Trevor Williams

FORT WORTH — In IndyCar where the sport is dominated by the three big, multicar teams of Target Chip Ganassi, Andretti Green and Team Penske, for a moment it seemed like two underdogs would steal the show at Saturday’s Bombardier Learjet 550k.

Two teams with ties to the American heartland, Vitor Meira’s No. 4 Delphi National Guard car and Ryan Hunter-Reay’s No. 17 Ethanol car, looked to play spoiler during the latter stages of the race.

When a caution came out for debris with 62 laps to go, Meira of Panther Racing stayed out while the top eight drivers pitted for fuel and tires, including Hunter-Reay of Rahal Letterman Racing.

Soon after the restart, Hunter-Reay passed favorites Marco Andretti and Scott Dixon to take second. With Meira and Hunter-Reay running one-two, these independents were showing that they could compete with the more monied operations as the laps began to tick down.

Meira’s team was banking on a yellow to allow his car to pit under caution and at least stay on the lead lap to remain in contention. At the same time Hunter-Reay was fighting off Scott Dixon, but eventually had to concede second place.

Without any cautions, Meira eventually had to pit under a green flag with 21 laps to go, giving up the lead and any chances at victory. By that time, Andretti was in position to take first with Dixon and Hunter-Reay in close pursuit.

With six laps left, Dixon was able to pass Andretti by driving under him in what Dixon described the space as being “wide open.”

A lap later Hunter-Reay tried a similar pass against Andretti in the battle for second place, but instead the cars collided, knocking both drivers out of the race and allowing Dixon to coast to victory under a yellow flag.

While instant replays show Hunter-Reay drifting into Andretti, there was controversy as to whether Andretti was driving too close. After the race Hunter-Reay said that he was being forced down below the white line and then tried to get back up.

“Marco gave me the low line on the backstretch and all day that meant that he would give me the low line in the corner as well, but he came down on me,” Hunter-Reay said. “I went low to avoid him and got down on the white line that upset both cars and took us out.”

It was the first race of the season the rookie driver didn’t finish. Hunter-Reay described his disappointment as being “super bummed.”

The Dallas native though took solace in the fact in the progress he had made at the track. On the first day of practice on Thursday, he missed pitting properly on a green flag, coming off the track in Turn 4 instead of getting two wheels on the apron in Turn 3.

Hunter-Reay again had difficulty with the pits midway through the race as he was instructed to follow the leaders on whether they stayed out or came in during a caution.

The driver told his crew he didn’t know who in front of him were the leaders and who was lapped traffic.

“Am I coming in?” the Ethanol driver asked as cars began coming off the track to which his crew shouted, “Pit! Pit! Pit!”

Despite these minor miscues, Hunter-Reay was adept at figuring out the track, racing in the top four for the majority of the race and having a shot at victory until the crash.

“This was going to be our breakout night and we didn’t get it,” Hunter-Reay said.

For Meira, his seventh-place finish extended his winless streak to 83 starts without a victory. However it kept his season on track.

Snakebitten by crashes at St. Petersburg and Japan, Meira shocked the racing world with a second-place Indy 500 finish only to get caught up in another crash at Milwaukee where his car was sent flying airborne like a Robbie Knievel motorcycle jump.

With his Texas performance, Meira is now 12th in the season standings, only 18 points behind Andretti for eighth.

“Our car was just awesome when we were running up front. … The car was skating on me a little bit in traffic, but everybody saw how good we were once we got to the front. I was pulling away,” Meira said.

“This is another good race for us and another step forward. The confidence level at Panther is really, really high right now.”

A microcosm of Meira’s quest to keep up with big teams was illustrated earlier in the race when he was behind Danica Patrick. He became frustrated by what he thought what her attempts to block him, which is against IndyCar rules.

In order to draw a blocking warning though from the officials, Meira needed to get closer to Patrick.

His crew exclaimed, “Well get up there so they can see it!”

And it’s going to require that energy and effort from Meira and Hunter-Reay to get out of the shadow of the stars for their own underdog upset.

TREVOR WILLIAMS can be reached at 940-566-6874. His e-mail address is twilliams@dentonrc.com .