Atlanta notes, quotes and points

Hornish had the only race car that could keep up with eventual winner Greg Ray and was running second until he made his final pit stop seven laps from the finish. He went on to finish fourth.

"The caution for the accident is where everyone got off on pit stops," said Hornish, referring to an 11-car fireball on lap 53. "It was kind of a crapshoot on whether to pit. We had a second-place car and didn't get it. We're excited about our strong finishes, and we look forward to Indy. We just didn't have enough fuel at the end.

"Overall, it was a good run for our team. We're real excited going into Indy. I'll trade a win here for a win there."



Eddie Cheever had the highest starting position of his Indy Racing League career when he started third in Saturday night's race, but the engine blew up dropping him out of the race on the 35th lap. He finished 24th.

The former Formula 1 driver is running the new Infiniti Indy 35A engine and the failure couldn't have come at a worse time as the series moves on to its biggest race, the 85th Indianapolis 500.

"It's obviously not how we wanted to finish, and we're not quite sure what happened, but we think it was something in the top end of the engine," Cheever said. "The car had a bit of push at the beginning of the race, but I was keeping the leaders in sight and I'm sure we would have made a run at the win.

"It's a shame. The Infiniti engine performed flawlessly all weekend long and we were in the top three in every session. We've got a good 10 days of practice at Indy before the Indianapolis 500 on May 27, so we're going to
reassess some things."



Rookie Felipe Giaffone played a role in the 11-car crash on the 53rd lap, but he was able to continue in the race without any contact.

"We were very lucky in that first accident," Giaffone said. "I guess it was pretty close behind me. I hope everyone is OK. We had a great race car, but we had a fuel pick-up problem and we lost a lot of laps fixing it.

"The team gave me a great car. I think we might have had a top-three finish. It is too bad for the Hollywood team. They gave me a great car. I'm glad we were still able to finish in the top 10, and we brought the car home in one piece. Now, we get ready for Indy."

Giaffone finished 10th.



Sam Hornish Jr. continues to lead the IRL standings with 136 points. Eliseo Salazar is second with 105, followed by Scott Sharp's 96, Jeff Ward's 82 and Felipe Giaffone's 80.



Saturday night's crowd was estimated at between 35,000 to 40,000 fans at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This is the fourth year the IRL has raced at Atlanta Motor Speedway. According to AMS president and general manager Ed Clark, the contract with the series is on a year to year basis but he admitted he sees some potential in the Indy car series.


Click here for the race result.