IRL: Steve Knapp's Wild Ride
20 September 1998
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Knapp's inaugural Indy Racing League season has so far been a study in contrasts and perserverance. A strong showing at Dover, qualifying 5th in his first IRL race after an impressive debut, finishing 3rd and winning Rookie of the Year, in the Indianapolis 500, ended prematurely in a hard crash late in the race. Followed up by a credible performance and finish at the Pikes Peak Radisson 200 despite battling recurring handling problems throughout the race. Knapp and the team had consistently proven they could run with the leaders and were looking forward to a good result as they approached Atlanta.
Showing their usual promise, they were quickly into the top ten early in the race. Knapp and the PDM team had worked hard on finding the right race set-up for the #18 PDM Racing Goodyear/ G-force /Olds Aurora. Running laps over 221 mph, on pace with the race leaders, they were clearly on the move. Again, however, another promising run was cut short with Knapp becoming a victim of a late race crash involving Billy Boat and Marco Greco.
"We had one of the most consistent cars out there" said a disappointed Knapp. "We had a great race setup - the car would get better and better throughout each fuel run. We had a stop and go [penalty] when I exceeded the pit speed limit when my dash MPH display went blank because of a fuel warning alarm on a pit stop but otherwise I could run with and pass just about anyone out there. We easily had a top 5 or 6 car if not for the crash."
After his spectacular and seemingly violent crash Knapp was checked out and released from track-side medical, amazingly with a clean bill of health, another testament to the strength and safety of the new Indy Racing League chassis.
"That's easily the wildest ride I've ever taken" observed Knapp. "It's too bad we didn't have an in-car camera, because it would have been spectacular footage. I saw Boat and Greco get together way ahead of me and had started to gradually slow and move to the inside when Robby [Unser] abruptly changed lanes in front of me and got hard on the brakes. I had nowhere to go - I was up and over the back of him in an instant - all I could see was black sky and stars. I just closed my eyes, held on and prayed. After what seemed a really long time I opened my eyes and saw the track about 15 feet below me and coming up fast - I had to still be doing at least 190 mph, upside down and backwards. I closed my eyes again and braced for the impact. There was a giant hit as the car landed upside down, roll bar first, on top of the outside wall. I felt every inch of seat-belt fabric as I hit. It got real quiet so I opened my eyes again but I wasn't done yet. I saw the front grandstand rotating round and round and then I was upside down again and dragging against the back wall with sparks flying everywhere. I flipped right side up and took another hit as I finally came to a stop against the inside wall."
"Again I've got to commend the safety of these cars. I got out of this crash with hardly even a bruise. It's just a shame we've gotten caught up in a couple of these situations that were outside of our control. Both here and at Dover we had a car that could have easily been a top contender at the end of the day. They say luck is a combination of skill, preparation and opportunity - we've got the skill and preparation part handled, hopefully, here at Texas, we'll finally get our opportunity."
Editors Note: The images displayed in this article (plus many more) can be viewed in The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.
