Early Accident Takes Women Out of the Race

Who would have thought that the first time two women drove in the same Indianapolis 500 they would end up taking each other out?

It happened when Lyn St. James, 53, and Sarah Fisher, 19 tangled in the first turn of a high-speed lap early in Sunday’s race.

Three cars raced toward the left-hand turn together--Jaques Lazier along the inside, Fisher in the middle and St. James, who was two laps down, on the outside. St. James’ Yellow Freight System appeared to drift down and touched Fisher’s Walker Racing Special.

It was just enough to upset the balance and send St. James against the wall. Fisher appeared to have survived, only to have her car slide up against the wall about 100 yards later.

“My car wasn’t handling well,” said St. James, in her seventh Indy 500. “I was driving with my mirrors a lot. I saw a car coming behind me into Turn 1. I took a defensive line but we wanted to stay out of the loose stuff. Whoever it was, I was surprised they would try to force a pass at that point. I’m extremely disappointed it happened.”

Fisher was more gracious.

“I was stuck in the middle,” she said. “Things do not happen very nicely when you try to go three abreast. It wasn’t my fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s a very narrow line. When you’re passing three abreast, it doesn’t happen very nicely.”

Lazier escaped without being involved.

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It’s not unusual for a car to brush the wall at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but when it happens twice to the same driver, at the same place, that’s unusual.

Pole-sitter Greg Ray, the IRL’s defending champion, brought out the race’s first caution flag on lap 66 when he hit the outside retaining wall in the second turn while exiting the short chute. The mishap broke the front right wheel assembly.

“We got caught by the wind,” he said. “With the gust coming down out of [Turn] 2, what can you do?”

The Team Conseco crew repaired the damage and sent Ray back into the race--77 laps down.

“We wanted to get more points,” Ray said. “We’re low on IRL points.”

Two laps later he sideswiped the wall at the same place. This time the crew did not fix the damage.

Ray became the fourth pole-sitter to finish last. Others were Cliff Woodbury in 1929, Pancho Carter in 1985 and Roberto Guerrero in 1992.

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A. J. Foyt, whose cars finished first (Kenny Brack), third (Billy Boat) and sixth (Robbie Buhl) last year, had almost as good a record this time. Eliseo Salazar was third and Jeff Ward fourth. Foyt’s other driver, Boat, finished 15th, but had the biggest advance in the race, moving up from 31st.

“I thought it was a great race,” Foyt said. “Any time you finish all three cars in a 500-mile race, you’ve done well. We didn’t have things fall our way today. Every time they went to make a move, traffic was in the way.”

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Montoya is the first driver to win the 500 from the second starting position since Mario Andretti in 1969.

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Eddie Cheever’s fifth-place finish was the best ever for the Nissan Infiniti engine in the 500. Steve Knapp, with the only other Infiniti, finished 19th.

“We have made a quantum leap with this program,” said Frank Honsowetz, manager of the engine development. “Both engines were running after 500 miles, which is a monumental improvement over last year.”

The other 31 engines in the race were Olds Auroras.