By Bob Markus

The most extraordinary sports result over the week-end was not Roger Federer's epic five set victory over Andy Roddick at Wimbledon. Nor was it Tiger Woods' one shot victory over Hunter Mahan at the Congressional Country Club in Washington, D.C. Sure, Federer's hard-earned triumph was his record-setting 15th Grand Slam win, reigniting the controversy over whether he is the greatest tennis player ever. And Woods' workmanlike triumph was his third of an abbreviated season, one which catapulted him into the lead for the FedEX Cup.

But these were expected results. What was totally unexpected, like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky, was Dale Coyne's first victory as a race car owner after a drought of almost Biblical proportions. As a driver and car owner Coyne had never won a race in 25 years of trying. For most of that quarter century of endless, grinding defeat he never even came close. He was like a Christian thrown into the arena with the lions, a guppy standing up to a shark. The gap between Dale Coyne Racing and the elite teams like Penske, Ganassi, Newman-Haas and Michael Andretti was bigger than the gulf that separates Woods from a two handicapper.

As a driver-owner Coyne raced for almost nine years in the CART series and scored a total of 3 points on the basis of three 12th place finishes. The owner of a landscape company in Plainfield, Il., a distant suburb of Chicago, Coyne would work all spring to earn enough money to race in the summer. Things improved a little financially when Hall of Fame football player Walter Payton became a partner in what was called Payton-Coyne Racing. Payton had dabbled in race car driving himself after his retirement from the NFL and I was there in 1993 at Road America when he swerved into the woods, his car turning upside down and catching fire. Payton was lucky to suffer only minor burns, but the incident cooled his passion for speed. He never raced again. But he still loved the sport, hence his partnership with Coyne. Two years later, Payton was dead, victim of a rare liver disease, and Coyne was on his own again.

Each year became a battle for survival. "Our budget then was the size of our tire budget today," says Coyne, speaking from his race shop in Plainfield Tuesday morning. "It was tough. You're trying to find sponsors. Drivers spend all winter wondering if they're going to have a ride. Owners do the same thing, wondering if they're going to find a sponsor."

And so it went on, year after year of scuffling, sending his drivers out in equipment he knew was not competitive with the elite teams. But, he says, he never thought of quitting. Long before Jim Valvano made the phrase famous, Coyne was telling himself, "never give up. The measure of a man is not what he does on a good day. The down years made you come back stronger." Coyne has come back more years than all but two of the owners in what is now the Indy Car series. "Look at all the teams that have come and gone," Coyne says. "We're the third oldest team. There's Penske and Carl Haas. Haas started one year before us."

Coyne knows that the Penskes and Ganassis of the world have an enormous advantage over him. "We're not in that league," he acknowledges. The first eight races of the current season had been won by a driver from either the Penske or Ganassi stables. Coyne had gone 558 races without a win until his latest driver, Justin Wilson, gave him an early birthday present (Coyne turns 55 tomorrow) by winning convincingly at Watkins Glen, pulling away from Ryan Briscoe (Penske) after a late restart. "That's what makes it even more satisfying," says Coyne. "We didn't win it on fuel strategy or tires. Justin just outdrove them."

"To dominate like we did is fantastic," Wilson had said after his second career victory. "It just felt so good to do that for Dale." Wilsom's previous victory, also on a road course, came last year when he was driving for Newman-Haas, as part of a two-man effort with Graham Rahal. With Paul Newman gone, "They were going to cut back to one car," Coyne says. "So Justin was available. We ran Bruno Junqueira the last two years and Bruno came very, very close for us a couple of times."

In fact, Junqueira scored three straight podium finishes for Coyne back in 2007. Included was a second place finish in Zolder, Belgium. Until Sunday that was Coyne's best finish ever. Coyne went into Sunday's race "cautiously optimistic." Wilson had qualified in the front row, but pole sitter Briscoe "was so strong in qualifying," Coyne says. "We thought if Ryan could run that pace in the race it would be very, very difficult to beat him."

But early on, Wilson, who is, "very good under braking," according to Coyne, passed Briscoe and remained in front the rest of the way. But Coyne had one more heart stopping moment before taking his first trip to Victory Lane. Earlier this year, in the season opener at St. Petersburg, Wilson had qualified second , "and he took the lead in the first corner and just dominated the race. Then there was a late yellow and he had a bad restart and finished third." So when a late full course yellow caution came out, "Yes, tht did give us a sense of deja vu going back to St. Petersburg," Coyne acknowledged. "We got on the radio two laps before the restart and reminded him of what had happened. All he said, very quietly, was 'Yeah.'"

When the green flag was unfurled, "he disappeared," Coyne said. So did a lifetime of disappointments and defeat. "This was a victory for anyone who ever touched the team," said Coyne. A victory for Walter Payton and drivers like Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia and Bruno Junqueira and Roberto Moreno and all the scores of men who have changed tires and fueled the car and sent it on its way to seemingly endless defeat. But above all it was a victory for a man who never stopped trying, who kept getting knocked down and always got back up. After all, what else could he have done? "The down years make you come back stronger," he says. "If you have a passion for what you do, you'll come back stronger."































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