USACLIVE
– Race Report – 05/27/05 – Indianapolis, IN. …The 54th running of the Hoosier 100 is in the
books and it was a breakthrough night for at least one driver.
Teddy Beach only stumbled once all night and in the end came home with his
first career Silver Crown victory. While it was Beach’s first win in the
division, it was not his first win in USAC or even his first win of the week.
Just 24 hours before, Beach notched his fourth National Midget win in the 100
lap feature at the Speedrome.
Beach proved to be quick out of the gate, setting the second fastest time in
his qualifying session and the sixth quickest lap overall. His lap of 32.123
seconds placed him in the Race for the Pole shootout to determine the starting
order among the top ten qualifiers. This was the one time during the event that
Beach did not have things go his way. The best time he could manage in the four
minutes of green flag time was a lap of 32.344 seconds. The .22 second drop
from his original qualifying time moved him from sixth to tenth at the start.
As the race unfolded though, Beach picked his way to the front. Before the race
began he had picked up one spot as Tracy Hines accepted the $50,000 promoters
challenge for the driver that could win the race after moving to the tail of
the field.
Hines came up just four positions short of claiming that big payday, finishing
the race in fifth place. The run from the back of the pack still came with its
rewards despite falling short of the bonus. Hines earned $100 for every
position gained, netting an additional $2800 along the way.
Two laps later Beach was the beneficiary of Pole Sitter Paul White’s bad luck.
White used the Run for the Pole to move from his ninth qualifying spot to the
Pole, besting the track record along the way with a run of 31.173 seconds. This
was not an official qualifying track record however as it was set in a session
outside of qualifying.
White led the opening two laps but fuel was seen spraying from the top of the
fuel tank as he circled the track. A red flag two laps in to the race gave USAC
Officials a chance to take a look at White’s car. The team had to pull the car
behind the wall to make repairs resulting in White having to go to the tail of
the field.
Josh Wise inherited the lead at this point but Beach had moved to second by lap
40 and stalked the leader for the next 45 laps. Finally on lap 86 Beach made
his bid for the lead, pulling alongside Wise as the two crossed the
start/finish line then taking the lead as the two cars entered turn one.
Beach instantly stretched his lead to ten car lengths but another of many
yellow flags on laps 87 and 94 prevented him from pulling away. The
Donnelsville,
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