Kanaan wins crash-filled Michigan

When the race had ended - and Tony Kanaan had posted a historic win - the focus was clearly on the fact that those challengers, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, had escaped injury in a terrifying six-car crash at Michigan International Speedway.

Franchitti was battling with Dan Wheldon for the lead when Wheldon's right front and Franchitti's left rear touched as the two cars raced down the backstretch on the 145th lap of the 200-lap race.

Franchitti's No. 27 Andretti Green Racing Honda/Dallara slid sideways in front of Wheldon's No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda/Dallara, then flipped high overhead, pirouetted in the air, and came down on top of Dixon's No. 9 Ganassi Honda/Dallara.

"I opened my eyes at one point and I was upside down about 30 feet in the air," Franchitti said. "I thought, 'This isn't good.'"

The six-car crash, which also included Ed Carpenter, A.J. Foyt IV and Sam Hornish Jr, gave the lead to Danica Patrick and turned the race into a mix of strategy and confusion. Marco Andretti was penalized for jumping a restart with 30 laps remaining, then came back to battle Andretti Green teammate Tony Kanaan through the final laps before settling for second.

"It was a crazy race," Kanaan said. "A lot of people were disrespecting each other out there. It's not anybody's fault except ours and the Indy Racing League's not to take measures with drivers who have been driving a crazy race.

"I saw at least 25 cars that had the potential to flip during this race. Only one did, and thank God he's OK. I really don't think this is any way to race."

The battle for the end punctuated a dramatic and long day for Andretti Green Racing, which watched breathlessly as Franchitti flipped, watched Patrick move into position for a barrier-breaking victory only to lose it to a flat tyre, and then watched as two of its own went wheel-to-wheel for the race win.

"What I saw out there was not pretty," Kanaan said. "From the fans' standpoint, it was great. From our standpoint, it was scary."

Remarkably, Dixon's crew pieced his car back together and sent him back out on the track for enough laps to secure a 10th-place finish and not lose any points to Franchitti, who was scored 13th but won the pole position.

Franchitti now leads Dixon by the same margin - 24 points - with which he entered the weekend, but just four races remain in the 2007 IndyCar Series season.

"Racing Indy cars at Michigan is like racing on a restrictor-plate track in NASCAR," Dixon said. "I tried to get past Dario, but he ended up on top of me. This keeps the points where they were before we came in, so it's like the race never happened."

After the crash, the drivers involved all met in the infield medical centre, where Franchitti and Dixon compared notes. "I told Scott, 'It was pretty soft when it came down,'" Franchitti said.

"He said, 'Yeah, that's because you landed on me.' I'm just glad everybody is OK. There were tyres flying around and all kinds of stuff. I'm just glad it ended up OK."

The multi-car crash opened the door for several drivers who had been hanging around the leaders throughout the race but hadn't challenged for the lead. With a car damaged in the crash, Scott Sharp inherited the lead after pit stops following the big crash, and eventually finished third.

"I was tucked up right under Sam, and all of a sudden his rear wing is in my cockpit," Sharp said. "When I hit him I thought for sure we ripped off a lot more than the front wing. Obviously the guys built a pretty solid car."

Following Kanaan, Andretti and Sharp to the finish line was Kosuke Matsuura in fourth, Buddy Rice in fifth and Ryan Hunter-Reay in sixth. Patrick was seventh, Foyt eighth, Hornish ninth and Dixon 10th.

While some who hadn't seen the crash up close or the replay blamed Wheldon, Franchitti tempered the blame. "It was probably both of our faults," he said. "I don't know if he moved up into me or I moved down into him. I'll have to see the replay."

Franchitti's car was on the outside of Wheldon's. Once contact was made, Franchitti's car pitched left and sideways at the nose of Wheldon's car. There, airflow went underneath the flat-bottomed tub and quickly sent it into a dramatic flight.

"I was just hoping to God that he's OK at that point," Wheldon said. "Dario's a good friend. It was a very aggressive race, but you get to know these people over a long period of time. All you can think about is whether they're OK. You just pray that everybody is fine."

Franchitti's car came down on the nose of Dixon's car, inches in front of his helmet. The No. 27 then landed upside down and skidded to a stop on its roll bar. Franchitti indicated he wasn't injured, and track safety workers - with an assist from Hornish - helped turn the mangled car back over.

Franchitti stood up and walked to an awaiting SUV for the ride to the medical center. "I'm just bloody thankful I'm in one piece," he said.

Once the race resumed, it became a battle among the remaining three AGR cars. Patrick appeared to be in position for a shot at her first victory - and first major motorsports victory by a female driver - when a tyre went flat on the No. 7 AGR Honda/Dallara.

"It was my race to lose," Patrick said. "I had the car to win the race. It would have been only through bad luck that I didn't do it, and that's what happened. My teammates were very strong, but I still think we had the fastest car. When it came down to it, we had the legs to be the winner of the race, but we didn't. It's just frustrating."

That's when the race transformed into a duel between Kanaan and Andretti, who said his fifth gear was a bit too tall to hang with Kanaan's as the two cars reached peak rpms down the backstretch.

"It was very good going over the bump (between Turns 3 and 4), and that's what allowed me to get next to him going into Turn 1. It pulled quite well coming out of two, but as soon as his gear was optimum in the backstretch, we didn't have enough."

In the end, the final open-wheel race at Michigan International Speedway - brought about because the track and the Indy Racing League couldn't agree on a date for 2008 - showed just why it might be time for the IRL's inches-apart, heavy-downforce formula to part ways with two-mile (and perhaps even some 1.5-mile) ovals.

"It's just a bomb that's waiting to explode," Kanaan said. "Someone pulls the plug on the grenade, and then we wait. Thank God nobody got hurt."

The IndyCar Series resumes Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.

Pos  Driver              Laps
 1.  Tony Kanaan          200
 2.  Marco Andretti       200
 3.  Scott Sharp          200
 4.  Kosuke Matsuura      200
 5.  Buddy Rice           200
 6.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     200
 7.  Danica Patrick       199
 8.  A.J. Foyt IV         167
 9.  Sam Hornish Jr.      148
10.  Scott Dixon          145
11.  Tomas Scheckter      144
12.  Dan Wheldon          143
13.  Dario Franchitti     143
14.  Ed Carpenter         143
15.  Darren Manning       113
16.  Sarah Fisher          83
17.  Helio Castroneves     58
18.  Vitor Meira           58
19.  Milka Duno            43
20.  Jon Herb              26