Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Mishaps surround Bell’s opener

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Townsend Bell had an eventful debut with Panther Racing in Sunday's Indy Racing League IndyCar Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Bell, named to replace Mark Taylor in the team's No. 2 Dallara/Chevrolet on Thursday, qualified seventh for the race despite never before having driven an IRL car and not having raced on an oval in more than two years.

Then things got interesting for Bell. While he was running in the top 10 early in the race, his on-board fire extinguisher deployed and then, while trying to communicate his predicament to his crew, the radio button on the steering wheel fell off. Bell was forced to pit twice and lost 11 laps while his crew cleaned him up and replaced the steering wheel.

"The fire extinguisher just exploded in my face and I couldn't see anything," Bell said of the incident. "I was trying to hold the car down on the white line, but it reached a point where I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. We brought the car in and the Menards/Johns Manville guys cleaned me up, but once I got back out and was up to speed, the bag just continued to empty out.

"To make matters worse, the radio button in the wheel fell out, so I was trying to talk to the crew, drive the car and get all the stuff off my visor so I could see. It was an interesting start. Even though I was several laps down, my Chevrolet could have run with the leaders if I was on the lead lap."

Bell finished 17th in the race, which was won by Rahal Letterman Racing's Buddy Rice in a near-photo finish over teammate Vitor Meira.

The lead officially changed six times in the final 10 laps between Rice and Meira and broke the previous record of four lead changes in the final 10 laps.

Sam Hornish Jr.'s .0024-second victory over Al Unser Jr. at Chicagoland Speedway in September 2002 still stands as the closest finish in IRL history.

Medeiros led all 67 laps and held off Paul Dana for the victory. It was the second time this season that Medeiros led a race wire to wire.

Arie Luyendyk Jr., Medeiros' Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammate, finished seventh and Al Unser, the 21-year-old son of Al Unser Jr., finished third in his IPS debut.

Matos was not hurt in the accident and the team, owned by Henderson's Richie Hearn, will have the car back on the track July 17 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.