FORT WORTH, Texas - Buddy Lazier doesn't have to win the season finale to claim the Indy Racing League championship. A lucky 13 will do fine.
Lazier needs only to finish 13th or better Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway to win his first Northern Light Cup and a $1 million bonus.
"Winning the championship is more important than winning the race," Lazier said as he began preparing for the Excite 500. "I wouldn't trade my position for anyone else's, but you can't take anything for granted."
Not after what happened at here in June.
Scott Sharp beat Robby McGehee by .059 seconds - less than a car-length - in the Casino Magic 500 for the closest finish in IRL history. There also were a record 31 lead changes among eight drivers.
Lazier started first - based on points after qualifying was canceled because of rain - and led 11 times for 62 laps before finishing seventh. Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever Jr., the only other drivers still in contention for the title, also led laps.
"You've got to keep your head down," said Lazier, a 32-year-old driver from Vail, Colo. "You don't want to lose the edge. You can't think you've got it won because then it will be taken away."
Being the points leader might not be good enough if Lazier goes out early and his pursuers prosper. Twice this season, Lazier has had mechanical failures, accounting for his only finishes of worse than seventh in the first eight races.
Lazier has 258 points, 38 more than Goodyear and 41 more than Cheever.
The finale comes six weeks after the most recent IRL race, the Belterra Resort Indy 300 on Aug. 27 at Kentucky Speedway. Lazier won for the second time this season, with Goodyear second and Cheever fourth in that event.
Six weeks is a long wait between races, one which will be eliminated for the most part next year, when the IRL expands to 13 events. Goodyear is hoping this layoff works to his advantage.
"I think the wait is harder on Buddy. At least I've convinced myself of that anyway," said Goodyear, twice a runner-up in the Indianapolis 500. "I don't know how he's thinking about it, but I've been in that position of having a lead going into the final event and just having to finish."
But Goodyear made it through, taking the 1988 Porsche Turbo Cup title.
"You worry about the car and lapped traffic and are a defensive driver rather than in the position Eddie and myself will be in," Goodyear said.
That position will be an all-out bid to get the most points possible. That means trying to qualify high, leading the most laps and winning the race.
One of Goodyear's two IRL victories came at Texas, in the first of two races here in 1999. He also was leading the fall 1999 race when he crashed in the fourth turn.
Cheever, who like Lazier has won an Indianapolis 500 but never an IRL title, knows he faces a tough challenge. Even if he's successful, his destiny rides with Lazier.
"We are going to do everything we can to win the championship, but it's not really in our hands," Cheever said. "A lot of it depends on how well the other teams and drivers do. Beating Buddy is going to be very difficult if not impossible."
There won't be a hometown celebration like last year, when Greg Ray finished third in the season finale at Texas Motor Speedway - not far from his home in Plano - to win the championship.
Despite a circuit-high four poles and 299 laps led this year, Ray has only one win and has finished 15th or worse in five of eight races.
"We've had an opportunity to back up the championship this year, but we had some gearbox failures," Ray said. "We had a motor failure and we've had a few of those wrong-place, wrong-time incidents on the track."
Now, he enters the final race as nothing more than a potential spoiler.
"The season hasn't gone the way we wanted it to, so it sure would be nice to win one here at Texas," Ray said.
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