Sting Ray Robb went airborne, 3 other cars crash in final lap wreck. Who's to blame?
NEWTON, Iowa – A terrifying incident, potentially born out of IndyCar drivers’ unease running off-line at the partially-repaved Iowa Speedway, led to one the scariest multi-car wrecks the series has seen in recent memory two turns from the close of the Hy-Vee doubleheader weekend.
But as the blame game swirled and tensions rose, Sting Ray Robb managed to crack jokes with family inside the infield care center after his No. 41 Chevy not only went airborne, but soared vertically down the backstretch after careening into the back of Alexander Rossi's car on the white flag lap with Rossi's No. 7 Chevy attempting to sputter home on fumes.
“Well that was a dramatic fashion to the end of the race,” the reliably upbeat Robb quipped to his mother Kimmie Serrano while at the track’s infield care center before Robb was airlifted to MercyOne Medical Center in Des Moines. The use of the MedEvac onsite was used strictly because of the 30-plus minute drive to downtown Des Moines, according to IndyCar medical director Dr. Julia Vaizer, who noted the AJ Foyt Racing driver was “awake, alert… and in good spirits” and would receive advanced imaging Sunday evening “for precautionary measures.”
The team later announced Sunday that Robb had been released from the hospital.
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The other three drivers involved in the race-ending wreck, spurred initially by Rossi running out of fuel coming out of Turn 2 on the final lap, before Robb failed to avoid the slowing car and clipped the left-rear to send the scary incident into motion, were left to question and wonder how the crash could’ve been avoided.
“Rossi was out of fuel, and I’d been told about it a lap earlier than that. Just super unfortunate. I don’t understand why he was still on-line,” Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood told reporters post-race, having spun after seeing Robb’s car vertical and failing to cleanly slow down his No. 27 Honda and evade the mess. “Obviously, (Rossi) is trying to protect as much as he can. I don’t understand why Sting Ray didn’t pass him.
“Obviously, the closing rate was big, and late in the race, you’re starting to lose a little reaction timing, so maybe that has something to do with it.
“But it was a very scary incident. I’ve never seen a car fly in the air in front of me like that , and the direction it actually went, the car slowed so much that I had to slow and then spun myself out from the rate of speed I was trying to decelerate. To be honest, I think the drivers in front could’ve done a better job to reduce to the risk of something like that happening.”
Two spots ahead of Kirkwood in eighth-place at the time of the incident, Rossi told reporters post-race he’d been alerted for the first time just four laps from the finish his car was running dangerously low on fuel. Strategist Brian Barnhart coached him through an attempt to coast and reach the checkered flag, but after the race, the team’s general manager and ex-series official said the No. 7 pit crew had purposefully short-filled on their final stop on Lap 201, in hopes of saving time spent on pitlane and not filling the car up with half a tank of fuel they wouldn’t use.
“Now, whether we didn’t get enough fuel in it, or the fuel shifted… we obviously didn’t have enough to finish,” Barnhart told reporters. “We tried to back (Rossi) down the last four laps but ran completely out of fuel coming out of Turn 2.
“I feel terrible for everyone that got collected in the thing and tore up racecars. We hope Sting Ray is OK, and it’s a shame it happened for everybody.”
When asked by Motorsport.com to address Kirkwood’s frustration Rossi hadn’t moved off the racing line while running far off the pace, he simply walked back in the team transporter without comment.
Ed Carpenter: 'If you're not on-line, you're screwed'
Ed Carpenter, who was running 20th at the time of the incident, one spot behind Robb — both of them a lap down — spun while trying to rapidly slow, similar to Kirkwood, at first sight of an airborne car. Robb’s bump into the back of Rossi sent the No. 7 screeching diagonally down the back stretch toward the inside wall, where he, Carpenter and Kirkwood would all gather at a single pinch point, Eventually, contact from Kirkwood sent Carpenter’s car over the top of Rossi’s, leaving the No. 20 ECR car with a wheel resting on top of the upper edge of Kirkwood’s aeroscreen.
“It just looked like Sting Ray had to have seen that (Rossi) was going slower. It looked like he misjudged the closing rate a little bit, and they made contact,” Carpenter told reporters post-race. “I was trying to get low to avoid the mess and spun. It really wasn’t going to be that bad.
“I kinda slid into Alex, but then Kirkwood spun and hit me, and that’s when the crash got worse.”
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When asked whether Rossi held fault in the incident — beyond the team failing to give him enough fuel to get to the end — Carpenter said he found Kirkwood’s sentiments unrealistic.
“Everyone was so spread out here. I could see (Rossi) coming back to us for laps. I’d given up passing Sting Ray just to bring it to the finish, and it all should’ve worked out with enough space and timing,” Carpenter said. “I saw a car get off-line yesterday under a yellow flag and almost crash.
“So for someone to say (Rossi) should’ve been off-line, no. Because you’ll crash. That’s how ridiculous it is to drive these cars here. If you’re not on-line, you’re screwed.”
Kyle Kirkwood felt claustrophobic in early moments
In the crash’s aftermath, Kirkwood said he felt flashbacks of his crash upside down skidding along the outside wall through Turn 2 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the closing laps of the Indy 500. Sunday, with Carpenter’s wheel inches away from resting on his head, he was left sitting for several agonizing seconds in the heat soak of his stopped car and unable to exit the cockpit.
“I just wanted to get out of the car as quickly as possible. I think all of us, when you have no control of your ability to get out of the car, you get claustrophobic pretty quickly,” he said. “When you’re on pitlane and everything’s fine and you know you can get out, it’s fine, but it’s easy to find yourself in a panic.
“It’s safe to say I was extremely hot, and all I wanted to do was get out of the car. But everything was fine. Once the AMR safety team got to me and calmed me down, I knew they were pushing as hard as they could to get me out of the car. That calmed me.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Sting Ray Robb hits Alexander Rossi, gets airborne in IndyCar Iowa
