FORT WORTH, Texas — The IndyCar race at Texas resumed after being red-flagged nearly 31 minutes Saturday night to clean up after an accident involving nine cars in the third and fourth turns.
When the race resumed under yellow on lap 155, and was green on the 160th of 248 scheduled laps, only half of the original 22-car field was on the track.
Canada's James Hinchcliffe got loose after making contact with Tony Kanaan, who appeared to move up the track into him. That put Hinchcliffe in the middle of three-wide and he made contact with his with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate Mikhail Aleshin.
That set up a spark-spraying chain reaction that took out both Dale Coyne Racing drivers, Tristan Vautier and Ed Jones, and sent driver-owner Ed Carpenter and his teammate JR Hildebrand to the garage. Carlos Munoz and Ryan-Hunter Reay were also knocked out of the race.
Hinchcliffe and Carpenter put the blame on Kanaan, who was lined up to resume the race when Dale Coyne went up the No. 10 car, leaned into the cockpit and said something.
After the race resumed, IndyCar penalized Kanaan for avoidable contact, holding him in his pit for 20 second during green-flag conditions.
All drivers involved in the crash were evaluated and released from the infield care
Polesitter Charlie Kimball and Alexander Rossi were already out of the race before that at the repaved and reconfigured 1 1/2-mile track.
The Associated Press