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Source - Indy Racing League
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Friday, 17 April 2009 02:30 |
 Kanaan
“It shows you that I’m getting old,” 34-year-old Kanaan joked.
Well, older anyway, but he has at least five seasons remaining in the Andretti Green Racing prepared No. 11 car thanks to an extension signed in August.
Kanaan also will be making his 99th consecutive start, the leader among active IndyCar Series drivers. He’s also the series leader with 67 top five finishes, which is further testament to his skills and staying power.
Kanaan burst onto the IndyCar Series scene full time in 2003 with Andretti Green Racing, winning the pole for the season opening race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and then winning from the pole three weeks later at Phoenix International Raceway.
The next season, he became the first IndyCar Series driver to complete every lap (3,305) and set a then series record with 889 laps led on the way to the championship (three wins, 15 top five finishes).
He’s been second or third in the championship standings three of the succeeding four years (sixth in 2006), and is coming off a fifth place at St. Petersburg in the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven entry.
A victory on the 1.968 mile, 11 turn Long Beach circuit, or any of the remaining 16 events, will give Kanaan at least one win in seven consecutive seasons (the fourth driver to do so).
Kanaan has had success on the Long Beach temporary street course. He recorded his first podium finish in his second race in Indy Lights (second to David Empringham) in 1996 and won his first Indy car pole in 1999 (finished fifth).
“I can’t forget that one,” he said of the CART pole.
“We had a problem with the gearbox on our primary car in the morning, so we switched to the backup car and we were 0.5 seconds quicker. So, about 10 minutes before qualifying, we decided to withdraw the primary car and take a chance with the back-up car. It was a gamble, but it paid off. I bet my engineers and the crew their wristwatches that I could do better than a 62.5 (seconds) and I did. They all lost their watches.”
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