Sam Hornish Jr. finally got his first victory of the season and feisty Danica Patrick came out on top in her "Rumble at the Speedway" with a career-best finish.
Despite being the closest finish in the IndyCar Series this season, Hornish had a dominating victory at Texas on Saturday night _ leading 159 of 228 laps and having a nearly 7 1/2-second lead before his final pit stop and then again before a late multicar crash.
"We had a great car. It did everything we wanted it to do. It was phenomenal," Hornish said. "If feels good. I said all season, we were right there, right on the edge. Tonight the car was so good, we just needed things not to go against us."
The only thing that slowed Hornish's No. 6 Team Penske car down on way to his series-best 19th career victory were the necessary pit stops and the late crash. That wreck tightened the field and forced him to hold off a late charge by a lucky Tony Kanaan and Patrick.
Hornish was one of only three drivers with top-10 finishes in the first six races, but led only five laps before getting to the 1 1/2-mile high-banked Texas track. He is the first three-time winner at Texas Motor Speedway, but hadn't won at the track since 2002.
For Patrick, her career-best finish came after all the hype this week surrounding her postrace confrontation on pit row with Dan Wheldon a week ago.
"Maybe we should make you mad more often," joked Kanaan, her Andretti Green teammate.
"There's a story, and all of a sudden I have a season-best. It was really just a matter of time I think. We've had fast cars," Patrick said. "It's a shame Tony and I didn't have more time to get Sam."
Hornish won with an average speed of 177.314 mph and by a margin of only .0786 seconds _ the 11th straight Texas race finished under the green flag that was decided by less than a half-second.
Wheldon, knocked out of the race in the crash on lap 197, led four times for 52 laps a year. He led 171 laps at Texas last year and finished third after a bad late pit stop that left him storming out of the cockpit away from his team.
Kanaan somehow slid unscathed through mangled machines and a flying tire.
"I'm not going to brag about it, I have no idea how I went through," Kanaan said.
Sarah Fisher's car was running slow on the bottom of the track to avoid the car of A.J. Foyt IV, whose right rear tire had popped off and was bouncing on the track. Ed Carpenter, Foyt's teammate with Vision Racing, moved up and made contact with Scott Dixon.
In the chain reaction that followed, Wheldon _ the Target Chip Ganassi teammate of Dixon who had running at the front all night _ and Helio Castroneves of Team Penske were knocked out of the race.
Hornish maintained the lead on the restart _ and there was mostly a 1-2-3 line to the finish with Kanaan unable to get enough of a push to get past the leader.
Only the top six cars finished on the lead lap, with Andretti Green driver Dario Franchitti finishing fourth to maintain the series points lead, followed by Vitor Meira and Jeff Simmons. Polesitter Scott Sharp finished seventh, a lap back.
Before his final pit stop on lap 188, Hornish had nearly a 7 1/2-second lead _ which he was able to rebuild after coming back out before the big wreck. Patrick took over the lead for a couple of laps before she made her last stop.
After all "The Rumble at the Speedway" hype _ the promotion Texas jumped on after Patrick angrily confronted Wheldon on pit row after their on-track collision at Milwaukee last weekend _ they were quickly running together at Texas.
By the fourth lap at Texas, Patrick (started sixth) and Wheldon (started 10th) were side by side for third place. They stayed close for about 14 laps, only inches apart at times but giving each other the space they promised after a long talk this week with IRL president Brian Barnhart.
Still, Patrick was heard on her radio at the time complaining about some of Wheldon's moves once he passed her.
On the 17th lap, after several unsuccessful attempts, Wheldon went high and finally passed Patrick coming onto of Turn 4. Wheldon _ "The Battlin' Brit" on promotional posters in Texas _ stayed ahead of the "Phoenix Firebird" until he was knocked out of the race.
At Milwaukee last week, their cars touched when Patrick went low to try to pass Wheldon for third place. The contact sent Patrick's car spinning into the infield grass and she eventually finished eighth. After the race, Patrick grabbed Wheldon's arm, voiced her complaint and gave him a light shove as he walked way without responding to her.
Tomas Scheckter, who led 371 laps with a victory in his seven Texas races before Saturday, had another strong run going until Marco Andretti cut down on him along the frontstretch and made contact on the front right of Scheckter's car.
The No. 2 Vision Racing car spun through the infield. Once the car came to a rest and Scheckter got out of the car, he stormed toward the track and threw his driving gloves toward Andretti's car when the field rolled by him.
"He was swerving at me on the straightaway. It's really stupid, I'm just sorry for my whole team," said Scheckter, who was 30 laps down when he returned after the car was repaired. "We had a good run going. What a waste."
Copyright 2007 AP News
