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Kanaan Wins, Dixon Moves To Eight Points Behind Franchitti

SPARTA, Ky. ? As Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon ? locked in a championship duel — battled for second place through the midsection of the Meijer Indy 300 presented by Coca-Cola and Edy’s, Tony Kanaan’s No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car was knifing through the twilight air at Kentucky Speedway less than a second ahead.

The lead transferred through pit stop cycles, but Kanaan was never out of the top five.

Then, with the last challenge ? passing A.J. Foyt for the lead on a Lap 190 restart ? under his belt, Kanaan went on to win his second consecutive race to join the IndyCar Series championship hunt. Kanaan, the pole sitter, beat Dixon to the line by 1.7457 seconds to record his series-leading fourth victory of the season.

Foyt finished a career-high third (2.1070 seconds behind) in the No. 22 Vision Racing car, while Marco Andretti advanced 11 positions to finish fourth in the No. 26 NYSE car. Tomas Scheckter finished fifth in the No. 2 Vision Racing car.

But the excitement didn’t end for the crowd of more than 56,000 and the ESPN audience. Taking the checkered flag, Franchitti’s No. 27 Canadian Club car ran into/over the rear of the No. 55 Panasonic Panther Racing car driven by Kosuke Matsuura just past the finish line and flipped backward ? again. Franchitti, who walked away from a frightening crash six days earlier at Michigan International Speedway in which his car flipped several times, also was unscathed in the post-race incident.

“That one was completely my fault; there’s no excuse,” Franchitti said. “I screwed up twice in the race. I screwed up once coming out of the pits and then after the checkered. I didn’t realize it was the checkered. I got the ‘Hey, it’s a checkered’ just as I was hitting him. I’m pretty disgusted right now for that — for both my mistakes today.”

Franchitti, who finished eighth mainly because of the pit lane mistake 20 laps earlier, saw his points lead over Dixon sliced to eight. Kanaan moved to 52 points behind.

“The car was really good; I’ve got to thank all the 7-Eleven crew,” said Kanaan, who gave Andretti Green Racing its first victory at Kentucky Speedway and series-leading 30th overall. “It was a nice picture in my mirror when I saw (Dixon and Franchitti) getting smaller and smaller.

“We’ve got to take it one at a time. I’m not thinking about the championship right now. We’ve got to think about winning and try to get closer.”

His next opportunity will come on the Infineon Raceway road course on Aug. 26, where he won the inaugural race in 2005. Last year, Dixon was the pole sitter and Franchitti was runner-up to Andretti.

“My guys did a fantastic job in the pits and enabled us to jump in front of the two AGR cars,” said Dixon, who notched his fourth second place of the season. “TK on the restarts, along with Dario, just blew around the outside of me. Both those guys were so fast. It was frustrating. We were able to split them up and keep Dario behind me, which was the main thing.

“And then we had that pit stop there where Danica had her problem and Dario ran off into the grass and maybe wrecked his wing a little bit. It was finally their night to lose. We made good gains in the points today.”

Scott Sharp posted his second consecutive top-10 finish in the No. 8 Patron Rahal Letterman Racing car, followed in seventh by Ed Carpenter in the No. 20 Vision Racing car. It was the first time this season that all three Vision cars finished in the top 10. Helio Castroneves advanced four positions to finish ninth and Vitor Meira closed out the top 10.

Franchitti lost positions when the right side of his nose assembly clipped the pylon at pit-out on Lap 180 as he moved to avoid the car of teammate Danica Patrick. Danica Patrick’s opportunity for a top-five finish was lost on a series of bizarre events during the same pit stop sequence. First, her No. 7 Team Motorola car spun as it was moving onto the racing surface in Turn 2. After gaining forward motion, but with flat spots on the Firehawks, the right-rear tire popped, sending Patrick into the wall on the backstretch.

“On pit exit, I was leaving with hot tires,” she said. “We didn’t change them and I was not even flat out. I was lifting, which to pit out even on cold tires we should pretty much be flat. It just spun.

“Then, after we got going, there was such a flat spot and blister on the right-rear that the tire blew. I think there was a pretty strong performance by AGR with all four cars being in the top seven or eight at the end. Tony was really fast so it looks like he is going to get this one.”

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