[sammyg2]

"Not pleased over what Briscoe did, Patrick got out of her car and started to walk down pit lane, at one point taking off her driving gloves and getting ready for a confrontation. But it's a good thing they were separated by six pit stalls as IndyCar officials and a security guard intervened, sending her back to her own stall.

"It is probably best I didn't get down there anyway, isn't it?" Patrick said.

Briscoe, who also was knocked out of the race and finished 23rd, saw the incident differently.

"There are people pointing fingers, but that's not the way we are," he said. "We both have a brake pedal in our cars, and from what I can tell, there was still plenty of room for her to get around me. I was staying in the middle lane. I got ran up in the back, and it's a shame."

Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized. Gordon, a former open-wheel driver now in NASCAR, contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick’s is lighter on the race track. “The lighter the car, the faster it goes,” Gordon said. “Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier. “I won’t race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away.”

The Indy Racing League does not consider the weight of the driver in its race specifications. The car has to weigh at least 1,525 pounds before the fuel and driver are added, and teams in Indy have estimated that Patrick will gain close to 1 mph in speed because of her small stature.

Although her rivals in Sunday’s race have said she doesn’t have a huge advantage, pole-sitter Tony Kanaan told reporters he would like the Indy Racing League to look into the issue. “Right off the bat, a guy my size is spotting her 105 pounds,” Gordon said.

2005 indy 500:

Patrick overcame a couple of mistakes to take the lead late in the race. She stalled the engine in the pits on her Honda-power Panoz on lap 79, falling to 16th, last on the lead lap.

She kept her cool and moved all the way to eighth before making another error as the cars began to speed up for a restart after a long caution period. She nearly ran into the car of Scott Sharp, turning sideways and getting hit hard by fellow rookie Tomas Enge. Tomas Scheckter spun to avoid Patrick and slid into the inside wall.

"I'm sorry," said told her team on the radio. "They slowed."