Fisher

Sarah Fisher's No. 2 starting position was the best for a Chevrolet this season, and her second No. 2 spot at Richmond.

Both times, the green flag flew and she started going backward.

This time, she dropped to 10th within the first four laps, was lapped by leader Scott Dixon on lap No. 28 and quickly found herself racing at the tail end of the grid, complaining that her car was too loose.

"We are obviously disappointed in our performance tonight," Fisher said. "Once the race started, our (tire) pressure went away and it made the car real loose. We chased it the whole race and just could not find the solution no matter how many or what kind of changes we made."

She wound up 19th out of 22 cars, six laps behind winner.

Two years ago, Fisher fell two laps down within the first 100 and became the third driver out when her car got sideways in Turns 3 and 4 and banged the wall. She finished 17th out of the 20 cars in the field.

USAC
David Steele passed points leader J.J. Yeley on the 48th lap and led the rest of the way to win the USAC Dominic's of New York 100 Silver Crown race, the warmup event for the IRL race Saturday night.

Steele, the pole-sitter, pulled away on a restart with 29 laps to go and ended Yeley's bid for a series record-tying fourth consecutive victory. It was Steele's second victory, the other coming in the season-opener at Phoenix. No one else has won in the series this season.

Aaron Fike outlasted Ed Carpenter in a five-lap duel to go and took second, followed by Carpenter, Tracy Hines, Tyler Walker and Yeley.

Pit stops
The race was delayed for 25 laps by a caution that started when A.J. Foyt IV crashed on lap 130, but continued until the 155th lap because a bank of lights on the backstretch went out. The track said a tree fell on one of three power sources that serve the track, knocking out the lights. They take 10 minutes to heat up again. ... Buddy Lazier set an IRL record here in 2001, leading 224 of 250 laps on his way to victory. Lazier had a much different experience this weekend. He qualified 21st, went a lap down quickly and finished 20th. "A miserable, miserable day," he said. "We didn't test here, but I don't know if I can blame it on that. We missed it bad all weekend."