Ray drives to IRL championship

Monday, Oct. 18, 1999 | 9:59 a.m.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- An early-morning rainstorm that delayed the start of the Indy Racing League Mall.com 500 for more than four hours and gloomy late-afternoon skies when the race finally started set the tone for some rather subdued celebrations under the lights at Texas Motor Speedway.

Six hours and 15 minutes after the scheduled start of Sunday's IRL season finale, race winner Mark Dismore was in tears; Greg Ray talked more about not winning the race than winning the series championship; Las Vegan Davey Hamilton had to force a smile despite his runner-up finish in the race; and Henderson's Sam Schmidt was undergoing surgery on a pair of broken feet, the result of a violent crash.

Dismore, 43, had a hard time holding back the tears after cruising to a one-lap victory over Hamilton, Ray and Eddie Cheever for his first IRL win in 30 starts.

Ray's third-place finish, combined with premature exits by Kenny Brack and Schmidt, clinched the series title for the Plano, Texas, native on his hometown track before a partisan crowd estimated at 50,000.

"My dad has prostate cancer and it has been on my mind," Dismore said. "I have been wanting to win for a long time ... not just for that situation, but because I needed a win.

"We all knew I could win for a long time now. But when you don't, there is some doubt."

There was little doubt that Ray would be crowned champion after Schmidt, who was third in points, crashed 126 laps into the 208-lap race and Brack, who trailed Ray by 16 points, dropped out 60 laps later with a broken rear wheel bearing.

Ray, who appeared to have the car to beat in this year's Indianapolis 500 until he and Dismore crashed in the pits midway through the race, said he felt he could have won Sunday's race had it not been for an admittedly conservative game plan.

"We definitely had the car to (win the race), but at the end of the day, the championship was always more important than a single-race win," Ray said. "I would have loved to have won (the race) here -- of all places, other than Indy, I would like to win here. But the championship more than makes up for that.

"I think if we would have pitted (earlier than lap 187, for the final time), we probably would have won the race; we were definitely quicker than Dismore ... but I don't second-guess the team's decision."

Ray led for 32 laps (laps 155 to 186) until he made his final green-flag pit stop, allowing Dismore to take over the lead and Hamilton to move up to second.

Although he had to borrow a car to make the first race of the season and drove for a second team at the second race, Hamilton managed to finish fourth in the championship for Galles Racing. He found little consolation in that after being the runner-up in the championship each of the past two seasons.

"Second (still) is better than (fourth)," Hamilton said. "This has been a tough year and we're very, very happy with (fourth) ... but this isn't as good as our last two years.

"We hope next year we're going to be more organized at the start of the season and work on winning the championship. This is a championship-caliber team."

Schmidt's effort to win the championship ended on a bitter note when Scott Sharp attempted to make an ill-conceived pass underneath Schmidt on a restart on lap 126.

Sharp got his wheels in the grass at the bottom of the track as he tried to pass Schmidt at the start/finish line, came up on the track and punted Schmidt into the outside wall. Schmidt hit the wall head-on and it took emergency personnel several minutes to extricate him from his car.

Schmidt was airlifted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in nearby Dallas, where he underwent surgery for a fractured left foot and an open fracture of the big toe on his right foot.

Schmidt, who won the Vegas.com 500 three weeks ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finished 22nd in the race and fifth in the championship points battle.

Two other drivers involved in accidents required additional medical attention.

Scott Goodyear, who fractured a bone in his leg in a similar crash at Las Vegas last month, cut a tire in turn 4 and hit the outside wall. Goodyear also was airlifted to Parkland with a possible concussion.

Robby Unser was treated and released from the infield medical center after a crash in Turn 2, but later complained of upper body pain and also was taken to Parkland for further tests.