2007 Iowa Corn Indy 250

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The 2007 Iowa Corn Indy 250 was a race in the 2007 IRL IndyCar Series. It was held over the weekend of June 22–24, 2007, as the eighth round of the seventeen-race calendar. It was the inaugural race at the brand-new 0.875-mile (1.408 km) Iowa Speedway.

Pre-Race

Practice scheduled for Friday was shortened due to thunderstorms in the area. Despite lack of Friday practice, many drivers expressed awe at the 7/8th mile track for being so fast, with practice speeds averaging over 180 mph (290 km/h). Drivers originally believed that it would be a competitive race, but soon found out that passing would be very difficult. The other main concern of the track was the physical requirements, with the 7/8th mile track driving like a superspeedway and drivers experiencing 4.8 latteral G-Forces during the race. Scott Dixon won the pole in qualifying on Saturday (182.360 mph/17.6486 secs). Helio Castroneves qualified 2nd (182.272 mph/17.6571 secs), while Danica Patrick came in 11th (180.974 mph/17.7838 secs).

Race

The first half of the race was a "crashfest" with 7 cars crashing out in the first 100 laps. The largest crash occurred on a restart on lap 100, when cars tried to go 4 wide on the frontstretch. Danica Patrick, Sam Hornish Jr., and others were eliminated. Many driver's blamed the hard tires of the race. This was caused because of an unusually cool day, with temperatures around 75 degrees for the race, originally forecast as late as the night before the race around 90-95 degrees. Pole sitter Scott Dixon had steering problems at the start, and originally retired, though his team repaired the car and he ended up 10th, many laps down. The race ended up a battle between Andretti-Green Racing teammates Dario Franchitti and Marco Andretti, with Franchitti winning. Scott Sharp came in third.

Classification

Fin.
Pos
Car
No.
Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Laps
Led
Points
1 27 United Kingdom Dario Franchitti Andretti Green 250 1:48:14.1344 3 96 50+3
2 26 United States Marco Andretti Andretti Green 250 +0.0681 12 4 40
3 8 United States Scott Sharp Rahal Letterman 250 +1.0577 4 4 35
4 15 United States Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 250 +4.2426 17 5 32
5 14 United Kingdom Darren Manning A.J. Foyt Racing 250 +5.2156 15 0 30
6 20 United States Ed Carpenter Vision Racing 247 +3 Laps 5 0 28
7 5 United States Sarah Fisher Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 247 +3 Laps 18 0 26
8 3 Brazil Hélio Castroneves Team Penske 246 +4 Laps 2 57 24
9 4 Brazil Vitor Meira Panther Racing 216 Suspension 13 71 22
10 9 New Zealand Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi 173 +77 Laps 1 10 20
11 10 United Kingdom Dan Wheldon Target Chip Ganassi 145 +105 Laps 9 0 19
12 22 United States A. J. Foyt IV Vision Racing 99 Collision 10 0 18
13 7 United States Danica Patrick Andretti Green 99 Collision 11 1 17
14 6 United States Sam Hornish, Jr. Team Penske 99 Collision 8 0 16
15 55 Japan Kosuke Matsuura Panther Racing 99 Accident 16 0 15
16 11 Brazil Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 85 Accident 7 0 14
17 17 United States Jeff Simmons Rahal Letterman 85 Collision 6 0 13
18 23 Venezuela Milka Duno (R) SAMAX Motorsport 60 Handling 19 0 12
19 2 South Africa Tomas Scheckter Vision Racing 0 Accident 14 0 12
Lead changes: 13 between 8 drivers

References

Preceded by IRL IndyCar Series
round 8

2007
Succeeded by
2007 SunTrust Indy Challenge