Franchitti leads CART championship

The Scot passed team-mate Paul Tracy early on, and chased leader Juan Montoya throughout an incident-filled race.

Initially, Montoya looked to be unbeatable, but confusion over when he should make his pitstop put him behind the pace car while both Team Green cars [Franchitti and Tracy] pitted.

The Columbian managed to pull out over 15s while he charged on, but after he finally stopped he had to rejoin in eighth position.

Montoya looked like he might make his way back up the field to challenge, but a late braking manoeuvre on Roberto Moreno during Lap 63 brought both drivers off the track.

Montoya managed to rejoin, but da Matta crashed going into Turn 2, causing chaos behind him as Al Unser Jnr, amongst others, struggled to avoid him and collided.

Team officials called a two-hour race, while marshalls tried to clear the course.

The race then seemed to descend into farce, after Franchitti told his team he could see fluid leaking from the pace car.

The pace cars were changed, but Montoya was hit from behind by Castro-Neves, who apparently thought the departing pace car meant a return to green.

The race finished under yellow with Franchitti taking the chequered flag, ahead of team-mate Tracy and Canadian Greg Moore.

The race was action-packed from start to finish, with Max Papis crashing on the first lap after being pushed off by Patrick Carpentier.

Carpentier himself was the victim of Mauricio Gugelmin, after the Brazilian lost control of his PacWest car on Lap 28.

Gugelmin ran over the top of Carpentier's cockpit with his rear tyre before flipping over.

Carpentier lost consciousness, but was reported okay after being airlifted to a Detroit hospital.