Lazier

NAZARETH, Pa. -- Things haven't been going so well for Buddy Lazier since Sam Hornish Jr. took control of the IRL points race and ran away with the championship a year ago.

Hornish did in Lazier once more, this time crashing him out on the 37th lap of the Firestone Indy 225 at Nazareth Speedway on Sunday.

"It is real disappointing," said Lazier, the IRL champion two years ago. "I think we would have been a contender by the end."

He said he was being patient and working his way through traffic on the narrow, 1-mile oval, letting the race come to him.

Then it happened. Heading for the sharp, downhill third turn, his right rear wheel became entangled with the left front of a charging Hornish.

"It's just the worst feeling in the world when you're running along at these rates of speed, and the next thing you know your wheels are off the ground and you're heading into the wall," Lazier said.

Hornish, who has established himself as both a hard charger and precision driver, wasn't certain what happened, saying he would have to watch a replay to be sure. But he admitted to being aggressive on a track where passing is very difficult.

"I got a little anxious at the beginning and got my nose put somewhere where I couldn't get back out of it," he said. "Buddy and I bumped. It was just one of those things."

He said he was making an attempt to back off after realizing he and Lazier had two cars to the inside of them.

"But there was just nowhere to go," Hornish said. "I don't know what else I could do about it."

The accident cost Hornish 49 laps, but he retained his lead in the points race by five over Gil de Ferran with a 17th-place finish. Lazier wound up 23rd.

Good day for Sarah
Sarah Fisher, who substituted for the injured Robbie Buhl, finished fourth in the Firestone Indy 225. She was delighted by the Infiniti-powered car she drove for Team Purex, and credited Buhl with being a great coach.

"Robbie has had such great success here, and his experience was such a tremendous advantage for me," Fisher said. "I never worked with such an awesome driving coach."

She said there is a great communication between them, that he has a feel for the car and can relate it to her.

"The team has been awesome and the car handled great," Fisher said. "My engineer, John Martin, knew exactly what we needed to do."

Buhl expects to be back in the car for the Indianapolis 500 next month. Fisher could drive a second car for the team if sponsorship materializes.

Giaffone's ride
Felipe Giaffone wound up second in the Firestone Indy 225, matching the best finish of his career. He pressed eventual winner Scott Sharp when both were running behind Gil de Ferran late in the race.

That forced Sharp to worry about pushing de Ferran, a strategy that eventually resulted in victory when de Ferran ran out of fuel on the final lap.

Despite the finish, the fierceness of his competition with de Ferran, Sharp and Fisher in the crash-filled race kept Giaffone thinking something bad might happen to him.

"I was very close to hitting the wall a couple of times there with Sarah and Scott," Giaffone said. "I was even afraid that we screwed up the car a little bit because it bottoms pretty hard."

Pit stops