Crash wipes out victory hopes

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 | 9:57 a.m.

Editor's note: Sam Schmidt of Henderson was a major factor in the 83rd running of the Indianapolis 500 Sunday before being sidelined by an accident. After falling back from his seventh starting position early, he led laps 34-37. At the 500 Victory Celebration Monday night, Schmidt and his Treadway Racing team collected $213,800 for 30th place.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The start of Sunday's race was a little slow. We didn't have a very good start and fell back a few positions, but I wasn't about to pressure it that early.

Then we started working our way back to the front. From that point, everything went as planned. We conserved fuel and had a sneaking suspicion somebody was going to run out of fuel and cause a yellow. Hideshi Matsuda did and that's when I took the lead. We still had five gallons of fuel in the car when the yellow came out.

After we pitted for fuel, we were just driving around trying to be patient with Arie Luyendyk and Greg Ray, who were leading. We were right where we wanted to be.

The car was really good and I probably got a little too racy. I was passing a lapped car (John Hollansworth Jr.) and just took it too deep into Turn 1. At the same time, Greg and Arie had to check up for several lapped cars that they were trying to get around.

The combination of the two forced me to get on the brakes too heavy to avoid hitting Arie and I lost it.

On one hand, we're certainly disappointed. It felt like we missed a huge opportunity to win the greatest race in the world. On the other hand, we had the good-handling race car we expected. The crew did an incredible job.

This month was special. Being around Arie, on and off the track, for his final 500 was something I'll never forget. He was such a statesman for the sport.

But we're leaving here preparing for next year.

With something to prove.