Mike Conway douses his team in champagne to celebrate their victory at the 37th annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Photo by Nate Toering

Last year, all the talk following the 2010 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach was that the victory for Ryan Hunter-Reay would catapult the driver to new heights. There was much chatter about the power of the circuit to help drivers make a name for themselves, and Hunter-Reay was crowned by many outlets (including this one) as the next great American driver – almost solely on the basis of his Long Beach win.

This time around, after the latest running of the race on Sunday, talk surrounding the victor is not about the promise of his future, but the triumph of his past.

British driver Mike Conway won the IndyCar race, the main event of the 2011 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, just eleven months after breaking a leg and shattering vertebrae in a horrific crash during the Indianapolis 500 that forced him to miss the rest of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar season. His return to a racing career was in jeopardy – let alone competing in the 2011 season, or the possibility of racing for decorated team owner Michael Andretti, or qualifying for third in Long Beach or winning the whole damn thing. In fact, if you listen to Conway tell it, he seems to have won the race by accident.

“On the restarts, the car was awesome,” Conway said. “Everyone else was kind of struggling for grip and we were just charging through.”

But it didn’t look like an accident out there on the track. After what he’s been through in the last eleven months, watching him blow past the field and claim victory on one of racing’s most esteemed courses looked like something else.

Fate.

After qualifying for the race in third position and steering clear of several on-track accidents, Conway found himself still in third when the course went under a yellow caution flag on Lap 72. The active cars slowed behind the pace car and bunched up, and when the course went green again it was Conway’s time to shine.

Franchitti said that he and Briscoe had probably accumulated marbles – or rubber debris from tires that lies off the normal racing line and can cause the cars to lose grip – and that Conway had likely steered clear of them and gained an advantage that way. Conway himself said he wasn’t sure what accounted for the speed boost. But what is certain is that something helped propel Mike Conway past the two IndyCar stars ahead of him.

RIGHT: Mike Conway leads the IndyCar field around the Turn 3 fountain near the Aquarium of the Pacific. Photo by Dale Brown

“Mike Conway was just a bullet,” said Briscoe. “He danced around Dario and I like we were standing still.”

“We were trying to slide around and warm up the tires,” said Franchitti. “And then here comes the Conway Express.”

By the time the field reached Turn Six, the new leader found himself firmly in control of a racecar running at its absolute peak. Conway would only expand his lead from there and won the 85-lap race with a 6-second margin.

Briscoe and Franchitti held their positions to finish in second and third, rounding out the podium. It was a relief for Briscoe, who has had an uncharacteristic poor start to the season as Long Beach is the first race he has even finished thus far. And though he would have rather repeated his 2009 Long Beach victory, the points from Franchitti’s third place finish on Sunday make him the new leader of the series championship race.

While every driver – except Conway – can wish that they had finished a bit better, there are several with legitimate reasons to have found their Long Beach experience miserable.

On top of that list is Will Power. The Australian driver earned his third consecutive Long Beach pole position, and experienced his third consecutive year of terrible luck. Since winning the race in 2008 when it was the final ChampCar contest ever, Power has suffered odd miscues that have kept him from taking another victory. In 2009, he lost radio contact and slowed when a misunderstanding caused him to believe that the course was under a yellow caution flag. In 2010, his car refused to shift out of first gear on the main straightaway and he could not regain two lost positions.

On Sunday, Power was looking strong in third place when his Team Penske racing teammate Helio Castroneves misjudged Turn One and crashed into Power. The incident dropped Power into tenth and ultimately out of the season points lead. Additionally, it was that accident that caused the yellow flag that would allow Conway to overtake Briscoe – a fellow Team Penske driver – for the victory.

According to ESPN, Castroneves said he is “disgusted” and that he made a “horrendous” mistake in failing to brake early enough in the turn. Such is racing, but Castroneves was also involved in an incident at the hairpin turn that thwarted Justin Wilson’s shot at victory. And the Power accident also took out Scott Dixon, who had choice words after the race.

I just don’t understand,” he added. “He’s obviously being given free reign to go out and crash anybody he wants. I don’t know if he’s nervous or trying to prove a point. I think Will is getting to him a bit. Obviously he’s waxing him on straight-up qualifying laps and things like that.”

Later in the race, veteran driver Paul Tracy made contact with up-and-coming female star Simona De Silvestro in a nearly identical hairpin incident, though Tracy received a penalty while Castroneves did not. Dixon won’t be the only one with questions about fairness considering all the action that occurred in Long Beach.

But most of the post-race attention was rightly focused on Conway, who took advantage of the right opportunities and is basking in the reward tonight.

“It wasn’t given to him,” said Conway’s boss, Andretti Autosport owner and driving legend Michael Andretti. “He fought back hard and deserved it.”

Andretti himself was surprised at his driver’s sudden run to first place. He was busy trying to find out what went wrong with another driver, Ryan Hunter-Reay, when his team began whooping and cheering. Andretti turned to see the commotion and found Conway, his newest driver, leading the race that he would go on to win. To Andretti, it only reaffirmed his decision to sign Conway after the frightening crash in 2010.

“The first time he got in a car for us, he was really up to speed in four or five laps,” Andretti said. “I didn’t feel like it was a chance [to sign him] at all. I was just happy that we were able to get a deal done with Mike.”

It’s a confidence that comes straight from the driver himself. Conway said that there were no mental hurdles to overcome about returning to racing after the debilitating injury. As soon as he reached the hospital after the crash, he immediately wanted to know when he would be able to race again.

“I was already kind of over it, really,” he said. That’s easy to say when you’ve just won one of the biggest events of the year, but there’s a single-minded focus and determination to Conway that makes a statement like that more genuine.

“It was a long offseason. I had a lot to focus on, a lot to keep my mind on and when I got back in the car I was ready.”

Was he ever. While there is certainly more success to come for Conway, considering his journey it’s more appropriate to focus on what’s already been accomplished. The location of his first ever IZOD IndyCar win only sweetened the deal.

“It’s a special place to win,” said Andretti, who earned the first and last of many career victories at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. “I don’t know, there’s something about Long Beach. There’s just a different kind of energy. Maybe that’s why I had such good luck here.”

Now tell me that isn’t fate.

Other Notables

• After qualifying second, defending Long Beach champion Ryan Hunter-Reay ran strong until his car suffered mechanical issues and retired from the race early.
• Rookie driver James Hinchcliffe handled his car impressively and finished just out of the podium, earning fourth place after starting the race in 11th position.
• Danica Patrick overcame a poor qualifying and 20th place start, keeping her car away from the accidents and finishing in 7th place.
• The most attractive cars on the track, the three green-and-yellow Lotus of KV Racing, did not perform as well as they looked. IndyCar perennial contender Tony Kanaan scored points in eighth place, but teammates Takuma Sato and E.J Viso finished 21st and 25th, respectively, after separate contact incidents.

Mike Conway rounds the famous Turn 11 hairpin early in the race. Photo by Ryan ZumMallen

Conway on the main straightaway. Photo by Ryan ZumMallen

Early in the race, Ryan Briscoe led a thrilling pack with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power hot on his tail. In this shot on the main straight, the racing is so close that you can hardly see Will Power making a move on the inside. Photo by Ryan ZumMallen

On an unrelated note, here is a photo of 5-time Cy Young winner pitcher Randy Johnson, aka The Big Unit, a 6’10” pitcher for the Mariners, Diamondbacks, Yankees and other teams until 2009. Apparently his retirement hobby is photography and he was an official photographer for the IZOD IndyCar series this weekend. So… here he is at the Turn 11 hairpin. Just thought you might want to know. Photo by Ryan ZumMallen