Darren Manning escapes with cut knee
Aug 6th, 2007
The Firestone Indy 400 got off to a slow start at the Michigan International Speedway on Sunday after four and a half hours of rain delayed the start.
Then it was a race that was full of incidents. Six caution flags slowed the event, five of them for crashes, including the AJ Foyt ABC Supply car driven by Darren.
The Yorkshire man was running a strong race when he spun and backed it into the wall. He escaped with a cut on his knee.
“Marco Andretti cut across the front of me and I had to put a lot of wheel lock into it and when the air hit it, it grabbed and snapped the back end around….it’s a shame because we had a good car today. My car was definitely better on long runs. It seemed that everyone else’s cars fell off after the new tyres wore a little bit but my car didn’t fall off as much. It was crazy out there.”
Darren had started 18th but had climbed into the top ten and had a brief stint in the top five through a quick, fuel only stop. He dropped back to 11th until the next round of stops when the team made another adjustment on his car. He came back out in 10th and during the next five laps dropped back as far as 12th but then he came marching up through the field. He was running ninth and challenging Andretti for eighth when the incident happened.
