IRL gets off to a fast start

The Indy Racing League couldn't have asked for a better debut as a reunified open-wheel series with the Champ Car World Series than last Saturday night's Gainsco Auto Insurance Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

There were thrills, spills, and even some chills.

Best of all, it was televised in prime time on ESPN2. In high definition, no less.

It pulled a .8 rating, up a 10th of a point from last year's opener, and reached some 815,000 households to rank as ESPN2's highest-rated IndyCar Series race, and most watched on ESPN or ESPN2 in almost three years.

It paled in comparison to NASCAR's ratings, but, hey, it was a start.

The thrills came from watching Dan Wheldon, a three-peat winner of the Homestead opener who was forced to start 22d after a crash in pole qualifications, carve his way from the rear to finish third.

"The other people on the track were very respectful," Wheldon said of the slower drivers from Champ Car who tried to keep pace with their IRL brethren. "I think they knew I had a fast car. To tell you the truth, I think every time I came up behind somebody and they knew I was quicker, they made it comfortable for me to pass."

The spills were suffered by Penske Racing rookie Ryan Briscoe, who got taken out by Milka Duno's car in Turn 2 on Lap 127, and Andretti Green Racing's Tony Kanaan, whose right front tire got clipped as he went low to avoid Ernesto Viso, who spun in Turn 3 after puncturing a tire on Lap 193.

"When somebody spins and he's doing 230 miles an hour, you're like, 'Where should I go?' " lamented Kanaan, who finished seventh, two laps behind the leaders. "I slowed down. He was on the bottom, so I went to the top. Then, all of a sudden, he started to go to the top and I was trying to go to the bottom, so there was nothing I could do about it."

Kanaan then provided the chills when he toured the 1 1/2-mile oval under caution on three tires in an attempt to remain in the lead. It left the crowd to wonder if the bold Brazilian would truly take a run at the green flag when the race resumed with four laps to go.

Kanaan took the green, but quickly dropped off the pace. He decided discretion was the better part of valor and parked it after limping around for a couple of laps. Scott Dixon surged to the lead on the restart and won, giving the Target Chip Ganassi Racing team its fourth consecutive victory at Homestead.

"You know, the guys that came in from Champ Car were fantastic out there," said Dixon, who finished runner-up to 2007 IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. "They gave everybody tons of room. I didn't really have a problem with anybody. You know, I'm sure there were some others that did. The problem I had, I think, was with a couple of the guys that we run with week in and week out."

When the series shifts to the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., for tomorrow's Honda Grand Prix, it's not likely the Champ Car guys, who are more versed in the art of racing on road courses and street circuits, are going to give that wide a berth to IRL drivers.

The IRL's inaugural race under reunification was a success by any measure.

"There's no doubt about that," said spokesman John Griffin. "The media attention was up, the ratings were up, we got a decent crowd [of about 30,000]. We definitely got off on the right foot."

Close call

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie Michael McDowell made quite an impression in his first tour of Texas Motor Speedway yesterday - on the SAFER barrier, that is.

McDowell lost control of his No. 00 Toyota as it entered Turn 1 of his qualifying lap for tomorrow's Samsung 500, and it hit the barrier head-on. McDowell's car bounced off the wall, went airborne, and barrel-rolled eight times before landing on its wheels. Amazingly, McDowell climbed from the smoldering ruins and walked away.

"For me to walk away from that wreck is unbelievable," said McDowell, who made his debut last weekend at Martinsville, Va., where Denny Hamlin delivered Toyota its second win of the season. "I just thank God I was able to do that."

McDowell will start 40th on owner points tomorrow. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start on the pole after turning a fast lap of 190.907 miles per hour. Carl Edwards (189.487) will start on the outside pole.

Good first impressions

While they still have plenty of catching up to do, the eight transitioning drivers from Champ Car were impressive in the IRL opener. Four finished the race, three dropped out for mechanical reasons, and only one (Viso) was involved in an on-track incident. Oriol Servia carried the banner for the transition group with a 12th-place finish, five laps down. "It was a long day in the office, but that means we achieved our first goal, which was to finish the race with no damage to the car," Servia said. "We knew it was going to be like this. You hope for a miracle to happen, but we will leave the miracle for the month of May." . . . Two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk recalled his infamous run-in with A.J. Foyt at Texas Motor Speedway this week. Luyendyk was cuffed around 11 years ago by Foyt after he broke up the Victory Lane celebration of Foyt's driver, Billy Boat, protesting that he was the rightful winner. As it turned out, Luyendyk was. When he got knocked down from behind by Foyt, "I thought a cameraman might have knocked me down," Luyendyk said. "Then I looked up and saw the raging bull himself. It was great publicity for the track and the IRL. A.J. and I get along fine now and joke about it." . . . Antron Brown became the first NHRA driver to win in both the Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle divisions with his first Top Fuel victory last weekend at Houston Raceway Park. Brown, a motorcyle rider turned NHRA Top Fuel rookie, came from the lowest starting position (12th) and put together four consistent runs to defeat Doug Foley and Cory McClenathan in the first two rounds before outrunning Doug Kalitta in the semis and Larry Dixon in the final by a margin of two-100ths of a second. "Being able to live this dream is unreal," Brown said. "I was a little kid going to the Summer Nationals watching guys like [Don] Garlits, Kenny Bernstein, John Force, and Don Prudhomme, and now I have to stop and ask myself, 'Am I really here?' This team has been plagued in the second round all year, but we knew we were capable of winning."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, race teams, sponsors, sanctioning bodies, and track publicity departments was used in this report.