WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — After being involved in a fight on pit lane following Sunday’s IndyCar Camping World Watkins Glen Grand Prix, Sam Hornish, Jr. and Tony Kanaan are expected to receive penalties from Indy Racing League officials.
With the attention that will be given over the “Brawl near the Falls,” the IRL should probably give them bonuses.
Racing in the shadows of NASCAR Nextel Cup every weekend, IndyCar finally had its “main event” in of all places, a sleepy little resort community near Seneca Lake in western New York.
Throughout every IndyCar season, it’s not unusual to see three-time champion Hornish and 2004 champion Kanaan square off on the race track because they are two of the best drivers in this form of racing.
But the two took it to a new level after the race when they were involved in a physical altercation on pit road after the race.
Hornish, who finished second, and fourth-place finisher Kanaan were involved in an on-track collision in turn six, known as “The Bus Stop,” on the 29th lap of Sunday’s 60-lap contest at the 3.377-mile, 11-turn Watkins Glen Int’l road course.
Both cars had tire marks as battle scars from the incident but were able to run near the front in a race won by New Zealand’s Scott Dixon for the third year in a row.
But the usually quiet Hornish and the hot-tempered Kanaan voiced their displeasure with each other after the race.
And then it got ugly.

"He’s an old man. I can’t beat an old man, so I’m not going to do that.”
— Tony Kanaan

After the race was over, Kanaan’s car rammed into Hornish’s as the two were heading down pit lane. An angry Hornish climbed out of his car to talk to Kanaan about the incident. Tempers flared, Hornish said Kanaan slapped him and at that point, Hornish’s elder father, also named Sam, went after Kanaan, giving him a hard push.
Someone with Andretti Green Racing slammed the 64-year-old Hornish to the ground before Indy Racing League head of security Charles Burns broke up the melee.
Team owner Michael Andretti wanted to get involved in the fight but was pushed away by his son, 20-year-old Marco Andretti.
“He hit me on the track, and when you hit somebody from behind, I went up to talk to him,” Kanaan said. “He needs his dad to defend himself all the time. His dad bumped me, which I think is totally wrong. It happened on the track, and we need to sort it out between me and him, and if we can’t sort it out, then Brian Barnhart (IndyCar president of competition) needs to sort it out.
“His dad can’t bump me out of the way like that. I’m not going to punch him. We were trying to talk about it and his dad bumped me. That’s why dads should be in the grandstands and not in the pits.
“I never got in a fight, and I don’t want to get in a fight,” Kanaan said. “When you put your dad in a discussion between two drivers, that’s not the right thing to do. I don’t see a reason in it because I wasn’t going to hit him, and he was not going to hit me. It happened between us, and we were going to talk about it. It happened between us, and we both should talk about it.
“To bring your dad to the track to defend yourself, that is what happens. He’s an old man. I can’t beat an old man, so I’m not going to do that.”
 Hornish was upset at Kanaan because he ran into him on pit lane.
“In retrospect, I probably should have let him run into me coming into pit lane, but I don’t think that’s really fair to all these guys on all these teams to have people doing stupid stuff like that,” Hornish said. “You take the chance of one of these guys getting hurt. They aren’t paying attention, the race is over and they expect the guys to come slowly down pit lane.”
While the attention the IndyCar Series gets from this incident will only help create interest, expect penalties rather than bonuses from this one.