Turmoil for IndyCar with Texas track

Tony Kanaan realized within a matter of laps on the repaved and reconfigured track that the pack was back.

At Texas Motor Speedway, where over the past 20 years IndyCar has had some of its fastest and most exciting finishes, drivers quickly worked in a second groove on the 1½-mile track that was repaved earlier this year. Some even were going three-wide, whether they meant to or not.

“Very intense from first lap to the last lap,” Kanaan said. “I’m glad it’s over.”

But Will Power had anticipated every bit of that before starting the race that he won under caution late June 10.

“I didn’t say whether it was good or bad,” Power said, recalling his prerace conversation with a series official. “I absolutely knew it would be a pack race.”

What ensued was a tumultuous race under a full moon , with Kanaan getting blamed — and penalized — for a big wreck before he recovered from being two laps down to get his fifth runner-up finish in Texas.

Only nine of the 22 cars that started were listed as running at the end, and only six drivers completed all 248 laps.

Kanaan, who won at Texas in 2004, never expected the race to develop as it did.

“I don’t think we should be doing this the way it is,” Kanaan said. “We should be coming to Texas. The fans are great. This track is awesome. But I think we should change the format a little bit. How, I don’t know. We’ve got to figure it out.”

The race was redflagged for nearly 31 minutes with just under 100 laps left after Kanaan drifted up coming off the backstretch and suddenly squeezed James Hinchcliffe, who then made contact with his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate Mikhail Aleshin.

That triggered a carcrushing, spark-spraying chain reaction in Turns 3 and 4 involving eight cars as Kanaan was able to drive away.

“I guess I moved up, and I really have to apologize to Hinch,” Kanaan said. “I’ve been around it way too long to do any silly things like that, and if I did, it was really a mistake, and I apologize for it.”