INDIANAPOLIS -- Despite pole-sitter Alex Tagliani's strong start, it turned out to be a rough day for Canadian drivers at the Indy 500.
Tagliani and rookie James Hinchcliffe both crashed, while Paul Tracy finished a distant 25th in the 100th running of the race Sunday.
Tagliani, of Lachenaie, Que., led for a time in the first half of the race but started having problems with his handling as one car after another went by him as his lap speeds dropped. Finally, on lap 147, he lost it coming out of the fourth turn and banged into the wall.
"We had a really good, balanced car early on," said Tagliani, who finished 28th. "It was nice to drive it. Then all of the sudden it became very loose."
"It's a shame, because early on the car was so good I thought we had a shot at it all race long. But we kind of lost the car at some point -- very curious. We were struggling with a very nervous car."
Meanwhile, JR Hildebrand was one turn away from winning when the 23-year-old rookie made the ultimate mistake.
Leading by almost four seconds with a lap to go, Hildebrand skidded high into the wall on the final turn, and Dan Wheldon drove past to claim an improbable second Indy 500.
Hinchcliffe, a Toronto native was making his debut at the Brickyard, completed 99 laps before making contact with the barrier while exiting the fourth turn.
"It was a disappointing day," said Hinchcliffe, who earlier made contact with E.J. Viso, putting the No. 59 car out of the race.
Following brush with Viso, Hinchcliffe made a pit stop to remove debris from his car.
"We were driving on borrowed time after what happened with Viso," Hinchcliffe said. "He got into us, we got hit and had to come in and save the car from going into the wall on that one. I'm not quite sure how we managed that one."
Hinchcliffe was stretching a stint between pit stops before the accident that took him out of the race. He noted that worn out tires played a major part in the crash.
"We were just about to pit (but) the tires were just starting to go off," Hinchcliffe said. "Bertrand (Baguette) got a good run on me, and I was really just trying to let him go.
"I backed off early and was giving him the corner but unfortunately got a little bit in the grey. With how worn the tires were, at that stage I was just a passenger."
Hinchcliffe started 13th and finished 29th.
Tracy started 24th and fought through adversity to finish 25th.
Tire vibrations on lap 19 caused him to slide up the track and make contact with the barrier at turn four. The contact caused a lower wishbone on the car to break and forced Tracy to pit for repairs.
"We had some type of issue going on with tire vibration," Tracy said. "We picked up a really bad vibration in the first stint and then I started sliding and brushed the wall."
Tracy's crew towed the car to the entrance of Gasoline Alley and did extensive repairs just off of pit lane. After several laps, the crew rolled the car back on track and spent the rest of the race battling the original vibration problem.
While Tracy pulled into the pits on four separate occasions in an effort to fix the issue, he was never able to move through the field and improve his position.
"This was (our sponsors') first 500 so we wanted to run it all day, pick up as many spots as we could and not end up in 33rd," Tracy said. "We survived the rest of the day, stayed out of trouble and picked up 25th."
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