| | Results
AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Buddy Lazier went from last to first
Sunday -- the first time it's been done in the 4-year-old Indy
Racing League -- to win the MCI WorldCom Indy 200 on Sunday.
|  | | Lazier, who had a severe viral infection all week, averaged 111.957 mph with his backup car after qualifying 24th. |
It was the 1996 Indianapolis 500 champion's first IRL victory in
three years, and his second straight strong performance. He was
second at the opener in Florida.
Lazier was the race's record eighth leader. He started 26th, and
took 150 laps to work his way up.
He lost the lead to Robbie Buhl on the 156th lap, but regained
it on the 161st and held off defending champion Scott Goodyear in a
40-lap dash to the flag for the first victory by a Riley & Scott
chassis.
Despite seven caution flags, Lazier averaged 111.957 mph -- by
far the fastest of four races in Phoenix since the IRL banished
turbochargers after its split with CART. His victory margin over
Goodyear was 4.191 seconds -- about half a straightaway on the
one-mile Phoenix International Raceway oval.
Donnie Beechler was third and Eliseo Salazar -- both after also
starting back in the pack. Beechler qualified 11th, Salazar 17th.
Scott Sharp, the 1998 Phoenix winner, was fifth.
Billy Boat, Buhl, who won at Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Jan. 29,
Stephan Gregoire, Al Unser Jr. and Eddie Cheever Jr., the only
driver using an Infiniti engine instead of an Aurora, rounded out
the top 10.
Lazier was 24th in qualifying, then switched to his backup car
because his best lap in the first one was more than 11 mph off Greg
Ray's 176.566 mph pole-winning lap. The move forced the 32-year-old
Coloradan to the back of the starting grid, where he joked that he
simply had more cars to pass.
He passed all of them late in the race, thanks to a bad-luck
decision by Unser, a two-time Indy 500 and two-time CART driving
champion. Unser, who led 22 laps after working his way up from a
20th-place start, delayed his final refueling until the 151st lap.
Unser got new tires, refueled and had a front-wing adjustment in
his 14.7-second pit stop. But as he was re-entering the track,
rookie Sam Hornish Jr. crashed, and Unser, no longer on the lead
lap, had to drive five laps under a yellow flag before racing
resumed.
Lazier, who also won at Charlotte in 1997, hurt his back and
pelvis in a crash at Phoenix in 1996 and two months later won at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This time, he had a severe viral
infection all week but again persevered.
Ray led 18 laps before 1999 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year Robbie
McGehee passed him. But the rear of McGehee's G Force-Aurora broke
loose in the second turn of the 30th lap, and the car hit the wall
tail-first and then head-first.
Ray also ended up a casualty of the hot, rubber-smeared track.
His race ended on the 105th lap, when his car and that of Bobby
Regester, another of the seven rookies in the race, touched and
both slid into the wall on the turn entering the front
straightaway.
Buzz Calkins, another big-name racer who crashed, complained of
back pain and was taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Phoenix.
Doctors said X-rays were negative.
Sharp led 59 laps in the race and Gregoire led 27. Other leaders
were Cheever (13) and Buhl (5). | |
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Lazier reflects on Sunday's victory.
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RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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