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Dixon Dominates Final Half Of Race To Win Honda 200 At Mid-Ohio

Scott Dixon and his Target Chip Ganassi Team dominated the last half of the race to win the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Dixon led the final 48 laps to move past Sam Hornish, Jr. in all-time wins in the IndyCar Series with 20. However legendary A.J. Foyt leads all with 67 wins in all-time open wheel wins.

With Dixon winning for the fourth time this year, it moved him back into the series championship points lead with four races remaining. The next race is in two weeks on the natural road course at Infineon Raceway. Dixon?s has a point lead of three over Briscoe and 20 over Franchitti.

At the start it was Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe on the point with fellow front row starter Justin Wilson following in second. Briscoe lead the first five circuits until Wilson got around and simply checked out. Wilson in his Dale Coyne Racing car dominated the first third of the race leading 27 of the first 36 circuits. Wilson?s lead over Briscoe varied from five to almost eight seconds.

After the first set of pit stops it was Dixon who was able to jump up by pitting later and moved past Briscoe to second. Dixon then started to pull closer to Wilson and pressure him for the lead. At this point of the race Dixon seem to have the fastest car. This is also usually when the other competitors know it may be a long day.

Then controversial Milka Duno entered the picture. Duno who was running laps three seconds a lap off the next fastest car and seven seconds off the leader pace found herself ahead of the leader Wilson and Dixon. Duno held up both for several corners when Wilson went to try to lap her on the outside then Dixon ducked inside to take the lead. After that Dixon walked away from the field and never was pressured.

Seemed like the driver who could get into the lead today could just check out.

Naughty boy of the race was Mike Conway who punted Danica Patrick into the sandtrap who was slapped with a drive through penalty. It was a miserable day for Dreyer-Reinbold who with Duno finished last after apparently being parked and Conway who got up to eighth place but had a mechanical issue finishing one position up from Duno. Moves like that are earning Conway the nickname ?Conweasel? on sites such as Twitter.

With superior gas mileage, Dixon continued to build on his lead as final pit stops occurred under green. Wilson?s race imploded as the car started to sputter as in pulled into his pit stall. After quick service the car stalled leaving the pit and after several failed attempted to bump start they finally engaged the starter and he was back in the race. However Wilson?s stop was over 30 seconds dropping him to 15th, he came back to finish 13th. “Sometimes things don’t work out how you want them to,” Wilson said of the stop. “But Scott was just unbeatable. I thought we were a lot better of everyone behind him. They’ve got everything perfect.”

Surprise of the weekend was ABC Supply A.J. Foyt Racing?s Ryan Hunter-Reay whose car was fast off the hauler and qualified seventh. Running a strong race the No. 14 ended up fourth behind Briscoe and Franchitti. Hunter-Reay held off Hideki Mutoh and his teammate Marco Andretti. Ryan was giving his all the whole race, ?We were able to gap anybody out there and we were holding with the leaders. We were pretty happy with that. At the end though, Hideki was fast. He was really pushing me hard and I was driving as hard as I could to stay up ahead of him. A fourth for this team right now is a big deal. A fourth for me right now is a big deal. We were catching third. It was a lot of fun.?

Mutoh was happy with his result, ?At the beginning of the race we were saving the car, tires, fuel and I think we had a right time to have a yellow. When everybody pitted I had two more laps to go with my fuel so I really pushed hard there and I think I made a position there so the strategy was really good. The car was good so I’m looking forward to the next race.? As was Andretti, “Not a bad day for the Meijer car. It was a long day, but I’m glad we were able to finish inside the top-ten. The goal is to make our way up in points; it’d be great to year if we’re able to charge our way up to fifth and today put us closer to that goal.”

Dixon felt his car was quick all race but downplayed the Duno incident, “I think the Target car was fantastic from the get-go. We had a fairly decent start. I think we could have had Justin (Wilson) there but didn’t want to push the envelope too much. We were sitting behind (Ryan) Briscoe to save tons of gas and that allowed us to go a lap or two longer. I don’t really think the pass on Justin (Wilson) had much to do with Milka (Duno). We pretty much made the pass going into the corner, and she made it kind of interesting in the next couple corners.”

Graham Rahal who considers Mid-Ohio as his home track was frustrated with his finish after running in the top-5 most of the day. “It’s frustrating because the McDonald’s team had a good weekend going and I just wanted to have just a normal race with no mistakes and if we did that I knew we would have a good result. I just couldn’t do it. I hit the brakes and they instantly locked so before I even turned into the corner I was trying to figure out how to save it and just couldn’t. The rear brakes just locked up and it happened instantly and I don’t know exactly why it happened. It hadn’t happened any other time going into that section but one lap out of 85 is enough though unfortunately. The whole time I thought I was being conservative and wasn’t making any mistakes and that’s what I was hoping for. I wanted a top-five finish here. I don’t think we had a car that could win but I will say that we were close; the McDonald’s car felt really good. It’s a frustrating result for the McDonald’s team because the car was quick all day. I got by Dario and that was good and then I thought I was going to have something for (third place) Briscoe but we didn’t quite have enough for him. Later I had a shot at passing PT (Tracy) but I made the mistake of pushing Push to Pass too early so I couldn’t use it down the back straight because you can’t use it for 10 seconds after each time. I got up to fourth in the race but then made a mistake. It’s a frustrating result.”

Most if not all of the drivers were sweat soaked and exhausted climbing out of their cars on pit road. With track temperatures hitting 115 on the 2.2-mile road course, ambient temps hitting 90 the drivers earned their pay today.

Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio

LEXINGTON, Ohio – Results Sunday of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio IndyCar Series event at the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (3) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

2. (1) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

3. (6) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

4. (7) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

5. (11) Hideki Mutoh, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

6. (13) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

7. (10) Paul Tracy, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

8. (4) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

9. (15) Raphael Matos, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

10. (8) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

11. (14) Oriol Servia, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

12. (5) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

13. (2) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

14. (18) Robert Doornbos, Dallara-Honda, 85, Running

15. (9) E.J. Viso, Dallara-Honda, 84, Running

16. (17) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 84, Running

17. (21) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 84, Running

18. (19) Richard Antinucci, Dallara-Honda, 83, Running

19. (12) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 83, Running

20. (16) Mike Conway, Dallara-Honda, 69, Mechanical

21. (20) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 56, Handling

Race Statistics

Winner’s average speed: 108.540 mph

Time of race: 1:46:05.7985

Margin of victory: 29.7803 seconds

Cautions: 2 caution flags for 6 laps

Lead changes: 5 among 3 drivers

Lap leaders: Briscoe 1-5, Wilson 6-28, Briscoe 29, Dixon 30-31, Wilson 32-36, Dixon 37-85.

Point standings: Dixon 460, Briscoe 457, Franchitti 440, Castroneves 359, Patrick 321, Andretti 307, Kanaan 294, Rahal 289, Wheldon 288, Wilson 270.

The 2009 IndyCar Series season continues Aug. 23 with the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway. The race will be telecast live in High Definition at 5 p.m. (EDT) by VERSUS. A one-hour qualifying show will be telecast by VERSUS at 6 p.m. On Aug. 22. The race will air live on the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 145 and Sirius channel 211. The radio broadcast also will be carried on www.indycar.com

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