By Bruce Martin
NSSN Correspondent
JOLIET, Ill. — Arie Luyendyk, Jr. can finally celebrate his first victory in the Firestone Indy Lights Series, while teammate Raphael Matos was able to celebrate the 2008 championship with a third-place finish in Sunday’s SunRichGourment.com 100 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Matos led 66 of 67 laps after starting from the pole before Luyendyk, the son of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Arie Luyendyk, blew past him on a restart on lap 66 to score his first win.
“It was perfect,” Luyendyk said. “This is a dream scenario — me winning the race and Rapha (Matos) winning the championship. It’s more than words can describe. Green- white-checkered (finishes) is always nerve-wracking. We got a good restart, thank God, and Rafa and I worked beautifully today.
“The car was so consistent from lap one to the end. I made a lot of adjustments in the car. It was just a beautiful weekend.”
Luyendyk defeated Ana Beatriz by just .0817 second for the fifth-closest finish of an Indy Lights Series race at Chicagoland Speedway. All seven races have finished with a margin of victory of less than .6100 second.
“Ana (Beatriz) was definitely a tough competitor. She was the one I was worried about. My tires held up beautifully. It was amazing.”
Richard Antinucci, who entered the race only three points behind Matos, finished 21st after crashing with Sean Guthrie while the cars were running three-wide in the second turn on lap 26. That virtually sealed the championship for Matos.
“I told them not to drink the champagne before we finished the race,” Matos said after he was told of Antinucci’s crash. “It was the best third-place finish of my life. We had a plan today for me to win the championship and Arie (Luyendyk, Jr.) to win the race. He really deserved to win a race this year, and it worked perfectly for us. I’m very happy for him, and I’m really happy for the AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing team. They deserve this championship as much as I do.”
Antinucci’s crash ended a fine championship run by the driver who is the nephew of former Formula One and IndyCar driver Eddie Cheever.
“It’s a bitter pill to swallow, losing it at the last round,” Antinucci said. “But ifs and buts don’t take you anywhere. So, there’s no point. I believe we could have potentially been 120 points down the road, but that’s not important today. We managed to finish second. I had a great year, overall.
“We had a chance. We led most of the year, but not when it counted, unfortunately.”
After Antinucci’s crash, Matos and Luyendyk ran in formation for the remainder of the race with Luyendyk behind the champion in waiting.
When the yellow flag waved on lap 63 after Tom Dyer spun, it set up a green- and white-flag lap to finish the race.
That allowed Luyendyk to time his restart and drive to the victory for the first time in 62 career starts. He won the race with an average speed of 130.623 miles per hour.
“We tested here last weekend and spent the whole day working on race strategy and race setup,” Luyendyk said. “Rapha was a true competitor today and worked with me positioning his car where I could fend off other drivers. In years past, you’ve seen a lot of impatience here and side-by-side racing for the lead. I’m sorry it wasn’t a better show, but it benefited me the most. That last restart I knew I needed to get it done.
“I poked my nose in there, and he wasn’t able to close the door in time. It’s a great feeling to finally get that win.”
The finish:
Showing driver, laps completed, money won: 1. Arie Luyendyk, Jr., 67, $32,500; 2. Ana Beatriz, 67, $26,000; 3. Raphael Matos, 67, $26,000; 4. Bobby Wilson, 67, $17,000; 5. James Davison, 67, $17,000; 6. Jonathan Klein, 67, $15,500; 7. Robbie Pecorari, 67, $15,000; 8. Logan Gomez, 67, $14,500; 9. Mike Potekhen, 67, $14,000; 10. Daniel Herrington, 67, $13,500; 11. Jonny Reid, 67, $12,500; 12. Micky Gilbert, 67, $11,500; 13. Pablo Donoso, 67, $10,500; 14. Cyndie Allemann, 67, $10,000; 15. Brandon Wagner, 67, $9,500; 16. Christina Orr, 66, $9,000; 17. Sean Guthrie, 66, $9,000; 18. Tom Wieringa, 66, $10,500; 19. Brent Sherman, 66, $6,000; 20. Tom Dyer, 63, $4,500; 21. Richard Antinucci, 25, $3,500; 22. J.R. Hildebrand, 7, $3,000; 23. Dillon Battistini, 0, $3,500; 24. Wade Cunningham, 0, $1,000.