Gordon makes it four

Gordon continues to expand his list of hall of fame achievements, becoming just the fourth driver to win four major events at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The victory was Gordon's fifth of the season and 69th of his career.

Gordon was flawless, leading 124 of the 161 laps and all but 10 of the final 147. He passed early front-runner Elliott Sadler for the lead on lap 27, ambushed him again on the caution restart on lap 79, and over any run of any distance easily pulled to a lead of two to three seconds.

Gordon won the inaugural Brickyard in 1994 and won it again in 1998 and 2001. Only one other driver, Dale Jarrett, has won it twice. Three men have won the Indianapolis 500 four times, those being A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears.

Sadler ran second most of the day, and after a slight fade around lap 120 rallied to finish third, behind team-mate Jarrett. Kasey Kahne fought back from early misfortune to finish fourth, with Tony Stewart fifth.

The race pace was slowed to 115.037mph by an event record 13 cautions, most caused by blown tyres. The tyre trouble, most of it on the left-front, appeared to be caused by a combination of excessive wheel camber and high vertical loads caused by the enormous right-rear springs run on the cars these days. Several drivers' races were ruined by these punctures - Robbie Gordon (running fourth at the time) and Stirling Marlin even had fires in the wheel arches.

Points leader Jimmie Johnson had a rare bad day. The car was off from the start, then the engine quit after 88 laps, leaving him in 36th place. That allowed Gordon to cut the lead to 97 points.

Reigning champion Matt Kenseth had his strongest run in a while and was closing on Gordon towards the end of the race when he hit debris and was forced to pit. He fought his way back up to 16th. Gordon also ran over the piece of metal but lucked in - unlike Martinsville earlier this year when his chances of victory were ruined by a loose piece of track.