WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- With one race left on the IRL schedule
and a wedding to plan for, Danica Patrick is eager for the end of
her grueling rookie season.
Patrick started 16th on Sunday and finished the inaugural
Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix in the same position after ignition
problems near the midway point of the 60-lap race over the historic
road course.
"It's disappointing," said Patrick, who nevertheless captured
rookie of the year honors for Rahal Letterman Racing over Tomas
Enge. "I wanted to run well here."
The season ends Oct. 16 at California Speedway, which gives her
a chance to regroup.
"It's been a very memorable season. I want to end strong, I
really do," Patrick said. "I'm going to be putting every last
ounce of energy I have into this race. With the run I had at
Chicago (sixth place after starting from the pole two weeks ago),
there's real potential for a great result."
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^OLD HOME WEEK:@ Former Indy 500 winner Tom Sneva was a familiar
figure in the press box at Watkins Glen International, and he
almost seemed itching to jump back in an Indy car for the first
time since 1992.
"I still have dreams of qualifying at Indy once in a while,"
said Sneva, a driver coach for Panther Racing and winner of the
1983 Indy 500. "I don't know what it is. It never leaves you."
It certainly doesn't seem to have left Al Unser Sr., who jumped
behind the wheel of a two-seat Indy car over the weekend to give
several passenger rides. Unser, a four-time Indy 500 champion, said
it was the first road course he had driven since at least 1990.
"Deep down, I do still think about driving, but you know that
your reflexes and everything are just not the same," said the
66-year-old Unser, who retired in 1992. "Once you've reached a
certain level of racing, you know when you start fading. I can tell
that I've faded."
Unser was one of only three Indy drivers to win on paved ovals,
road courses and dirt tracks in a single season. He did it three
straight times (1968, '69 and '70) but never had much to show for
his appearances at The Glen.
"I never had very good luck here," Unser said. "In an IROC
car I crashed, blew a tire in an Indy car, and a Formula 5000 car I
ran here I thought I won the race. It was in the rain and the
records got washed away, so they took it away from me."
Both men were thrilled to be back at New York's Thunder Road.
"I enjoyed racing here," Sneva said. "This is one of the
great road courses in America. A lot of history here. I wasn't the
greatest road course racer, but I had a lot of fun."
Rookie Danica Patrick said she was having a hard time adjusting
to the 650-horsepower, 1,600-pound road course Indy cars after
having raced last year in the Toyota Atlantic series, which fields
lighter cars with less than half the horsepower of an Indy car.
When Sneva and Unser raced, Indy cars were turbocharged and put
out close to 1,500 horsepower, which made it tricky business.
"With the turbocharger, you pretty much had to have it pointed
in the right direction when that push came on or you were in
trouble," Sneva said.
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^RAHAL'S RUN:@ Three-time CART champ Bobby Rahal, who retired in
1998 with 24 career victories, revisited Victory Lane on Sunday.
Rahal, who qualified second at 115.483 mph in a 1974 Brabham
BT-44/2 owned by Bill and Kathy Reilly, took the lead on the first
lap from polesitter Hamish Somerville, who was in a 1979 Williams
FW07/04, and led the rest of the way in winning the Zippo Vintage
U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International.
Danny Baker was third in a 1976 McLaren M-23/14 in the 10-lap
race.
"They made me work for it. They're good drivers," Rahal said.
"These guys pedal these cars. It's not like you can sit around and
cruise. It's no parade."
Rahal was smiling broadly and spraying champagne around the
podium after what was a memorable personal moment.
"It is a thrill to drive cars like this when you think about
it," said Rahal, who co-owns a three-car IRL team with talk show
host David Letterman. "I came up here in October 1974 and watched
that car win the race (U.S. Grand Prix). It's so much fun to drive
these cars if you're at all romantic about racing, which I am. For
me, it's a dream come true."
Rahal Letterman drivers include newly crowned rookie of the year
Danica Patrick, Vitor Meira and Buddy Rice, and the pressure was on
them for the main race of the day, the inaugural Watkins Glen Indy
Grand Prix.
"Well, I won," Rahal said. "This is a pretty tough act to
follow."
It sure was. Meira started seventh, Rice was eighth, and Patrick
16th. They finished 18th, 19th, and 16th.