Castroneves Wins Third Indy 500

Graham Rahal and Davey Hamilton had similar-looking accidents on laps 56 and 83, respectively. Both slowed their cars between turns three and four, drifted up the track, and hit the wall on the front straightaway.

Rahal, who expressed in pre-race interviews that he felt like his Newman/Haas/Lanigan team had a shot at the win, had plenty of reason to be disappointed: He made the same mistake early in last year’s 500.

Hamilton was classified 29th with Rahal 31st.

Dixon lost the lead to Franchitti during the pit stops which occurred under caution after the Hamilton wreck, but regained the point five laps later. He proceeded to lead laps 91-141 with little pressure as Franchitti helped him protect his position.

Tony Kanaan, lead driver for Andretti-Green Racing and a frequent victim of the race, saw his day end in a violent crash on lap 98. A part failed on the right side of the car while at top speed, and Kanaan bounced off into the backstretch wall. His car then slammed the turn three wall and eventually came to rest in the short chute.

In television interviews, Kanaan appeared visibly shaken by the wreck.

He finished 27th.

Drivers Robert Doornbos (28th), Nelson Philippe (25th), and Justin Wilson (23rd), all former Champ Car World Series race winners, had incidents in the middle-to-late stages of the race that ended their respective days.

Of the three, Wilson was the only driver to have attempted the race before. Doornbos and Philippe, counting practice sessions for the race, wrecked a combined five cars over the course of the month.

Under the caution for the Philippe incident, Franchitti's fueler got stuck in his car causing him to lose track position. With nobody to block for him, Dixon was powerless on the restart to stop the assault of a rejuvenated Castroneves. The Penske Dallara-Honda cleared Dixon before the cars even entered turn one.

The scariest incident of the day occurred on lap 173, when Vitor Meira and Raphael Matos collided in turn one. Their cars slammed the wall at top speed with Meira’s riding down the wall on its side. Meira was extracted from his car by the Delphi Safety Team and airlifted to nearby Methodist Hospital.

He broke two vertebrae in his back and will spend the next two days in the hospital being fitted for a back brace.

Meira was listed in 21st and Matos 22nd.

Briscoe, like Franchitti, had his share of problems: He had fallen back in the middle of the event with a bad set of tires, but short-fueled in pit stops after the Wilson caution to claim second place behind teammate Castroneves. Eventually Briscoe attempted to take the lead, with the intention of pulling Castroneves along, in order to help the Brazilian save fuel by using the draft.

However, he had to pit during the Meira-Matos caution and was thus not a factor in the race’s final stages, finishing 15th overall.

The field restarted on lap 183, with Castroneves in first, followed by 2005 champion Dan Wheldon, media darling Danica Patrick, and Townsend Bell, driving with a one-race deal for Jimmy Vasser’s team. Castroneves opened up a healthy gap on the second and third-place cars.

Because his car was only maintaining, and not topping Castroneves’ pace, and because he had to block Patrick’s advances, Wheldon could not catch the pole-sitter and all cars held their positions.

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