Hinchcliffe recovering from surgery after crash

Canada’s James Hinchcliffe is recovering from surgery on his upper left thigh at Indiana University Methodist Hospital after a vicious crash during practice for the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Monday.

The injury, although not life threatening, was serious enough that the Oakville native won’t be back in the No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda for the 99th running of the famed race at the 2.5 mile oval they call the Brickyard on May 24.

Hinchcliffe, 28, appeared to have a right side suspension failure sending his No. 5 Honda-powered Dallara into the Turn 3 wall, where it briefly caught fire.

The car then came back across the track and was slightly airborne before landing on all four wheels with its right side sheered apart.

Telemetry on the track showed that Hinchcliffe was travelling at 228.607 mph when he lost control.

IndyCar officials issued a medical update late in the afternoon that Hinchcliffe was undergoing surgery but was conscious.

“Verizon IndyCar Series driver James Hinchcliffe is in stable condition and is undergoing surgery at IU Health Methodist Hospital for an injury to his left upper thigh,” Dr. Michael Olinger, INDYCAR medical director, said. “Hinchcliffe was awake when he was transported by ground to the hospital.”

Dan Layton, a spokesman for Honda Performance Racing was quoted at the track as saying it looked as if the crash was triggered by a broken right front rocker arm causing the race car to lose steering.

Layton said that Honda officials were fairly certain the new aero kits that the team received just two weeks ago to race at the big oval played no part in Hinchcliffe’s crash.

But Hinchcliffe’s accident was the fourth such crash during Indy 500 practice in the past week.

Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter all wrecked and each of their cars was airborne — only in their cases the cars actually flipped over.

The three previous crashes — before Hinchcliffe — all involved Chevrolet body kits, leading Verizon IndyCar officials to make changes to the aero kits and reduce the horsepower on both the Chevrolets and the Hondas.