Indy 500
2003 Indy 500 Race Report
By RCR PR
May 26, 2003, 10:40

Robby Gordon’s bid for victory in both races of the Indianapolis/Charlotte “Double” ended early at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Sunday after a gearbox problem sidelined him on lap 169, relegating him to 22nd in the final results. Gordon started on the outside of the front row in the No. 27 Archipelago/Motorola Dallara/Honda/Firestone and ran solidly in the top five during the first 45 laps of the 200-lap event. However, during his second pit stop, the caution flag waved while Gordon was on pit lane, nearly catching him a lap down to the leader. The Archipelago/Motorola crew continued to work their way to the front until further problems on pit lane forced them back. During their next-to-last pit stop, the crew was unable to get a rear wicker out of the car in time, so Gordon was forced to return to pit road the following lap to complete the work. To add insult to injury, the car stalled during Gordon’s final pit stop and the gearbox broke three laps later. He was unable to complete the race and began his trek to the Coca-Cola 600 early.

Robby Gordon Quotes:

"The Archipelago/Motorola car drove pretty well all day. It is just unfortunate we had the

gearbox problem. We got behind early. We tried some different strategy and that kind of hurt us and I drove conservative, which also hurt us. It was very difficult to pass out there. We had just gotten back into the top 12 and then we broke something in the gearbox. We had some trouble on our second-to-last pit stop and then we stalled it on the last pit stop so we had to drive through the field a couple of times. It would have been a lot easier to run 600 miles tonight at Charlotte with a better finish.”

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