Battling for every position in the late stages of the race, the jocking back and forth for each position in the three, four-wide racing pack was full of action for the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers. Though sometimes, everything doesn’t go according to plan.
That played true on Saturday afternoon as Sage Karam would come down, making contact with Ryan Hunter-Reay. Hunter-Reay would then come down into Ryan Briscoe, pushing him into the grass. The result would be Briscoe’s car going up in the air, before landing down hard in the grass as the front-end digged in.
Both Ryans would be uninjured in the wreck.
“I wasn’t expecting (Juan Pablo) Montoya coming up – obviously he had a lane there. He came up and clipped the front of the car,” Hunter-Reay commented. “It was just pack racing; it was crazy up there. I didn’t have anywhere to go – I’m just glad Ryan is okay. That was nasty out there. It was looking like a good finish for the DHL car today and we’ll look to do that at Milwaukee.”
Briscoe was driving the No. 5 entry for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, filling in the injured James Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe suffered a left thigh and pelvic injury during practice for the Indianapolis 500 last month. He is out of hospital, going through the recovery process.
“First thing was to call my wife and tell her that I’m okay. I think she’s more distraught than any of us. I’m just thankful that I’m okay,” Briscoe said. “Nobody made that happen intentionally – the racing was close all day and unfortunately, something bad happened and we all are okay. I wish it didn’t. Starting second on the restart and having a shot to win, this isn’t the way we wanted to go out. it would’ve been nice to bring a strong result home.”
Despite the turn of events late in the race, Briscoe did have a sense of humor about it, checking out the scene of the wreck later that evening.
