INDY LIGHTS: Final-Four Championship Stretch Begins At Laguna Seca
7 September 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
DETROIT- A critical final-four stretch of Dayton Indy Lights Championship races with major implications on the 2000 season points race begins this weekend at Laguna Seca Raceway with the Yahoo! Sports Monterey Challenge. Round Nine of 12 on the 2000 Dayton Indy Lights Championship tour, Sunday's race at 3 p.m. local time follows the featured Honda Grand Prix of Monterey FedEx Championship Series race that will be run on the 2.238-mile road course earlier that afternoon. The Dayton Indy Lights race will be telecast live - the first live U.S. telecast in the 15-year history of the series - on ESPN2 (3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET).
Laguna Seca, the most critical now or never event of the season to date, is the middle round of a three-in-a-row run of races that began last weekend in Vancouver and concludes next Sunday at Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis. Any driver other than series leader Scott Dixon (Invensys/Powerware/PacWest Lights Lola) finishing out of the points this weekend will likely be eliminated from title contention or lose any realistic chance of catching the leader.
Dixon, who finished second at Laguna Seca in1999 as a rookie with Johansson Motorsports, has won half of this year's first eight races in his first season with PacWest Lights. The 20-year-old New Zealander brings a 21-point lead to Monterey over Californian Townsend Bell (DirecPC Lola), 113 - 92. Although Dixon can't clinch the championship at Laguna Seca, a fifth race win would give him the edge in all tie-breaker scenarios and boost what is already the equivalent of a full-race points lead in the championship. Following CART's points system, an Indy Lights race win is worth 20 points with single bonus points awarded to each race's pole winner and lap leader.
Dixon has earned victories this year at Long Beach, Milwaukee, Chicago and Sunday in Vancouver where he made an outside pass on pole-sitter Felipe Giaffone (Hollywood Lola) seven laps from the finish. Giaffone, who finished second, is third in the championship with 83 points.
Bell and Giaffone are both first-time race winners this season and have emerged as the strongest threats to Dixon's championship bid. Bell, a native of San Francisco who now lives in Costa Mesa, Calif., is riding a streak of five consecutive top-four finishes that includes a victory at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course two races ago. The former Barber Dodge Pro Series winner has also posted second-place finishes at Portland and Chicago in addition to earning his first Indy Lights pole at Portland.
Giaffone won The Detroit News 100 at Michigan Speedway in July and is in the midst of his most successful season in four years of Dayton Indy Lights competition. His runner-up showing at Vancouver was his fourth top-three finish of the year and he also placed fourth at Chicago. Giaffone, the lone Brazilian in the series, is in his third season with Conquest Racing that is owned by 1991 Indy Lights champion Eric Bachelart.
Bell is part of a three-driver effort from Dorricott Racing that won last year's Dayton Indy Lights Championship title with current CART Champ Car rookie Oriol Servia. Bell's teammates include fellow Californian Casey Mears (Dorricott Racing/Sooner Trailer Lola) and rookie Jason Bright (Dorricott Racing Lola) who round out the top-five in the championship.
Mears, who was the fastest driver in an Indy Lights group test last April at Laguna Seca, is fourth in the championship with 74 points. He has scored points in every race run this season with a best finish of second to Giaffone at Michigan. Bright, an Australian who has raced against Dixon back home, won his first Indy Lights race at Portland and rebounded to win the pole and finish third at Mid-Ohio one race after being sidelined at Chicago with a lower back injury sustained in a practice crash. He failed to score points at Vancouver, however, when he was caught up in an accident at the race start and has slipped the equivalent of two races - 41 points - behind Dixon and ranks fifth in the championship with 72 points
Dixon teams with Florida's Tony Renna (Motorola/PacWest Lights Lola) who is sixth in the championship with 64 points after recording top-six finishes in the last five races. Renna scored a pair of third-place finishes at Michigan and Chicago in July and placed fourth at Portland and Mid-Ohio. He finished sixth at Vancouver.
Rookie Jeff Simmons (KOOL Lola) scored his second third-place finish of the season at Vancouver and is tied with Renna with 64 championship points. The two-time reigning Barber Dodge Pro Series champion has emerged as the top performer from Team KOOL Green in the second half of the year following the championship collapse of his second-year teammate Jonny Kane (KOOL Lola). Kane won Round Three at Detroit from pole in June but has scored only three points in the five races run since then. A turn around at Laguna Seca is possible, however, as Kane finished third in his rookie appearance at the track last year.
Mario Dominguez (Herdez/Pegaso/Quaker State Lola) finished fifth at Vancouver and is eighth in the championship with 55 points. His best finish of the year was third at Milwaukee in June and he joins Dixon, Simmons and Geoff Boss (Cross Pens/Lacoste/ITIS Lola) as the only drivers to finish every race this year.
Dominguez is the on-track leader of a group of five drivers from Mexico that includes another veteran and three rookies. Rodolfo Lavin (Corona/Modelo/SportsYA.com Lola) is having the best season of his five years in the Dayton Indy Lights Championship and posted a career-best finish of fifth at Chicago. The rookie line-up includes Rudy Junco (Mexpro/PrecioBase.com Lola), Rolando Quintanilla (Telmex/Prodigy Internet Lola) and Luis Diaz (Quaker State Mexico Lola) who teams with Dominguez at Team Mexico Quaker/Herdez. Of the rookie trio, Diaz has posted the best finish of the season with a sixth-place showing at Chicago.
A series-high group of seven drivers from the United States includes Bell, Mears, Renna, Simmons, Boss and his younger brother Andy Boss (Cross Pens/Lacoste/ITIS Lola) and second-year driver Chris Menninga (Mi-Jack Lola). The group has given the U.S. the lead in the Dayton Indy Lights Nation's Cup standings with 123 points, 10 points ahead of Dixon's single-handed effort on behalf of his native New Zealand.
Menninga, who joins Giaffone and Quintanilla at Conquest, won his first pole at Chicago and earned a career-best finish of fourth at Milwaukee. The best race of his rookie season last year was at Laguna Seca where he qualified fifth and finished sixth. Menninga also won a 1997 Barber Dodge race at Laguna Seca.
A returning veteran and a debuting driver complete the Laguna Seca Dayton Indy Lights entry. Four-time race winner Derek Higgins (Mexpro/PrecioBase.com Lola) has been the driver coach for Junco all season at Mexpro, but the team has added a second race car for the Irishman in the year's final races. His seventh-place finishes at Mid-Ohio and Vancouver have been Mexpro's best results. Higgins also drove for the injured Bright at Chicago in a one-off appearance with the Dorricott team. Argentinean Waldemar Coronas (Carusi/Astro/Webshipper.com Lola) will in turn make his series debut with Genoa Racing. Coronas is the reigning champion of the Mexican-based Panamericana Indy Lights series.
Text provided by Adam Saal
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