The Indianapolis 500, 2003

May 25, 2003 (Indianapolis, Indiana) -- 35-year-old Brazilian Gil de Ferran won the 2003 Indianapolis 500 before a crowd of over 300,000 enthusiastic fans, beating his Team Penske rival (and two-time winner) Helio Castroneves by an amazing 0.2990 seconds, the third-closest finish in Brickyard history. Hey, if two tenths of a second is the THIRD closest finish in history, I'd like to hear about the other two. Averaging 156.291 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile oval, de Ferran drove his dominant Number 6 G Force/Toyota into the record books, leading for 31 laps of the 3-hour-11-minute race. It was the third victory in a row for Roger Penske's team.

Gearhead Notes: For the select few who wonder about such things, all of these images were captured with a Nikon D100 digital camera using one of my fave lenses, an AF-S Nikkor 28-70mm 2.8 D. None of these images have been altered in any way, with the exception of some discreet cropping. This is definitely a challenging situation. Keep in mind that these vehicles are traveling in excess of 160 mph! And 300,000 people can make for some crowdy conditions.

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