Almost before it began, Briscoe’s night ended

In the early stages of last night's race, Ryan Briscoe was positioning himself to lap the car of Mario Moraes. In the pits, team owner Roger Penske was the picture of calm.

"Take your time, set him up," Penske radioed to Briscoe.

Moments later, Briscoe was resting against the backstretch wall.

"What happened?" asked Penske, as he looked around for an answer.

Briscoe had the rest of the night to ponder the question as the IndyCar Series points leader sat on a golf cart, staring straight ahead at a television monitor behind pit road across from the start/finish line.

A spin exiting Turn 2 on Lap 27, resulting in heavy left-side damage after contact with the outside wall, ended Briscoe's night shortly after it started.

"The car was understeering and was moving crossways a little bit," he said. "I was a bit surprised. Just really disappointed."

Briscoe became the first driver this season to hold the points lead for consecutive races thanks to his runner-up finish in Iowa. He'll arrive at Watkins Glen next weekend without it.

Briscoe's 19th-place finish - next to last - dropped him to third in the points with 253. Dario Franchitti, last night's second-place finisher, took over the lead with 279, with race winner Scott Dixon right behind him at 278.

"Just move on, and what's happened here has happened," he said. "There's many more races here in the championship. We'll try to follow it up next weekend with a win."

The night - much like the rest of Briscoe's season - started with promise. After qualifying fourth, right behind teammate Helio Castroneves - he separated his car from his teammate's by Lap 12 by about a second and a half, just over a second behind the top two qualifiers, Franchitti and Dixon.

But then after the spin and the crash, the night was over.

Within moments, the Penske crew hurried back to the garage to see if the car was fixable. It wasn't. Briscoe's fiancé, Nicole Manske, had a determined walk to the infield medical center to meet Briscoe, who checked out fine and was finishing a television interview.

"It didn't look fixable when I hit the wall," Briscoe said.

After his visit to the medical facility, Briscoe walked to the garage. He patted his crew on the back and shrugged his shoulders.

"Wow, it was totally unexpected," he said. "I am not sure exactly what happened. I was fighting some understeer and it just looks like, I don't even know, I was just coming back to the throttle and it snapped on me. It took me totally by surprise."

At 9:10 p.m., his night over roughly 25 minutes after the green flag dropped, Briscoe entered his hauler. He shifted his focus from the present to the future.

Castroneves saw his night end on Lap 248 when he couldn't avoid a slowing traffic in front of him. He hit the backstretch wall near where his teammate did.

"I had too much speed and hit the wall," he said. "I avoided him, but unfortunately I ended up hitting the wall. I did not have much room. I don't know what happened, but everybody slowed down real suddenly."

As the race's final 17 laps played on television in front of them, Penske Racing President Tim Cindric and Roger Penske sat in a motorcoach.

"I saw it starting to happen going into [Turn] 2," Penske said of Castroneves' meeting with the wall. "He lost the front end and went into the wall. Wasn't much he could do."

Penske watched the final seven laps, legs crossed, as his main competition in the points race - Dixon and Franchitti - finished up their eventual one-two finish.

"Great run, those guys," he said.