Luyendyk nips Henderson's Sam Schmidt in Las Vegas 500K

Arie Luyendyk won the race and Kenny Brack captured the championship, but Henderson resident Sam Schmidt stole the show.

Luyendyk capped a season of frustration by winning Sunday's Las Vegas 500K at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner had to hold off a surprising late charge by the local favorite, Schmidt, in the Indy Racing League season finale.

In the race within the race, all three drivers competing for the series championship battled assorted problems. Brack clinched the title with a 10th-place finish despite being slowed by engine problems early in the race.

Davey Hamilton of Las Vegas crashed, took 19th and finished second in points. Tony Stewart, the 1997 IRL champ, fell to dead last at the start, finished 14th and was third in the final standings.

Schmidt, in danger of falling off the lead lap on several occasions during the 208-lap race, thrilled a partisan crowd estimated at 35,000 with his first podium finish in a year and a half in the series.

"This means everything," Schmidt said of his second-place effort, which was worth $99,300. "This carries on to January with you ... it's all that important to try and close some (sponsorship) deals.

"I am extremely thankful. We've got all of our sponsors here, we've got all of our friends and family here ... It has been great."

Schmidt, who started 23rd in the 28-car field, quickly moved into the top 10, where he remained for the majority of the race. He was fourth, the last car running on the lead lap, when he shot past Buddy Lazier for third place on lap 189.

The 34-year-old Schmidt, whose best IRL finish before Sunday was a seventh place at Phoenix in the second race of the season, was running third when an accident on lap 198 forced the race's eighth and final caution period.

When the race went green on lap 204, Schmidt passed John Paul Jr. for second place, clipping Paul's right-front wing. Schmidt started running down Luyendyk, but ran out of laps.

Luyendyk beat Schmidt to the checkered flag by 0.926 seconds.

Lazier took third, Paul was fourth and Eddie Cheever Jr. was fifth. There were 13 lead changes among seven drivers in the race, which was slowed by eight caution periods for 68 laps.

"That's something that we really had the car to do at Indy and we're very disappointed that we didn't have it happen there," Schmidt said.

Schmidt, one of the few owner/drivers in the IRL, qualified sixth-fastest for the Indy 500 but was knocked out of the race on lap 49 when he triggered a multi-car crash.

"Ever since then, if (something) could break on our car, it broke," Schmidt said. "I must have held my breath the last 60 laps today, waiting for that to happen again, but it didn't happen."

Schmidt's best-ever finish came with an assist from fellow IRL team owner Tom Kelley, who lent Schmidt an engine when the race engine Schmidt was expecting was delayed in shipping.

"I said this morning, before this race started, that we had no excuses with that (new motor)," Schmidt said. "My race motor not showing up was a blessing in disguise, by far.

"This certainly answers a lot of questions (we had) since Indy. People said, 'How did you do so good at Indy and what's happening?' and we've been trying to figure out where the problem is. It just kind of all came together today."

It all came together for the 45-year-old Luyendyk, who has been talking about retiring after a season in which he had no wins and posted only two top-five finishes in 10 races.

"Maybe I shouldn't retire after a race like this," Luyendyk, who earned $120,200 for the victory, said. "There are a lot of tracks I really like to run and a lot I don't like to run. Maybe I'll just run on the tracks I like next year.

"I think I'm the oldest driver in the IRL so I'm like a senior citizen and I can do what I want."

Luyendyk, who won the Indy 500 in 1990 with CART and in 1997 with the IRL, said he began to question whether he still had the ability to win races.

"You start to doubt yourself, if you actually belong in the car," Luyendyk said. "You get a lot of self-doubt when you've had a lot of bad luck and things don't go your way.

"Then, all of a sudden, a day like today really turns everything around and winning one race makes up for a lot of misery you've had before."

Luyendyk led five times for 88 laps. The race essentially was a two-car duel between himself and Lazier, the 1996 Indy 500 winner, who led for 60 laps before developing a severe handling problem two-thirds into the race.

The pace was slowed by five accidents, none of which were serious.

archive