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Franchitti Leads 242 Of 250 Laps In Powering To Richmond Victory

RICHMOND, Va. ? On the 0.75-mile Richmond International Raceway, Dario Franchitti could run (fast) but couldn’t hide. Then again, no one could catch the No. 27 Canadian Club car.

Franchitti stretched his points lead to 65 just past the halfway mark of the IndyCar Series season with a dominating victory in the SunTrust Indy Challenge presented by XM. How dominating for the three-time winner?

? He set an IndyCar Series-record 242 (of the race’s 250) laps.
? He set a track record with an average speed of 133.408 mph.
? He set the fastest race lap by the leader at 163.821 mph on Lap 75.

But while controlling the pace, the pole sitter (based on entrant points when rain washed out qualifications a day earlier) didn’t exactly shake first Andretti Green Racing teammate Tony Kanaan and then Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon.

Franchitti led Dixon to the checkers by 0.4194 of a second (the same finish as the 91st Indianapolis 500 a month earlier), with Wheldon third and Kanaan fourth.

“I enjoy driving (at Richmond) a lot,” said Franchitti, who has finished second, third and first the past three years on the bullring in June. “I think it suits my style because you have to feel what the car is doing. The Canadian Club guys have given me really good cars here, so it makes my job a little bit easier.”

But Franchitti said there was some guesswork heading into the race as it related to his car’s setup.

“We were going to have to guess, educated guess on setup for the race,” he said. “We had to start a different way than Tony, Marco (Andretti) and Danica (Patrick), because we weren’t happy with the feel of the car.

“We made adjustments tonight because we didn’t know basically what we had. Kicked off with a start and drew the lead pretty quickly. I was pleasantly surprised. We lost the lead in the first piece, small problem, but the (Lap 71) restart is when I knew the car was exceptional when we could pass Tony like that. I think it played into my strengths.”

Andretti Green Racing drivers swept the short tracks this season, with Franchitti also winning at Iowa Speedway and Kanaan at The Milwaukee Mile.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing’s Buddy Rice advanced seven positions to finish fifth (his second consecutive top five). Patrick finished sixth, followed by Vision Racing’s Tomas Scheckter and Rahal Letterman Racing’s Scott Sharp (fifth consecutive top 10).

Delphi Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira, who was driving an untested backup car because of a practice crash a day earlier, started and finished ninth. Vision Racing’s Ed Carpenter was 10th.

The fourth caution flag (on Lap 238 when the Nos. 55 car driven by Kosuke Matsuura and the No. 6 car driven by Sam Hornish Jr. bumped in traffic) appeared to set up a shootout. But Franchitti got a big jump on the Lap 244 restart and Dixon couldn’t make up ground.

“I think we had the better car, but it was just track position all night,” said Dixon, who is second in the standings heading to the venue (Watkins Glen International) where he’s won the past two years. “(Toward the end of the race) Dario needed to save fuel and you could tell he was using Sam (Hornish Jr.) as a buffer. That was the time we needed to get him.”

Dixon tied Kanaan’s 2004-05 series record of 25 consecutive races in which he’s been running at the finish.

“I’m feeling good about these short tracks because we’ve been struggling on them as a team for the past few years,” he said. “It’s good to run strong on them, and I’m looking forward to Watkins Glen.”

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