Sam Schmidt’s memorable month at Indy 500 ends at Taco Bell

It was Tuesday afternoon, and the month of May at Indianapolis was coming to an unceremonious close: Henderson’s Sam Schmidt, whose smallish race team and inspirational driver James Hinchcliffe had made headlines at the Brickyard, was in the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell.

This was Tuesday. The night before, Hinchcliffe had been presented a check for $592,993 for earning the coveted pole position, and for leading the race 11 times for 27 laps, and for finishing seventh after getting caught on the wrong side of fuel strategy — the conventional side — at the end of the much-celebrated 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Schmidt was reminded by a reporter that it had been a heck of a month — not that he was in danger of forgetting it.

“Yes, it was,” said the longtime Lake Las Vegas resident, former driver and current owner of the cars driven by Hinchcliffe, Oriol Servia (12th) and Mikhail Aleshin (27th, crash) in the 500-mile classic.

It might have been a downright incredible month had Hinchliffe, who nearly lost his life at Indy last year after crashing Schmidt’s car, not pitted for a splash of fuel along with the other leaders.

All of the top cars came in while three stayed out and pussyfooted around the venerable 2½-mile oval to save fuel. When there were no yellow flags during the last segment, that proved to be the winning strategy.

Rookie driver Alexander Rossi, who makes his home in Nevada City on the Nevada-California border, coasted across the finish line with a last lap of 170 mph — roughly 50 mph slower than Hinchcliffe and the others who had stopped for fuel. Rossi’s tank went dry in Turn 4.

“When you’re racing in the top five all day, you have to do what has the highest probability for success (at the end),” Schmidt said at the Taco Bell.

If you go by what usually happens during the frenetic final laps, there almost always is a yellow flag or two, which would have enabled the fast cars to run to the end without pitting. Schmidt said it was a shame the closing laps didn’t follow the script — not just for Hinchliffe but for the giant crowd that was denied another spectacular finish.

“If we get a yellow, he’s racing for the win with about four or five guys,” Schmidt said. “It didn’t happen, and I thought the fans got cheated. But none of that matters now.”

Sam Schmidt’s Quesarito soon would be ready, and he would be on the road to Detroit for this weekend’s IndyCar doubleheader. It would take time to switch the cars from oval configuration to street course. It had been a heck of a month at Indianapolis, but in a minute it literally would be in the rearview mirror.

GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED

• Updating the locals featured in a story on the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 that ran in Sunday’s print and online editions: Jimmy Vasser’s drivers (Sebastian Bourdais, Matt Brabham, Stefan Wilson) finished ninth, 22nd and 28th; Cody Selman worked the airgun and changed tires for Sage Karam, who charged to fifth place before crashing; attorney Marc Risman saw his client, 2008 Indy winner Scott Dixon, finish eighth; Angela Savage was honored that driver Pippa Mann (18th place) included the name of her sister Shelly among other cancer victims in the cockpit of the Susan G. Komen car. And Judge Bill Jansen thoroughly enjoyed the 100th running — his 50th — from his seat high above Turn 1. The Judge said he had a nice chat with fellow octogenarian A.J. Foyt in Gasoline Alley the next day — and that he still doesn’t know how Alexander Rossi was able to make it to the finish without stopping for fuel.

• Noah Gragson, the precocious 17-year-old Las Vegas lead foot who recently was named to the 2016-17 NASCAR Next list for up-and-coming stock-car drivers, will make his ARCA season debut Friday, driving the No. 78 AlertID Chevy for Mason Mitchell Motorsports at Pocono Raceway in the Pennsylvania hills — and then will jet back home to run in Saturday night’s Chris Trickle Classic at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring. It will be the capper of a hectic week for Gragson, who finished third in a NASCAR K&N Pro East Series race on Memorial Day.

• Actor Antonio Sabato Jr., son of Antonio Sabato Sr., who played fictional Ferrari driver Nino Barlini in the 1966 John Frankenheimer movie “Grand Prix,” has caught the racing bug in real life. Having raced professionally in the Porsche GT Cup, Sabato Jr. spent Memorial Day putting high-performance sports cars through their paces at SPEEDVEGAS south of town. “I can only say amazing things about SPEEDVEGAS,” said the second generation actor and speed demon. “It’s a wild experience where you can now drive on a brand new track in some of the world’s top cars. I loved it.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. His motor sports notebook runs on Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski