THE MODERATOR: Sam Hornish, Jr., our second place finisher, maintains his points lead by 25 points over Scott Dixon. source: indycar.com Sam, you started on the front row, fell a lap down to the leaders. What happened to the car early on in the race? SAM HORNISH, JR.: We weren't quite handling the way we needed to be to be up there running with the leaders. We decided we would just try to save fuel, make it so we could do a two-stop race. That was the big thing for us. We came in for our first pit stop. Two cars in front of us that were a couple laps down came in front of us. They were going pretty slow, 50 miles an hour into pit lane. It was just an unfortunate deal for us because that basically enabled us to lose the lap. We lost probably six or seven seconds the way everything worked out. We worked hard, fought as a team, got back on the lead lap, were able to get out of here with a second-place finish on a day when a lot of our competitors in the points championship didn't have very good days. Keep working away at it, see what we could do. THE MODERATOR: Pit stop at lap 140, your crew got you back out on the lead lap first. Looked like they did a fantastic job. SAM HORNISH, JR.: We had pitted a little bit earlier than that, built the car back up. As soon as the tires were done, we could go do what needed to be done. One of those things was a good strategy call on Roger's part. Everything worked out the way it should have been. We didn't have any problems, were able to get out back on the lead lap, get around a bunch of people. Days like today where you have to stick in there and just keep working away on it are the ones that are going to win you the championship. Q. (No microphone.) SAM HORNISH, JR.: As far as to get up there and challenge Tony (Kanaan), I don't know if I would have been able to get around to him, if I would have caught up to him. I restarted, two restarts from the end, I think I was about 11th. I was all the way to the next lap car in line. I had a whole bunch of people to pass. I pushed the tires real hard for that stint. Tony could stay up there and save fuel, run a little bit lower, make sure he didn't have to abuse the tires at all.
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