Dixon kickstarts title defence with win

The Ganassi driver dominated most of the event, which ran to its full 200-lap distance despite the lingering fear of rain following last night's tornado.

Helio Castroneves shrugged off a back row start and an early front wing breakage to take second for Penske, ahead of Andretti Green's Tony Kanaan.

Dixon rapidly worked his way to the front early on, passing pole-sitter Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) for the lead after just eight laps.

The whole field pitted only five laps later when Castroneves smashed his front wing on the rear of Vitor Meira's Foyt car and sent debris into the path of HVM's EJ Viso, causing the first yellow.

Front row starter Robert Doornbos moved from third to first in the pits, only to clip one of team-mate Rahal's tyres and incur a penalty that put him to the the back of the field. He was unable to recover when racing resumed, and was soon put a lap down.

Rahal tried in vain to reclaim the lead from Dixon at the restart, but soon had to turn his attentions to Kanaan and Ryan Briscoe (Penske) as they closed on his second place.

Although both would eventually make it past Rahal by the time the second pitstops were completed, Dixon remained untouchable, extending a comfortable three-second lead over his pursuers.

That changed just before half-distance when Raphael Matos (Luczo Dragon) tagged the wall and brought out another yellow. Once again everyone pitted, and Dixon emerged in third behind Briscoe and Kanaan. He soon repassed the Andretti Green driver, but could only shadow the race leader through the next stint.

Meanwhile the penalised Castroneves and Dario Franchitti had made swift progress through the field from their back of the grid starts. Castroneves managed to get new front wings under yellow without losing a lap, and was up to fourth behind Kanaan approaching the final stops.

Franchitti was not far behind and on the cusp of breaking into the top six, when he triggered the next yellow by slewing into the wall when he tried to avoid the suddenly-slowing Rahal as both dived for the pits.

This was bad news for Briscoe, who had just pulled on to a now-closed pit road and could only top up his fuel and come round again to rejoin the pack ready for a proper stop.

The fact that the Team Penske crew was nott allowed to work on Briscoe's car angered team boss Roger Penske, who claimed Briscoe had crossed the commitment line before the yellow flag, and this the pits should have remained open.

"I've never seen anything like it," Penske said. "It could have cost us the race."

It was Dixon who got out first this time, now with Castroneves up to second ahead of Kanaan and Briscoe. The top four were glued together in the first few laps of green, but then Dixon began to edge away, eventually beating Castroneves by 0.7 seconds - in the process turning his season around after accidents at both the preceding street events.

"It's been a tough couple of weeks," said Dixon, who jumped from 17th in the championship to fourth as a consequence of this victory.

"We made a few changes to the car and trimmed it out. We were trimmed to win today, and it definitely worked."

Kanaan beat Briscoe to the final podium place and took a slender points lead.

"Consistency is definitely the key, but we need to work a lot harder to get this car to win races," Kanaan said. "In the meantime, we keep finishing where we need to be. It feels good, but it's so early in the season."

Andretti Green's Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti completed the top six, as Rahal fought back to seventh after losing several places at the final stops.

Hideki Mutoh made it four AGR cars in the top eight, followed by Ed Carpenter (Vision) and double Kansas winner Dan Wheldon, who could only manage 10th for Panther this time.

Mario Moraes ran strongly in the top five in the opening stints, but lost a lot of places at the second pitstop and never recovered, finishing the race 11th ahead of Doornbos, who also failed to fight back through the field after his penalty.

Pos  Driver             Team                  Time
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              1h43m21.0035s
 2.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                  +  0.7104s
 3.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green          +  1.5022s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                  +  1.8872s
 5.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green          +  2.6502s
 6.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green          +  3.8013s
 7.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +  7.8233s
 8.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green          +  8.5430s
 9.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                  +  8.9871s
10.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                 +  9.7681s
11.  Mario Moraes       KV                      + 20.9048s
12.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +    1 lap
13.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher                  +    1 lap
14.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                   +    1 lap
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision                  +   4 laps
16.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold       +   5 laps

Retirements:

     Stanton Barrett    3G                  181 laps
     Dario Franchitti   Ganassi             151 laps
     Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold   109 laps
     Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon        95 laps
     EJ Viso            HVM                 37 laps
     Vitor Meira        Foyt                14 laps