Kanaan did what he could

Following a rain-perturbed Indy 500, the drivers had many thoughts to share after participating in the event's 91st edition.

TONY KANAAN (#11 Team 7-Eleven Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
(About regrouping after the rain delay): "I would say I didn't have to regroup. I went straight out of my car, and I didn't want to talk to anybody. People thought that I was mad, but I wasn't. I wanted to get to (Dario Franchitti) before anyone else." (Should today have been your day?): "I think it is Dario's day. I did what I could. My big disappointment will be if we knew we weren't going to finish 200 laps, why would we continue? I have to say that Dario is probably thinking the other way around. It is the Indianapolis 500, but it is just another race, too. Hopefully, we turn the page over and move on. We'll get another chance, and hopefully we'll get (the win)." (How do you use this as motivation for next year?): "You have to wait another year and just come back and do what we can do. This is why this is Indianapolis. How many other guys (fall short)? Look at my boss (Michael Andretti). This is probably his last try, and he didn't get it. He raced over 20 years. It is what it is, so let's move on and see what can happen."

JEFF SIMMONS (#17 Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"It reminds me of 2004, and I think I said that all day long. We were running up there with the quick guys most of the day. There were a couple of guys that were quicker than us, and it would have taken some traffic or something for us to beat them. But I think we should have legitimately been sixth or seventh, but with the rain, it didn't work out in the end. We fought hard all day, and I just wish we would have finished better for the guys and for ethanol. The car started to come to us a little bit. We made a little wing change early, and that dialed it in. It was good for long stretches of time. I think we showed a lot of people that we can be competitive; it's just disappointing to end up where we did." (About Marco Andretti's crash): "I just saw sparks up on the right. I had a really good run on the cars in front of me, and I was getting ready to make a move, and I saw sparks and I saw Marco upside down coming across the track toward me, and I had to bail out into the grass a little bit. I didn't want to risk throwing it back up because I wasn't sure if anyone was over there, so I went down to the warm-up lane. I'm glad that Marco is OK."

A.J. FOYT IV (#22 Vision Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"We ran pretty good. The car wasn't bad at all. It was actually really good there at the end of the race. I survived and missed a few big crashes, so I moved that position up to where it should have been anyways. I'm just proud of all my guys on my team, and thanks again for Tony George giving me the opportunity to be back here, and I look forward to coming back next year."

VITOR MEIRA (#4 Delphi Panther Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"That was a very hard race for everybody; a very hard month. The Delphi Panther team did very, very good. We had many adversities this month. We were fourth place at a point, but when the restart came, we lost a lot of grip. I guess it was good when the track had lots of rubber on it, but when it rained, it hurt the car. I'm not okay with tenth but for the month we had, it was a good thing." (The racing looked really tight out there. Did that make the handling more difficult?): "That was a very tight race, actually. The race kept stopping all the time and it never went for more than 50 laps green at a time, I think. We have to work a little more here at the speedway. But, I leave here, not happy, but satisfied."

KOSUKE MATSUURA (#55 Panasonic Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"After the restart, my car really pushed. I brushed the wall off of Turn 2. Then the car was no good. After that, we adjusted the front wing, and the car was pretty decent. Overall, I just didn't have enough speed, and I couldn't fight anybody."

ALEX BARRON (#98 Lenovo/CURB Records Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"It was good when we went back out. We came back to the garage earlier, and I was really disappointed because we were 24th, and our pit strategy didn't work out real good. But we went back out and made up nine positions. We picked them up one by one, so we're pretty happy with that. Obviously, at the end of the day, we wanted more, but we're real happy with the result."

BUDDY LAZIER (#99 Sam Schmidt Motorsports Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"Well, at least it wasn't like 10 years ago, when we ran a race that took place over three days. Hats off to the (Indy Racing) League, they did a great job getting the track back to racing (condition). I looked out and saw all of those fans, and they were waiting. Those are Indiana fans. I mean, those guys are hardcore. So I think for the fans and also for the competitors, the Indy 500 is not the Indy 250. I thought it was great that they got the race back up and going." (Describe your race car, through the first 113 laps and then they last segment) "We struggled really hard all day. I was just telling my team PR guy that you could run 1,000 miles with a car that is totally hooked up, and you feel good afterward. Yet you run 100 miles in a car that is not hooked up, it feels like 1,000 (miles). Bottom line is, we really struggled today and never really got a handle on our race car (setup). Ken is a great engineer; this is a great race team. But man, there is something about this race car. This team just bought the car just days before the month started. I thought they did a great job. It was really disappointing that we didn't have a better race car. I know we are all disappointed, but we brought it home 19th. I think that was all that car had in it today, for sure." (Were you close to any incidents out there?) "Tons, tons, just tons. First of all, my car were an incident waiting to happen about every third lap. My Turn 3 spotter, about every third or fourth lap would say, 'Great save, great save.' Because I was saving the car a lot. Bottom line, this is a great race car. This is a great race team, but there is something really wrong it. We just missed something, real bad. We'll just have to rally the team. They are a great race team, and are sure we will solve the problem with this car. But at the end of the day, I had an evil race car. We fought hard, even though the result is as sad as it was; they kept fighting and making it better. Obviously, once you start the race, you are stuck with what you have. But through tire pressures, wing changes and all the limited things you have to work with, they definitely made it better and better. Just not good enough."

DAN WHELDON (#10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone)
"I'm fine. I'm just I was running on the outside of him (Marco Andretti). Unfortunately, he hit me. Thank goodness he's all right. It didn't seem anything we did today worked very well for us. It was just one of those days when we couldn't seem to do anything right. We were definitely trying hard. But everybody has tried very hard. It's just unfortunate day for us. I'm very disappointed. That's the way this place works sometimes. I wanted to win the Indianapolis 500, but now we'll focus on the championship. We have Milwaukee coming up. Thankfully that's coming up pretty soon so we can just move on."

D.B. © CAPSIS International
Source IRL Indycar