Franchitti extends lead

Franchitti, 34, whose last victory came in the Indy 500, picked his way through the wreckage of numerous accidents and held off Andretti-Green team-mate Marco Andretti in the late stages to win by six hundredths of a second.

And afterwards he said he found it hard to get into any kind of rhythm with so many caution periods.

"It was one restart after another, one yellow after another, and then at one point I was four wide going across the start/finish straight there and I guess the three people on the inside didn't take any further part," Franchitti said. "So I was pretty lucky.

"From then on, I saw that most of the contenders that were pushing me in the championship had had their problems. So we knew we couldn't do anything stupid and we played a conservative game."

Franchitti, who started third, ran at the back of the leading pack for the first two thirds of the race as he, and the rest, struggled to overtake on the 7/8ths of a mile oval where only the low line offered any grip.

But he hit the front with 92 laps to go, wresting the lead from Vitor Meira's Panther car during a pit-stop and then fighting a rearguard defence of Andretti, which he won to claim the sixth win of his career and an extended 51 point lead in the championship.

1996 champion Scott Sharp trailed the pair during the final stages of the race and finished third, his first time on the podium for two years in his Rahal-Letterman car.

Buddy Rice and Britain's Darren Manning both took their best finishes of the season in fourth and fifth for Dreyer & Reinbold and Foyt. Both though, only made it by Ed Carpenter when the Vision Racing driver ran out of fuel and dropped to sixth.

Sarah Fisher took her best result of the year in seventh in the second D&R car, one place ahead of Penske driver Helio Castroneves, who spun out of the lead on lap 74 while exiting the pit-lane and lost four laps trying to get going again.

Meira, who looked good for third behind the two AGR machines, crashed out with 70 laps to go when his front-suspension collapsed and pitched him into the wall, but such was the attrition that he was still classified in ninth.

Polesitter Scott Dixon completed the top ten, 70 laps down on the winner after pitting for 20 minutes to have a steering column replaced.

At least he finished though, unlike his British Ganassi team-mate Dan Wheldon, who crashed out on the first lap with Tomas Scheckter, seriously hampering his title aspirations.

Defending champion Sam Hornish Jr was another to crash, the innocent victim of a mistake by Danica Patrick that also eliminated AJ Foyt IV and Kosuke Matsuura, while Tony Kanaan - second in the championship - retired even earlier after crashing into Jeff Simmons.

- Jamie O'Leary -