LEBANON, Tenn. – Two-time IndyCar Series champion Will Power has lost championships in every imaginable way.
From hitting a seam on the racetrack at Auto Club Speedway in 2012 that sent him into the wall, to hitting the backstretch wall after leading the most laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2010.
But on Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway, Power’s bid at a third IndyCar championship came unbuckled.
Literally.
On Lap 13 of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, Power had to make an emergency pit stop when the belts that keep him restrained came unbuckled. That is very dangerous at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour.
Power entered Sunday’s final race of the NTT IndyCar Series season 33 points behind Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou. He started fourth in the finale and Palou started 24th in the 27-car lineup.
If Power won the race, Palou had to finish ninth of better to win the championship.
But it was over before the race had really begun, just 13 laps around the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway.
Power’s Team Penske crew had to reattach the belts while the race was running at full speed. He returned to the race, five laps down.
Essentially, at that point, the championship was over.
Palou finished 11th for his third title in four years. Power finished 24th and fell from second to fourth in the points standings.
“On the lap belt, I’m like, ‘Man, that was weird.’ It felt kind of loose in the car,” Power recalled. “I came out of Turn 2 and I’m feeling around, and I felt the end of the belt as it goes in.
“I just don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to send it back to the manufacturer. Very strange failure. I do wonder if I hit the wall and if it did break, if I was going to have a real bad situation, but never have that before.
“Disappointing, but big congrats to Alex (Palou). Tough guy to beat. Ganassi did a great job this year. Been fun racing those guys this year. We dropped back to fourth (in the championship) because of this day, but man, if you don’t win it doesn’t matter. But happy with the season. The whole team won about half of the races. We did well. I want to win that championship, so I’ll come back fighting next year.
“We did a great job (all season), winning the Indy 500, winning the most races of any team. Obviously, stoked to win three races this year. It’s a tough series. Very difficult to win. Have to thank Verizon and Chevy. Those guys have been fantastic. I only used four engines this year, so the reliability was great. We’ll come back fighting next year.”
The belt unbuckled a second time late in the race, but by then it was inconsequential in terms of the championship.
“The manufacturer of that belt, we’re going to send it back, man, because that’s very dangerous,” Power said afterwards. “I don’t know what would have happened if I hit the wall.
“I was literally sitting there in the race, and it just popped the lap belt.
“It’s just incredible that it’s the first time I’ve ever had that, like a belt just pop like that. I’m glad you feel it, because if you hit the wall, it’s a big problem. There was just no way that you can stay out there, man.
“You know, if you hit the wall, you’re gone.”
Power returned to a race he knew he couldn’t win, and it cost him a championship. But he had to run laps all the way to the finish — a futile and frustrating exercise that he had to do because he is a professional race driver, and he was going to try to gain as many positions as possible.
“I just drove around all day, hoping there would be more DNFs (Did Not Finish) I guess, for absolute championship positions,” Power told NBCSports.com. “Frustrating, frustrating, but it was a year of those sort of things.
“If you look at Alex Palou, the last race at Milwaukee had some sort of weird (battery) failure like that and I got mine here.
“It was the most ridiculous way to potentially lose a championship.”
Palou became the first back-to-back champion since Dario Franchitti won three straight from 2009 to 2011.
“He would have pushed a lot harder if he had to, but who knows?” Power explained of the driver that he was battling. “Of course, you always think about it, but it’s the way it rolls, it’s just the way it is.”
By winning the race, Colton Herta moved up to second in points, 31 behind Palou. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin finished fifth and placed third in points, 39 out. Power dropped to 46 points away from a third title.
“Honestly, if you don’t win, you don’t care,” Power told NBCSports.com “It’s always nice to finish higher. But if you don’t win, it doesn’t matter, because if you don’t win, man, it doesn’t matter.
“It’s so frustrating to go out like that.
“Mine was a seatbelt.
“It’s one of those things, right? I could have engine failures anything.
“I didn’t want to risk anything because it wasn’t necessary. I guess there’s a fault in there and then it popped off again later in the race, so a pretty dangerous situation. I’m not sure what would have happened if I hit the wall with some pressure, if it would have just failed completely, but yeah, cost us a pretty good day.”
Ron Ruzewski is managing director, IndyCar, at Team Penske. He calls Power’s race strategy along with longtime engineer David Faustino.
“We’re not actually exactly sure just yet,” Ruzewski told NBCSports.com. “We’ll have to look at it. Will said they just popped off, one of the sides popped off. We’ll have to look into it to see what was going on.
“Obviously got it reconnected. We lost a bunch of laps.
“And then late in the race, same thing happens again. So that’s why we pitted at the end. It was the same thing. You’re not going to take a risk with your driver.
“We’ll just have to figure it out.
“Unfortunately, that’s just the way it went this year. Crazy day.
“We had a couple, a couple bullets in the fight. You’re in this thing to win it. You want to do the best you can. But for sure, great job to the 3 crew (Scott McLaughlin’s team), finish second in championship and get things done.”
It was the end of a difficult season that began with the “Push to Pass” scandal in the first race when IndyCar officials discovered the extra boost system had been manipulated in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10.
Race winner Josef Newgarden and third-place finisher Scott McLaughlin were disqualified, and Power was penalized.
IndyCar owner Roger Penske, who also owns Team Penske, suspended team president Tim Cindric, Ruzewski and engineers Luke Mason and Robbie Atkinson from attending the full schedule for the Indianapolis 500 in May.
The season ended with Ruzewski trying to explain what happened with Power’s lap-belt failure.
“For sure it was a strange year, a difficult year,” Ruzewski reflected. “A lot of strange things happened, some of the things out of our control.
“But we proved we were strong. We won a lot of races, won a lot of poles. We won the Indianapolis 500.
“As a team, we still have to be proud of our efforts.”