Inside Racing (cont.)

Crash Of The Week -- Rahal's 'Spin Doctor' Move May Have Saved Andretti's Career

Graham Rahal made quite a save on Sunday, spinning his car to avoid hitting John Andretti. AP

It wasn't exactly Danny Sullivan's "Spin and Win" from the 1985 Indianapolis 500, but 20-year-old Graham Rahal's slide to avoid impaling John Andretti in a crash Sunday may have been a life-saver.

Rahal, who was safely in the 33-car starting lineup, was on the race track late in the day preparing his car's race-day setup. As Rahal was speeding down the frontstretch, Andretti crashed hard into the first turn wall at 4:43 p.m. The impact was so hard, Andretti's car virtually exploded, sending debris scattering across the track.

Rahal came around the first turn and saw Andretti's car still sliding across the track for the outside wall. If Rahal were heavy on the brakes, he would have crashed his car into the wall. If he went high, he would have T-boned Andretti's car, which would have had disastrous consequences. So Rahal threw his car into a spin, sliding through the debris and across the grass without hitting the outside wall, the inside wall or Andretti's mangled car.

The move was so impressive; his Newman Haas Lanigan crew watched the replay on one of the big screens at the Speedway. They all applauded after watching Rahal keep the car off the wall and out of Andretti's car.

"I saw all the debris was going low and I went to the outside and then all of a sudden he starts rolling back into my path and I was going to hit him," Rahal recalled. "I turned hard left and hit the brakes and it locked left. I was lucky I was able to get it slowed down enough to keep it off the Turn 2 wall and hit something else. Missing the inside wall was just luck. I took my hands off the wheel and thought I would hit the inside wall. I was just hoping I didn't hit the second turn wall. Honestly, we were lucky. We need this car to go racing in two weeks."

Young Rahal is the son of 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal. His racing ability may be genetic but he is also a student of the sport.

"If he had T-boned John Andretti, it would not have been pretty," said Newman Haas Lanigan crew chief Mitch Davis. "We are already in the race, but it would have been sad to have lost the car. We are fortunate -- very fortunate."

Andretti tore up his race car and was bumped out of the field when his four-lap average of 221.109 mph was too slow.

"You hate to get other people caught up in your own crash," he said. "I saw him spinning around out there after I hit. We were struggling with the balance of the car, and that time it just got away from me."

Do The Math

When Scott Sharp squeaked into the starting lineup for the Indy 500 with one minute left in second-round qualifications, he saved the team $130,000.

Sharp's car at Panther Racing has a one-week engine lease from Honda Performance Development that costs $95,000. That allows the team to use the engine for one of the two weeks of practice and qualifications, for Carb Day on May 22 and on Race Day on May 24.

Other teams that used the engine lease for the first week were Alex Tagliani at Conquest Racing, A.J. Foyt, IV at A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Paul Tracy at KV Racing Technologies. Of those drivers, only Tagliani did not qualify into the starting lineup, which means his team will have to find $130,000 to get into the race on the second weekend of time trials, because a full-month engine lease costs $225,000.

Drivers who will use the one-week engine lease for the second week of practice and qualifications include Townsend Bell at KV Racing, Oriol Servia at Rahal Letterman Racing and Buddy Lazier at Hemelgarn Racing.

Sharp, who qualified for his 14th Indy 500, is a full-time competitor in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and will be in Utah next weekend to compete at Miller Motorsports Park.

It also saved Sharp a lot of money from having to fly back and forth from Utah to Indianapolis to fulfill his commitments to both the Indy 500 and ALMS.

Red Bull Threatens To Quit Formula One

Jenson Button's rise to prominence in Formula One continued with his latest victory in Sunday's Grand Prix of Spain. But the Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Toyota F1 team overshadowed that victory by threatening to quit the sport over proposed budget cap rules for 2010.

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz voiced his concerns to an Austrian daily newspaper, saying he planned to boycott the planned rule changes. Toyota voiced its disapproval on Saturday.

Mateschitz told the Salzburger Nachrichten: "If the proposed rules for 2010 remain unchanged, we will not enter next year's championship -- and I guess that won't do for the works teams either. So, possibly, only two, or maybe three, of the existing teams will enter the championship. The conditions for 2010 at the moment make it impossible to sign in. But I hope there will be a meeting and a settlement before the entry deadline."

Any teams wishing to participate in next year's World Championship have until May 29 to agree with the new cost-capping regulations that have aroused so many heated reactions.

The FIA has proposed a voluntary £40 million budget cap for the teams -- a figure that excludes drivers' salaries, engines, fines, penalties and marketing and hospitality.

The teams that comply with the cap will be allowed much greater technical freedom and unlimited out-of-season testing. Testing in the season is currently banned.

A meeting between FIA president Max Mosley and the Formula One Teams' Association is expected to take place before next week's Monaco Grand Prix.

Just what Formula One needs -- more politics. It's the only sport in the world in which fans follow the sport's politics more than the actual competition. It's a giant headache.