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 Friday, December 13, 2002
IRL title still up for grabs
By Jack Arute
Special to ABC Sports Online
T Minus Two and counting.
The Indy Racing League runs its next-to-last race of the season at the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway this Sunday (ABC, 1 p.m. ET) with a championship race that will go right down to the finale at Texas. The Delphi 300 will go a long way in determining who has an edge for the crown.
"I'm looking forward to returning to Chicagoland Speedway," said current points leader Helio Castroneves. "I had a lot of fun racing here in the IROC cars (he finished third), but the IRL cars will be a new experience because they are faster, and the line we run will be different."
|  | | Helio Castroneves leads teammate Gil de Ferran by just one point with two races to go. |
Castroneves says that the Windy City layout is similar to Kansas, where he finished third.
"The track is pretty smooth, and there is more banking in Turns 1 and 2 than 3 and 4. With only two races to go, this race is going to be very important to the championship," he said.
Important enough that Sam Hornish Jr.'s operation has added a second car for the race. Rookie Dan Wheldon joins Hornish in the Pennzoil Panther stable. Wheldon breezed through his rookie test last week at Chicagoland with laps more than 220 mph.
"It was a fantastic two days," Wheldon said. "I've learned a tremendous amount. I had the opportunity to run fast by myself and with Sam.
Hornish trails Castroneves by eight points and Helio's Marlboro Team Penske teammate Gil de Ferran by just seven.
"It's been a dogfight all year long. Up and down. The guys at Panther are working so hard, so we just have to go do our best," remarked Hornish. "I've got to go into it and try to win. That's the way I look at it. As far as fear as what's going to happen, I've worried about that too many times this year. From Nazareth to Texas, I worried about what's happened and had bad races."
Sandwiched between Hornish and point leader Castroneves is de Ferran, CART's 2000 and 2001 FedEx Champ Car titleist.
"I really expect a very difficult fight, I would say, on those last two races," said de Ferran. "I don't care how many times you've been through a tense situation, whenever you encounter it again, it's still very, very, tense.
"I'm definitely looking forward to racing at Chicagoland. We tested there earlier this year with Firestone, so we were able to learn a lot about the track. We've been to circuits like this one several times this season, but Chicagoland feels quite a bit bigger than the other tracks of this length."
Chicagoland's race, however, is not just about the top three in points. The IRL's performances on tracks like Chicagoland promise to keep more than a dozen drivers in the hunt for a victory.
Kansas winner Airton Dare is one of them.
"I'm looking forward to racing there because Chicagoland is very similar to Kansas and Texas, where we had our two best finishes so far this year," the driver of AJ Foyt's Harrah's entry said.
Dare may get an added boost with the decision by Greg Ray to step out of one of Foyt's cars for the final two races of the season.
"I don't think it will change anything on my side because I always had my mechanics working on my car, and my car's performance was strong. We were running in the top five when we had the accidents at Nashville and Kentucky, and we were running strong at Michigan when we had the engine failure. Even Gateway might have worked out better if we had had three days instead of two there. But Joliet, which is a three-day show, will be good for us because we have a good setup for that type of track."
Jack Arute writes a column every week for ABC Sports Online.
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 Sam Hornish Jr. and other drivers comment on the ever changing IRL points race.
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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