating, very tough for me because I had to save so much fuel.
“But we made it past [Mike] Conway in the last corner and [to finish] third, it’s fantastic. This morning, I never thought we would be third. I’m delighted and we’re going into Fontana with a chance to the title so, as you know, that was something that was very important to me.”
Following their podium celebration, Hunter-Reay, Pagenaud and Dixon still had one bit of business to conduct.
Earlier in the week, INDYCAR CEO Mark Miles announced on the series’ Facebook page that he’d take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in Sonoma’s Victory Lane after being nominated by KV Racing Technology co-owner Jimmy Vasser.
The Sonoma podium finishers did the honors of drenching Miles, who sported a T-shirt promoting the series’ #IndyRivals campaign.
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.
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.
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.
A block pass by Haiden Deegan led to a series of events that eventually led to Jordon Smith failing to make the Main. – Feld Motor Sports
“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.
