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Return to glory Unser captures first win in 16 months
MADISON, Ill. (AP) -- Racing with the leaders, leading laps and winning - it was just like old times for Al Unser Jr. on Sunday. Still, it took a perfect fuel strategy by team owner Rick Galles to give Unser the victory in the Indy Racing League's inaugural Gateway Indy 250, his first win in 16 months. The longtime open-wheel star earned his second IRL victory and the 33rd of his career with the fuel strategy that allowed him to stay on the track while series leader Sam Hornish Jr. was forced to pit with 10 laps remaining on the 1.25-mile Gateway International Raceway oval. With the help of a late caution flag, Unser ran the final 67 laps without pitting and beat runner-up Mark Dismore to the finish line by 1.18 seconds -- about 10 car-lengths. Hornish, who pitted for a splash of fuel on lap 191 after Donnie Beechler's crash brought out the last of four caution flags in the race, wound up third, followed by Eddie Cheever Jr., the only other driver on the lead lap at the end of the 200-lap, 250-mile event.
Unser was surprised and a bit upset when Galles told him to stay on the track when the last yellow flag waved, but the team owner said he never even considered bringing the Oldsmobile-powered G-Force into the pits. "I was either going to sit here and celebrate or go hide in the motorhome," Galles said, grinning widely. The 39-year-old Unser, whose only other IRL victory came in April, 2000, in Las Vegas, thanked his team for giving him this win and added, "I saw Sam pull in the pits and I looked on my wheel and saw what I had left. Rick definitely made the right decision. That's why he's the strategist in the pits and I'm the driver." While Unser led 75 laps in the race, Hornish was out front for 81 and got the two-point bonus for leading the most trips around the paper clip-shaped oval. His third-place finish, combined with Buddy Lazier's 13th-place run, raised the second-year IRL driver's series lead from 25 points to 45. The 22-year-old Hornish, who has finished in the top four in nine of 11 races this season, now needs only to finish fifth or better in each of the last two races to wrap up his first championship. Lazier, who started alongside pole-starter Hornish on the front row, had an engine problem from the time the green flag waved and immediately fell out of contention. But the defending series champion, who had won four of the last five races coming in, managed to hang on and finish the race despite being down on power from the start. "No fuel pressure all day," Lazier said. "All day long, the fuel alarm was going off, probably a couple of hundred times. When you've got three races to go in a championship, that's miserable."
Rain washed out qualifying on Saturday and the drivers were lined up by points. Unser started eighth and immediately began to move toward the front, working his way to fifth by the eighth lap. Debris brought out a caution flag on lap 40 and the leaders pitted a lap later. The Galles crew made the first of several brilliant pit stops, sending Unser back onto the track right behind leader Hornish. After Chris Menninga, making his first IRL start, crashed on lap 52, bringing out another caution, Unser shot past Hornish on the restart to lead a race for the first time since the second event of the season, in Homestead, Fla. "I put it in the wrong gear on that second restart and Al went by me," Hornish said. "He had a good car all day." Hornish, who had built a 10-second lead before the first caution, appeared to have the fastest car on the track, but Unser held him off through the next round of pit stops. The younger driver finally did get past Unser for second place on lap 139 as Robbie Buhl ran out front briefly on a different fuel strategy. When Buhl pitted on lap 169, Hornish retook the lead, with Unser close behind. At that point, though Galles told his driver to begin conserving fuel as much as possible, Hornish dashed away to an 11-second lead. When Beechler crashed, Hornish had no choice but to pit, taking just 4.5 seconds and getting back on the track in third. "If that yellow hadn't come out, I don't know if anyone would have made the distance," Hornish said. "Buddy said the winner would be the guy who handled the best and the top three finishers had the best handling cars. That was just the way it fell today." There is a chance Hornish could wrap up the title next Sunday in Joliet, Ill. "We'd like to go there and win so we don't have to worry about it," he said.
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