Race: Kanaan clinches win

He did it by holding off a late-lap charge by Sam Hornish Jr. On the final lap, Kanaan stopped a darting move by Hornish to the inside, and Hornish's right front wing buzzed against Kanaan's left rear tire. Hornish lost momentum, and Kanaan cruised to the line with 0.3755 seconds to spare.

"I kept to the inside," Kanaan said. "As soon as I saw him fake to the outside, I knew he was going to dive in. As I was getting into the corner, I might have moved a little bit up and then he tried to squeeze in. At that point, the corner just gets tighter. I came down to make the corner and we hit. The intention wasn't to block him, but we touched."

When asked if he considered Kanaan's move a block, Hornish only smiled.

"You'll have to watch the replay," Hornish said. "I don't know. We were pretty happy to be where we were at. With the new 3.0-litre engine, you really have to keep the momentum up. I wanted to make sure I waited to make the move until the last lap in case I didn't get the job done. I didn't want to lose momentum and get passed by the two guys behind me... I had a pretty good run on it, but I didn't want to force the issue."

Kanaan and his No. 11 Andretti Green Racing Honda-powered Dallara found the lead after a wild exchange between Wheldon and Buddy Rice left both cars bruised and ended both drivers' chances to win. As Rice attempted to pass Wheldon on the inside heading into turn one on a restart with 23 laps left, the two cars hooked wheels. Amazingly, both drivers saved their cars as they slid through the first turn, and Wheldon briefly maintained the lead.

While Rice dropped back with a damaged right front wing, Kanaan went around him on the outside as Hornish shot below. Rice and Kanaan touched wheels, but Kanaan held on. Seconds later, Kanaan passed Wheldon's fading car, which eventually lost its severely worn right rear tire.

"From what I saw, Buddy tried to fit his car where there was no place to be," Kanaan said of the scrap between Rice and Wheldon. "He had no place to go. He forced his way in. Dan was already into the corner. You have to race aggressively, but not too aggressively. You'll take each other out."

Rice was angry at Wheldon over the exchange, which forced Rice to pit to replace the nose on his car. Instead of winning a race he had led for 52 laps, Rice finished sixth.

"He didn't want me to go to the inside and he pushed my car onto the apron," Rice said. "We should have had a solid finish tonight, but there are some people who think otherwise. I think there should have been racing room, but they didn't want to give any."

Wheldon, whose fuel-only stop during a caution with 34 laps remaining pushed him from fourth place into the lead, finished 13th after the No. 26 AGR Honda/Dallara shed its right rear.

On the restart following Wheldon's tyre problem, Hornish remained on Kanaan's wing. As they headed down the backstretch on the final lap, Hornish faked to the outside, then darted back inside. Kanaan moved down slightly, preventing Hornish from getting inside. After the race, right front wing on Hornish's No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Toyota/Dallara bore an ominous black stripe.

"I also want to look at the replay," Kanaan said. "If I did (move down), it wasn't intentional. I'm sure if you see the replay, you'll see that I didn't try to run him down. I chose my line and I kept it. He tried to put his car down on the apron - the black asphalt - where we aren't supposed to be. I don't think he went there, but obviously he tried. That's why he lifted. If he felt he had the chance, he would have had to go for it."

Hornish backed out when he felt his wing on Kanaan's tyre. At that point, it was either back off or take out both cars.

"I knew it was plenty close enough," Hornish said. "I knew at that point that I just needed to lift and not worry about it."

Kanaan's win was his third of the season and kept him 61 points ahead of Wheldon at the season's halfway point. Rice is now 11 points behind Wheldon in third, and Helio Castroneves - who finished third Saturday night - lurks just 11 points behind Rice in fourth.

Afterward, Castroneves expressed concern about the recent trend of contact in IRL races.

"It's probably because of the 3.0-litre engine," Castroneves said. "If you lose the momentum, it takes awhile to get back... It's just the way the racing is right now. The difference in power creates that, but so far people have used their heads. We haven't had a big crash out there."

Following Kanaan, Hornish and Castroneves across the line were Darren Manning, Townsend Bell and Rice. In his first race in Greg Ray's car, Mark Taylor finished seventh. Scott Dixon, Kosuke Matsuura and Adrian Fernandez rounded out the top 10.

The race proved troublesome for the driver who led most of it. Vitor Meira, Rice's team-mate with Rahal Letterman Racing, was cruising along with the lead when his crew mistakenly ordered him to leave the pits while the fuel hose was still attached to the No. 17 Rahal Letterman Racing Honda/Panoz G Force. The miscue sent Meira from the lead to 15th place.

"We had a misunderstanding in the pits and made some mistakes," Meira said. "Everyone here knew this car was the one to beat. Buddy and I ran away from the pack, but things didn't go our way. Everyone is human, and you make mistakes."

After the bad stop, Meira tore through the field to fifth place before another bad stop dropped him back to ninth. After leading 113 laps, Meira faded to 12th place, the last car on the lead lap. "I got stuck in fourth gear on the last 20 laps and couldn't hold off the field," he said.

The IRL IndyCar Series resumes July 25 with the Menards A.J. Foyt Indy 225 at The Milwaukee Mile.