IndyCar: Top 5 strangest races since 2010

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FORT WORTH, TX – AUGUST 27: Graham Rahal driver of the #15 Mi-Jack/RLL Honda edges out James Hinchcliffe driver of the #5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda (Photo by Mike Stone/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway) /

#4 – 2016 Firestone 600 (continued)

Just five drivers restarted the race on the lead lap with nine laps remaining, and one of them, Helio Castroneves, was driving a damaged car. This set the stage for what ended up being an epic finish involving James Hinchcliffe, Graham Rahal, Tony Kanaan and Simon Pagenaud.

These drivers battled side-by-side throughout the race’s final nine laps, even going four-wide down the back straightaway at one point. Rahal ended up edging Hinchcliffe, who led 188 of the race’s 248 laps, to the finish line by 0.0080 seconds, which was and still is the fifth closest margin of victory in IndyCar history.

The finish of this race will forever be one of the greatest finishes if not the greatest finish in the history of the sport.

Rahal ended up leading just one lap of the 77-day race, but that was all he needed to get redemption at Texas Motor Speedway after crashing while leading the race at the track in 2012 with just over two laps remaining in it.

And he almost blew the late lead of the race in 2016 as well.

As he was coming to the finish line with the race lead, Rahal started pumping his fist in the air from the cockpit. Meanwhile, Hinchcliffe made another run on him and nearly passed him. In fact, the aerodynamic effect of Rahal pumping his fist aided Hinchcliffe by adding drag to Rahal’s car, but it ended up not being enough.

Here is a video of this epic finish.