The Mayor fights back to 14th place after starting from last row due to penalty - Speedway Digest

Despite being relegated at the back of the field and 22^nd on the starting grid after Race Control imposed a penalty Saturday afternoon for blocking Alexander Rossi during qualifications, the Mayor of Hinchtown, James Hinchcliffe, scratched and clawed into 14^th place at race’s end, ironically just ahead of Rossi, the Indy 500 winner.

The official explanation for the penalty was: “Pursuant to Rule 8.3.7, 5-Hinchcliffe had best two lap times invalidated in his session for qualifying interference. “

Will Power led from start to end to win the Kohler Grand Prix Sunday, the ninth round in the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series, but it was not easy as he barely fended off a charging Tony Kanaan at the checkered flag.

The Brazilian, who waged a race-long war with Simon and Graham Rahal most of the way, almost caught Power on his fresh red tires with Power struggling on primary blacks. Power had just enough at the end however, and held on.

“Kind of a bittersweet day. The Arrow car was really good on the reds and we went off sequence a little there to try and get some clean track and pumped out a lot of quick laps and made some gains on some guys, “ The Mayor said.

“I had a spin early on in the race, which really killed us not having a yellow early on to catch back up. We weren’t quite as strong on the blacks as we were on the reds and unfortunately that first stint I had a spin and if the last stint had stayed green I think we would have been ok. However we had just put sticker blacks on, but then on the restart you kind of get swallowed by the guys on reds. So just some bad timing on the yellow, but like I said the car was awesome on reds, we had the third quickest race lap and unfortunately we just weren’t able to quite as much progress as we were hoping for today.

“As for the penalty, Race Control got it wrong and I’ll leave it at that.”

This 50 lap race (202.4 miles), the tenth event on the 2016 Verizon IndyCar schedule, was the first time IndyCar was back since 2007 when Sebastien Bourdais had won the race. Full results for today’s race are available on IndyCar.com.

The next race on the Verizon IndyCar schedule is the Iowa Corn 300 at the Iowa Speedways in Newton, IO, on Sunday, July 10, for a 5:00 p.m. ET start. For more information on James Hinchcliffe, please visit www.hinchtown.com, like him on Facebook and follow @Hinchtown on Twitter and Instagram. For on track activity, please follow @HinchOnTrack on Twitter.

Off-track action — This week’s Hinchtown HandMeDown scavenger hunt winner, is Jennifer Sandstrom (@jsandman90). It took Jennifer just 10 minutes with a single clue to locate the Hinchtown medallion. Held in collaboration with IndyCar, this social media scavenger hunt sees an exclusive “Coin” for each race (photo attached) hidden around the track on race day. Photo clues of the location are presented on James Hinchcliffe’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter account. The finder of the Coin Drop can then take their coin to the Indycar Merchandise Tent where they are presented with a prize pack!

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.