Long Texas wait finally ends Saturday

FORTWORTH,TEXAS— James Hinchcliffe has been leading the IndyCar race at Texas for such a long time.

When the rain-interrupted race resumes on the 72nd lap Saturday night at the highbanked — and hopefully dry — 1½-mile oval, Hinchcliffe will have led for 76 days.

“It’s better than not leading at all, that’s for sure,” Hinchcliffe said, with a chuckle. “The most important thing is that we’re still leading at the end.”

A lot has happened in the 2½ months since that waterlogged June weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, including the completion of five other IndyCar Series races. Will Power won three of them, the last being 500 miles at Pocono on Monday after a one-day rain delay.

Hinchcliffe, the Indianapolis 500 pole sitter who led 27 laps before finishing seventh there in May, hasn’t led another lap since leaving Texas.

The last time an IndyCar race started and resumed another day was at Brazil in 2011, but that was only 24 hours, with pole sitter Power winning.

“It’s unlike anything we’ve done before as far as rainouts go,” Power said about going back to Texas, where he will resume running fourth.

Unlike the quick resumption in Brazil five years ago, IndyCar drivers are returning to Texas 11 weeks later and will have only a 10-minute practice session before starting to race again.

Only 71 of the scheduled 248 laps were completed in June, when the Firestone 600 was initially postponed from Saturday night. After the race started 40 minutes late Sunday and then the rain returned, the decision for an unprecedented months-long delay was made since there was more wet weather in the immediate forecast.

Rain fell for several hours after the cars came off the track 54 laps shy of what was needed to make it an official race. There were more downpours the following day.

Since rules don’t allow for starting over after a race has taken the green flag, the only choice was to resume it from where it was stopped.