Power keeps faith, prevails at Pocono
LONG POND, PA. This is not one of those stories in which the hero thought he was finished, through — only to mount an unbelievable comeback that not only shocks the world but shocks himself, too.
While Will Power did mount an impressive comeback and many people did count him out before he rallied to win the ABC Supply 500 on Sunday at Pocono Raceway, the Team Penske star never let himself believe he was sunk.
As long as the car still has four wheels and an engine, drivers of Power’s experience and elite skill level are never truly out of it — especially in a 500-mile race.
But at one point, it seemed like the only properly functioning parts of Power’s car were the wheels and engine.
Everything else was falling apart. The carnage started early with the front wing.
Power didn’t know why the wing failed. He only knew that it did, that it caused him to lose all of his front downforce and that he was “lucky not to hit the wall.”
He pitted on lap 67 for a new wing, but that stop proved extremely costly. As the crew changed the wing, it struggled to get new tires on the car and Power fell a lap behind.
In a lot of races, that could have dashed any hope of a win, but not Sunday.
“You can never give up in an IndyCar race,” Power said. “Particularly on an oval in a
500-mile race. … (I thought about Ryan) Hunter-Reay last year, that he got back up to third from a lap down in one stint. So I just had to be smart.”
It would have been nice if that was all he had to do, but there was more adversity headed his way.
Around the midway point of the race, James Hinchcliffe looked like he was about to spin out — he would make an unbelievable save to keep from doing so — which caused Power to slow down to avoid contact. But Charlie Kimball had no idea Hinchcliffe was having problems and ran into the back of Power’s car, damaging his rear wing.
“It was, yeah, what a crazy day for us,” Power said.
Power received his first stroke of good luck around lap
112, when Sebastian Saavedra crashed and caused a caution. Power was able to get back on the lead lap, and from there he took off.
He went off strategy by pitting during the JR Hildebrand-Hinchcliffe crash on lap 124, which proved an ingenious decision as he charged through the front of the field while other drivers made their pit stops.
“Once I got my lap back, I was like, ‘All right, it’s game on, I can definitely get back up there,’ ” said Power, who won his 32nd career race to pass Indy-car giants Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy for No. 9 all time. “I just picked people off one by one. And I was thinking like top five, but when I was pumping out like 217-mph laps, I’m like, ‘OK we’re going to make some serious hay here.’ ”
Power charged to the lead with less than 40 laps to go, but even then, a day fraught with challenges wasn’t over. Josef Newgarden, his teammate and championship leader, made quick work of Power’s four-second lead and began challenging Power for the top spot with less than 10 laps to go.
But Power used veteran guile to unleash a series of defensive maneuvers to keep Newgarden from passing him on the inside and cruised to a much-needed victory.
“That’s the beauty of the 500milers,” Newgarden said. “You can go to the back with 60 to go and go to the front again, especially if you’re on a little different fuel strategy and you’re fast. You can get right back to the front. I think a lot of it is credit to Will and his team, but I also think that’s the way 500 miles race. If you’re fast, you can go from the back to the front. It doesn’t matter.”
Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi joined the two Penske drivers on the podium. Simon Pagenaud finished fourth, and Tony Kannan wrapped up the top five.
After finishing fifth at Road America, Power was 63 points back of the championship lead. With Sunday’s result, the 2014 series champion has closed the gap to 42 points with his third win of the season and is in the thick of the championship hunt.
“Absolutely, I’m in it,” Power said. “When you think about the finish to last year, which was basically if you’re three DNFs in a row if you include a non-finish at a double-points race, it’s like the worst finish you can have, so really determined to finish on a high this year, really determined. I don’t want to have that again. It was frustrating the way we finished last year, so I’m going for it.”
Ayello writes for The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.