At least Scheckter kept his standing

Perseverance was the name of the game at Iowa Speedway this afternoon as the Iowa Corn Indy 250 presented by Ethanol turned out to be a battle of attrition.

And while none of the three Vision Racing drivers escaped unscathed, Ed Carpenter was able to persevere and drive to a sixth place finish. Teammates A.J. Foyt IV and Tomas Scheckter were not as fortunate as they both were forced to retire early with crash damage. Foyt finished 12th while Scheckter was 19th.

When the green flag fell on the 7/8-mile oval for the inaugural IndyCar Series event, Carpenter and the No. 20 Hitachi Power Tools/Vision Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone was in the fifth position. His qualifying run the previous day was a personal and team high on the season.

Carpenter ran strong and by lap 72 had made his way into the second spot. However, while running fifth in a restart on lap 99, Carpenter got caught in a six-car incident on the main straight. The mayhem also collected teammate, Foyt, in the team's No. 22 machine, while Foyt was running in fourth.

The accident ended Foyt's day and relegated him to the 12th spot and his second DNF in a row. However, Foyt showed plenty of speed all weekend as he qualified in 10th and ran as high as second in the race. Unfortunately, the 12th place finish dropped Foyt one spot in the IndyCar Series championship point standings to the 17th position.

Meanwhile, Carpenter's car suffered a broken front wing and right-rear toe link in the incident, but managed to soldier on. After back-to-back pit stops, Carpenter's crew rallied to install a new wing and fix the toe link to get Carpenter back on track, just one lap down from the leaders and in the eighth spot.

Carpenter continued to battle, making his way back up to the fourth spot where he ran until with just three laps to go he slowed due to a loss of fuel pressure. He was unable to bring the car to the checkered flag, but still finished in the sixth position and three laps down.

That matches Carpenter's best finish in 2007 when he took sixth in the season-opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He now has three top-10 finishes this year. Despite the effort, Carpenter slipped two spots in the point standings to 15th.

The only Vision Racing driver to maintain his spot in the point standings was Scheckter who will remain in 10th heading into the ninth of 17 races next Saturday evening at Richmond International Raceway. Scheckter cannot get to the ¾-mile oval soon enough as his race today ended on the first lap.

When the field approached the second turn on the opening lap, Dan Wheldon's car got loose, slid up the track and collected Scheckter in the No. 2 Vision Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone.

Vision Racing showed a great deal of speed at Iowa Speedway this weekend and with another short track up on the schedule next Saturday night, all three team drivers are eager to get back behind the wheel.

ORS / CAPSIS International