McDonald’s driver Graham Rahal utilized an alternate pit strategy to attempt to move up from his 15th place start but the timing of the cautions in the 60-lap Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen on the 3.4-mile permanent road course contributed to a 13th place finish. Rahal had qualified fifth but series officials dropped him 10 starting positions because his car failed a post qualifying inspection for being underweight. At the start of the event he took over 14th place from eventual fourth place finisher Helio Castroneves. He moved up two more places on Lap 5 when EJ Viso and Marco Andretti came into contact and dropped back. After passing Danica Patrick on the following lap he held 11th place for two laps before the team called he and his teammate Robert Doornbos in for an early pit stop on an alternate pit strategy. He returned to the track in 16th place and steadily climbed back into 11th as others made their first stops. Race leader Justin Wilson was able to pit before the first of four cautions came out for Richard Antinucci who was making his IndyCar Series debut but had crashed. Second place runner and polesitter Ryan Briscoe was schedule to pit so he had to make a stop for a splash of fuel in the closed pit and come back in when they opened. By the end of that three lap caution Rahal was in third place when the race went green but the caution immediately came out again when Mario Moraes and Ed Carpenter made contact and continued but the action sent Dario Franchitti into the gravel trap. Rahal had passed Mike Conway for position prior to the caution and ran in second place for one lap before the team elected to bring him in for a second stop on Lap 24. He returned to the track in 13th place behind Doornbos but was passed by Viso on the restart on Lap 25. Viso also got by Doornbos and Rahal moved back into 13th by Lap 30 when the third caution came out for Paul Tracy who crashed in The Boot and backed into the Armco barrier. Once the race resumed, Rahal closed on Doornbos but was not able to pass. He moved into 12th when Hideki Mutoh pit on Lap 40 and climbed into fifth by Lap 43 before his final stop on Lap 44 and returned to the track in 14th place. Mutoh brought out the final caution from Laps 52-53 and he moved into 13th. He temporarily passed Raphael Matos after the restart for two laps but Matos regained the position with four laps to go and Rahal finished 13th. He collected 17 points for a total of 197 to maintain his ninth place rank and is 41 points out of fifth place. Former NHLR driver Justin Wilson earned his sixth Champ/Indy car win and first for Dale Coyne Racing. Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe finished second while Scott Dixon finished third to take over the series points lead after Round 9 of 17. Following are Rahal’s post race comments: 

“The McDonald’s team got a pretty good start, we were moving forward quite a lot and got up to 11th. Then we came in and stopped earlier than others which was our strategy but I’m not sure it was right now after the way the race played out just due to the fact that if we would have just stayed where we were we would have come out a lot better. We kept taking steps backwards unfortunately. I had a ton of fast laps there in a row and really got a nice gap ahead of everybody and that was working out for us but then when the two consecutive yellows came out and hurt us. We needed to get one run there where we could get some space and that just didn’t happen because the yellows came out. It just didn’t play out for us and we had to pit under yellow and go to the back of the pack. It’s frustrating.”