THE LINE

September 2, 2009

(Shawn Payne/IRL)
Ryan Briscoe (No. 6 Team Penske Honda-powered Dallara) edged Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda-powered Dallara) by 0.0077 of a second to win the PEAK Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway. The victory, the third of the season for Briscoe - and fifth of his IndyCar career - was the fourth-closest finish in IndyCar Series history. Briscoe now leads the IndyCar championship by 25 points over Dario Franchitti (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda-powered Dallara), who finished fourth in the 200-lap race on the 1.5-mile oval. Dixon is 33 points back with two races remaining. Mario Moraes (No. 5 Azul Tequila/Votorantim/KVRT Honda-powered Dallara) finished third, his career-best finish in the IndyCar Series. "We've got to stay focused," Briscoe said post-race. "The Target cars are going to be there in Motegi and Homestead, so we just have to stay focused. We've had good cars on all the mile-and-half ovals this year. We've just got to keep it together. We had a couple of mistakes tonight but were able to come back. We've just have to try to avoid those situations."

(Shawn Payne/IRL)
Daniel Herrington (No. 28 LeBleu/Bryan Herta Autosport) win the Chicagoland 100 by 0.0613 of a second over James Davison (No. 21 People*s Liberation/Vision Racing). It was Herrington's first win in the Firestone Indy Lights series and the first win for Bryan Herta Autosport. Andrew Prendeville (No. 2 TMR/Xtreme Coil Drilling) finished third, his best finish of the season. Talented J.R. Hildebrand (No. 26 ARPRO, photo above) finished fifth, clinching the 2009 Firestone Firehawk Cup. "It was a total mess out," Hildebrand said. "You think starting at the back at this kind of track wouldn't be so bad. You'd get a big drafting pack, but when the entire field is three- and four-wide, there's nowhere to go. We worked our way to the field and got to the front. It's just a dream come true. I came into this year with Andretti Green Racing knowing I had every opportunity to make this happen. It feels great to bring it home to the boys and bring everything back together after the last few years. Hopefully, we can take this (championship) and move forward for next year." It's the second consecutive Firestone Firehawk Cup for Andretti Green Racing/AFS Racing. Hildebrand is expected to step-up to the IndyCar series in 2010 if Michael Andretti is able to secure sponsorship. Next up for IndyCar is the Japan Indy 300 Sept. 19 at Twin Ring Motegi. The race will be telecast live in High Definition at 10:30 p.m. (EDT) Sept. 18 by VERSUS. The race will air live on the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 145 and Sirius channel 211. The radio broadcast also will be carried on www.indycar.com.  The 2009 Firestone Indy Lights season continues with the Homestead-Miami 100 on Oct. 9 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The race will be telecast by Live by VERSUS at 6 p.m. (EDT). VERSUS' coverage of the Chicagoland 100 will be telecast at 6 p.m. (EDT) on Aug. 31.

© John Thawley Motorsports Photography

David Brabham and Scott Sharp drove their No. 9 Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-02a to an overall victory at Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport and clinched the LMP1 manufacturer championship for Acura, the marque’s first in the American Le Mans Series. The Patrón Highcroft Acura also was the prototype winner of the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge, an award for overall race performance and energy efficiency. Brabham and Sharp beat the No. 66 de Ferran Motorsports Acura of Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud by two laps. The de Ferran XM Acura led the first half-hour before losing gearbox oil, an issue that plagued the Pagenaud-de Ferran duo throughout. Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez won in LMP2 for the seventh time in eight races to wrap up the class’ drivers title in their Acura ARX-01b. And Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen scored Corvette Racing’s first win in GT2 with their No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R in O’Connell’s 100th Series start. Magnussen finished just 0.331 seconds ahead of Risi Competizione’s Pierre Kaffer after a heated duel. Kaffer's teammate, Jaime Melo, began the race from the rear of the grid after the car missed qualifying Saturday. As predicted, GT2 is the class to watch in ALMS racing, as BMW, Corvette and Ferrari each led with the top four cars circling the track in a line for the better part of 20 minutes. Corvette’s quick final pit stop with slightly less than 30 minutes to go allowed Magnussen to re-enter the track just in front of Kaffer, who had pitted four minutes earlier. The two cars were side-by-side for one-third of the lap and even touched going through the Turn 5 hairpin before Magnussen pulled ahead for good. The new Corvette GT2 car won in just its third race start, having debuted earlier this month at Mid-Ohio. “On cold tires, and as cool as it was, having a good out-lap was key,” said Magnussen, who won at Mosport for the fourth time - all with O’Connell. “I made it through Turn 2 and kept him on the outside, and we did bump a little. The car has been fantastic from the word ‘go’. To see that we have been able to turn this into a victory is phenomenal. This was so much fun and was real racing. I asked on the radio how many laps were left - I thought there were two or three and there were 24. On the last stop, the windshield was completely covered. The guys told me we weren’t going to do anything about it, which was a good thing.” The second Corvette C6.R of Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin placed third in class and also won the GT trophy for the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge. Next up is the 12th annual Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA6 on Saturday, September 26, at Road Atlanta in Braselton Ga. The green flag for the 1,000-mile/10-hour endurance classic is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. ET with SPEED airing live television coverage starting at 11 a.m. ET. American Le Mans Radio presented by Porsche and Live Timing & Scoring will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com. Live coverage also can be heard on Sirius 126 and XM 242. Click here to see more fantastic images from our friend John Thawley who covered Mosport last weekend.

 DirecTV subscribers/IndyCar fans. The war between the Comcast-owned Versus network and DirecTV has resulted in DirecTV subscribers  - who are IndyCar fans - being unable to watch the remaining IndyCar races due to the fact that DirecTV has deleted the Versus network from its channels. Not Good.

See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and friends this Thursday evening, September 3, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv.

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