Sharp keeping in the Top 10 zone

Scott Sharp (#8 Patrón Dallara/Honda/Firestone) continued to show the IndyCar Series that he intends to run at the front of the field despite being the oldest driver in the series, scoring his fifth consecutive top-10 finish with an eighth-place run in Saturday's SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway.

Sharp started seventh in Saturday night's showdown at the 0.75-mile Richmond oval, and ran at or near that spot for most of the day. He was never any farther back than eighth but was never any closer than fifth at any time during his 250 trips around the short oval. His steady finish kept him in the seventh spot in the championship, and allowed the #8 car to close to within 22 points of sixth-placed Helio Castroneves.

"Overall it was a pretty good day for the Rahal Letterman Racing Team," said Sharp, who strung five consecutive top-10 finishes together for the first time since 2002-03. "We had a good car for most of the race. We were loose for the first half of the race like pretty much everyone else was, but the guys did a great job of working on the car, making it better and keeping us in the hunt."

Meanwhile, Jeff Simmons (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) suffered a costly accident on Lap 155 that left him 18th. Simmons had moved into the top 10 after starting 11th, and was running 13th at the time of the crash, which took place on the exit of Turn Two. The result took a heavy toll on his place in the standings as he dropped four rungs to 15th, but he remains just 34 points out of a top-10 berth.

"I am very disappointed for everyone on the team and for the people at Ethanol," Simmons said on the ESPN broadcast. "It seems like every time we have a good car, something happens to set us back. We were making the car better and were ready for our next pit stop, but the car just pushed out and I couldn't get it back."

Sharp got a wakeup call at the very start of the race as Sam Hornish Jr. spun directly in front of him as the field took the green flag. Hornish spun from the inside of the third row, starting a troubled day that would leave the defending series champion in 15th, but Sharp was able to avoid him and move into sixth as the caution flag flew.

The Patrón crew showed its mettle on the first pit stop of the day, gaining two spots for Sharp on his first visit to his stall and moving him up to sixth. Battling a loose race car, Sharp was warring with Danica Patrick and Tomas Scheckter in a fight for the sixth spot and getting positioned for green-flag stops when Simmons met his end with 95 laps to go.

Sharp maintained his presence in the top 10 as the laps ticked off, getting one more shot to gain positions on a restart with six laps to go, courtesy of contact between Hornish and Kosuke Matsuura. The restart bunched the field, but six laps would not be enough as Sharp settled for the eighth position. The top-10 result was the second consecutive for Sharp at Richmond and extends his IndyCar series-record number of top-10 finishes to 78.

The result kept Sharp in seventh place in the point standings and gave him a 10-point advantage over Patrick as well as a 16-point bulge over Vitor Meira.

The Indy Cars will head to New York's Finger Lakes Region this week for the third in a series-record five-week swing, as the IndyCar Series visits Watkins Glen for the Camping World Watkins Glen Grand Prix on Sunday, July 8 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

D.B. © CAPSIS International
Source Rahal Letterman Racing