Castroneves wins at Michigan

Castroneves' 1.6229-second win over Meira, with an average speed of 193.972 mph, was the third-fastest in IRL history and the fastest IRL race at Michigan. It also completely reversed Castroneves' fortunes, sending him from 30 points behind to eight points ahead of Marlboro Team Penske teammate Sam Hornish Jr.

"You know what it feels like? It feels like the weather," Castroneves said. "It's sunny and then it rains. It's exactly like that. Thank God we ended up in the sun today. It was hard on everybody - not only myself, but the entire team. That just goes to prove that you can't give up."

Hornish encountered trouble with the cooling system on the No. 6 Penske Honda/Dallara early in the race and finished 19th.

Scott Dixon, who trailed Hornish by five points for the points lead coming into the race, also encountered problems early in the race, running out of fuel and eventually finishing 16th.

"I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I know it was an issue with the engine," Hornish said. "We'll have to use the next few days and take a look at it and see if we can figure out what caused the problem. It's a shame to end the day like that, but that's how it goes sometimes."

But it was Meira, who has finished second seven times in his IRL career and has yet to win a race, who gave Castroneves the toughest challenge. He led 75 laps - fourteen more than Castroneves, costing the new leader a precious three points for leading the most laps.

"How many laps did he lead?" Castroneves asked reporters after the race. After being told, Castroneves replied, "Son of a gun. He took my three points."

In this case, Meira wasn't giving anything. He picked his way through traffic in the final laps, making Castroneves and his Penske crew nervous near the end.

"We come here to give 110 percent," Meira said. "That's what everybody does. The outcome is a result of the work you do. We took 110 percent out of what we had to do - not only today, but we've been doing it since John (Barnes) made the call to restart Panther Racing. I think that's the proof of victory."

Castroneves took the lead for good on the last cycle of pit stops with 23 laps remaining. Before that, he'd taken the lead from Meira as the field cycled through green-flag stops on the 134th lap. Once he got in front, Castroneves was firmly in control of the race.

"I'd lost my wingman at that point, and all of a sudden I noticed Vitor in front of me," Castroneves said. "I knew it was still a long way to the end of the race. I said, 'You know what? I'm just going to pull away with those guys. He was working pretty good with me."

After the final round of pit stops, Castroneves emerged with a 4-second lead over Meira. However, Meira soon began to cut into that margin, pulling to within 1.4 seconds with 13 laps remaining. It wavered between 1.5 and 2.0 seconds from there on out.

Meira pulled within 56 points of Castroneves, making it the second-closest top-five with three races remaining in IRL history.

"The way we started the season, with an electrical failure at Homestead, it's outstanding," Meira said. "We've been good on short tracks, road courses, street courses and long ovals. We've been good everywhere. I guess that's what we have to do to climb little by little in the championship."

Following Castroneves and Meira to the finish line was Dan Wheldon, who also made a healthy jump in the standings, moving within 17 points of the leader. However, his late-race jostling angered former teammate Tony Kanaan, who was seen having a heated discussion with Wheldon immediately after the race.

"Ganassi put Dixon between Dan and myself," said Kanaan, who finished fourth. "They are going for a championship and we're going for race wins. We have two super speedway races remaining, and AGR has four cars for the payback."

Wheldon said Kanaan wasn't angry at him. "He came up to me and said, 'Good race,'" Wheldon said.

"I think he might have been upset that my teammate (Dixon) was between the two of us," Wheldon added. "I was just running the low line. I was more concerned with trying to catch the two in front of us. I had Chip in my ear, saying, 'Keep going, keep going.' I just tried to run the shortest line I possibly could to catch those guys."

Tomas Scheckter came home fifth, followed by Scott Sharp, Carpenter and Marco Andretti, who started last on the grid. Kosuke Matsuura and Jeff Simmons rounded out the top 10. Scheckter's finish was his second-best of the season on the heels of last week's third at Milwaukee.

"We'll go back and see if we can do anything a bit better, but everyone did great at Vision and it's another top five," Scheckter said. "Coming off the last couple of races, we just need to keep the momentum going."

Danica Patrick was running seventh late in the race when her car, which ran much of the race without telemetry, ran out of fuel. The incident led to a stomping, helmet-throwing tirade by Patrick, who finished 16th.

"My engineers couldn't even tell what gear I was in," said Patrick, who earlier this week announced her intention to join Andretti Green Racing next season.

"We won't be sure what happens until we go back and review the data, but we think we were a little short on fuel. This was a hard, hard race. We weren't particularly fast at the start, but worked with the car and made it a lot better. This one is going to bug me for a while."

It might bug - or not bug, depending on their perspective - the five drivers involved in the scramble near the top of the standings. Castroneves now has 376 points - eight better than Hornish, 17 better than Wheldon, 31 better than Dixon and 56 better than Meira.

"I came into this race and said, 'I'm going to drive like it's the last race of the season," Castroneves said. "I'll take whatever we got today because it's very important. Leaving here with the lead has given us even more of a boost."

Pos  Driver             Team               Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske             2:03:43.7441
 2.  Vitor Meira        Panther            +     1.6229
 3.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi            +     6.2259
 4.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti-Green     +     6.9874
 5.  Tomas Scheckter    Vision             +    27.9005
 6.  Scott Sharp        Fernandez          +    28.5560
 7.  Ed Carpenter       Vision             +     1 lap
 8.  Marco Andretti     Andretti-Green     +     1 lap
 9.  Kosuke Matsuura    Aguri Fernandez    +     1 lap
10.  Jeff Simmons       Rahal-Letterman    +     1 lap
11.  Bryan Herta        Andretti-Green     +     1 lap
12.  Dario Franchitti   Andretti-Green     +     1 lap
13.  Buddy Rice         Rahal-Letterman    +     1 lap
14.  Jeff Bucknum       Foyt               +     2 laps
15.  Buddy Lazier       Dreyer & Reinbold  +     2 laps
16.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi            +     2 laps
17.  Danica Patrick     Rahal-Letterman    +     3 laps
18.  Marty Roth         Roth               +     8 laps
19.  Sam Hornish Jr     Penske             +   139 laps