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 Kenny Brack wins Indy 500 as Robby Gordon runs out of fuel Posted: Sun May 30, 1999 at 11:18 p.m. EDT SportsTicker Contributing Editor INDIANAPOLIS (Ticker) -- Kenny Brack got a little luck and stole the 83rd Indianapolis 500 today from under Robby Gordon. Gordon was clinging to the lead when he ran out of fuel on the penultimate lap and Brack swooped in for the victory in front a sun-splashed Memorial Day Weekend crowd estimated at 400,000 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Brack, a Swede who is the defending IRL champion, gave four-time winner A.J. Foyt his first Indianapolis 500 victory as a full-time team owner. Foyt won the Indianapolis 500 as a driver in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977. He retired as a driver in 1993 and now runs a successful team in the IRL. "I didn't know how much was left in his tank, but I didn't think he could make it," Brack said. "I don't know what this means yet, but I've been practicing drinking milk for a week. A.J. gave me a fantastic car. Thanks a lot to all these wonderful people." With less than a lap to go, Foyt got on the radio and said, "Bring it home. You won it." But Brack had one more lap left. "As a matter of fact, I did, I started slowing down on the backstretch and thought, I didn't see a checkered flag," he said. "I guess we had it won, we just hadn't won it yet." It appeared fitting that in the final Indianapolis 500 of the 20th century the most famous man in the history of the race, Foyt, was able to return to victory lane. "I didn't drive it, but I worked awfully hard sitting on the sideline watching it," Foyt said. "Kenny had a great day. In 1967, I won the race and Joe Leonard ran third in my other car and I owned both cars. I told him to take it easy on the tires. We weren't having trouble, but we wanted to cover all of our bases and not screw it up like we did last year. "All three of my cars finished in the top six and you can't ask for anything better than that." Gordon, who just 24 hours earlier crashed against the wall in the Motorola 300 CART race at St. Louis, appeared to be on his way to his first Indianapolis 500 win. He was encouraged by his pit crew to continue driving, never stopping for a final splash of fuel. But his car slowed down near the end of lap 198 and he was forced into the pits to get enough fuel to complete the race. Jeff Ward finished second, 6.562 seconds behind, followed by Billy Boat, another Foyt driver. Gordon ended up fourth, ahead of rookie Robby McGehee. Foyt's third driver, Robbie Buhl, finished sixth. "We'll get this race one day," Ward said. "The car went loose but I ran strong all day. We got caught out with two of our early pit stops when the yellow came out right after we stopped. "The track changed all day but I was able to make changes in the car. I wanted this one bad. When I went loose I wasn't going to take anything that wasn't there. I didn't want to put it in the wall and I didn't want to run out of rule." Buddy Lazier, the 1996 champion, was seventh, followed by Robby Unser, Tony Stewart and Hideshi Matsuda. Stewart completed a rare double by racing in tonight's NASCAR Winston Cup Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carolina, finishing fourth before being hospitalized with dehydration. "I stuck to my game plan," Stewart said. "I didn't really worry about getting to the front in a hurry, but we struggled out there today. We never did any long runs on the tires and I think that cost us a bit. We didn't really know what was going to happen. The car went really loose. It was tight during the first part of the race, and then the car was tight during the first half of the corner and loose during the second half, so it was a struggle. "Congratulations to A.J. Foyt. After the month of May he had, he definitely deserves this. If I couldn't win this, I'm glad they did." Brack finished the race in three hours, 15 minutes, 51.182 seconds with an average speed of 155.176 miles per hour. Gordon, the only CART regular in the 33-car field, made his final pit stop on lap 161 and stayed on the track when the leaders pitted for the final time on lap 170. The green flag waved on lap 175 with Gordon in front. Ward passed Brack at the flag-stand for second place and made a charge at Gordon, who was starting to pull away from the field. Further back in the field, positions 2-5 were all racing together, but Brack was able to close on Ward's second-place car with 20 laps remaining. As Gordon drove away from the field, the biggest question became fuel. With 12 laps remaining, Brack passed Ward for second place. "I got real loose trying to get by a lapped car and Brack got a run on me," Ward said. Gordon had a sizeable lead with 10 laps remaining and held a 4.1-second edge on the field with six laps left. With three laps to go, team owner John Menard radioed Gordon to go even lighter on his fuel in an effort to get every last drop out of his tank. That allowed Brack to close to within 1.2 seconds. "I lost pressure, damnit," Gordon radioed as his tank finally began to go dry. "I'm out of fuel." Brack then ran to the checkered flag. "You won it, Kenny, c'mon, you won it," Foyt radioed to Brack. "Good job Kenny, yes." As Brack took the checkered flag for the fourth Indy car win of his career, Gordon sped out of pit lane after making his fuel stop. "We should have come in and gotten a splash of fuel," Gordon said. "The car said we had two gallons, and all we needed was one. We knew what it takes to win, and we let it slip away. It's very unfortunate. "We were one lap away from winning the Indy 500. We definitely had the car today. Damn, we came this close to winning the 500. I want to sit and cry. We will be drinking milk next year, I promise you." Brack blew past defending champion Eddie Cheever for the lead at the start-finish line on a restart on the 126th lap. Ward passed Cheever for second 10 laps later and Cheever dropped out on the 141st lap. That came after two leaders were victimized in a six-lap period. Arie Luyendyk, in a bid to win his third Indianapolis 500 in the final race of his career, crashed in the third-turn wall while leading on the 114th lap. Luyendyk's car spun and backed into the wall without making contact with another car. Luyendyk was trying to pass the slower car of Tyce Carlson and went low on the track. That is when he lost control and crashed. "I feel stupid right now," Luyendyk said in an interview on ABC. "I should have known better than to race the traffic that hard. I went underneath Tyce and I thought he would give me room. I had to slam on the brakes because I had no room. I lost control of the car. I have been here so long, I should have known better." Luyendyk was unhurt and able to climb out of his car without assistance. "I was having the most fun race I have ever had here," the sentimental favorite said. "The car was running perfect, I could drive it wherever I wanted. I was hitting the rev limiter, the red line, in sixth gear. I had to hold back because I didn't have enough gear. I'm just so disappointed. It's going to be a long summer thinking about what could have been." Luyendyk was in front of the field at the halfway mark of 250 miles. He took the lead when the green flag waved on the 100th lap following a caution period. With Luyendyk out, Greg Ray was the leader at the 300-mile mark as the leaders made pit stops. But as Ray was attempting to leave the pits, he crashed into Mark Dismore. Ray was knocked out of the race and Dismore crashed on lap 169. Brack had the lead as he was the first out of the pits when the front-runners made their stops under caution on the 96th lap. The caution flag came when second-year driver Steve Knapp spun at the apex of the first turn and backed it into the outside wall. The green flag waved at lap 99 to restart the race and Brack was in front. But Luyendyk was able to pass and pull away from the field in first place. Scott Goodyear's car stalled in the third turn and the caution flag waved on lap 103 for it to be towed into the pits. Earlier, Ray took the lead when he pass Brack on the 84th lap. One lap thereafter, Luyendyk passed Brack for second place. Brack was the leader after 200 miles. He took the lead when he passed Luyendyk on the first lap of green after a caution period ended on lap 70. A crew member who was injured in a collision on pit road, Steve Fried, is in critical but stable condition at Methodist Hospital. Fried, the chief mechanic for McGehee, was injured when he was hit by driver Jimmy Kite as the two cars were making pit stops. The incident occurred on the 11th lap as Kite pulled out of his pit, was bumped by Johnny Unser and ran over Fried, sending him flipping across McGehee's car. Linda Conti, the manager of the crew, reported that Fried was awake and alert at the hospital, drawing a resounding cheer from other members of the pits. "I was on the brakes as hard as I could," said Kite, 23, the youngest driver in the field. "There's nothing you could do with broken steering. I feel bad right now. There's nothing you could do. It's the most helpless feeling I've ever had." Luyendyk was the leader after 100 miles. He led the first 33 laps before making his first pit stop on lap 34. He was able to safely leave the pit area, but turned over the lead to teammate Sam Schmidt. The collision that injured Fried came during a caution period pit stop that began when Eliseo Salazar of Chile lost control of his car in the second turn, spun across the race track and slammed hard into the infield retaining wall on the eighth lap. This is the first time a tethering restraining system was used on all four wheels on the cars in the Indianapolis 500. All four wheels remained connected to Salazar's car after the crash. After the field was given the command by Mary Hulman-George, "Gentleman, start your engines," all cars were fired, except Dr. Jack Miller in the rear of the field. His car had to be pushed off the front stretch and into the pits to allow the field to take the green flag. Unlike the past four Indianapolis 500s, which were either delayed or postponed because of weather, this year's race was run under warm, sunny skies. This was the fourth Indianapolis 500 run under the Indy Racing League banner and with another sellout crowd jamming the largest sporting facility in the world, it appears it has not lost its place as one of the world's great sports spectacles.© 2000 Sportsticker Enterprises, LP
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