Helio Castroneves had a great restart with two laps to go after a lengthy caution and held off IndyCar Series champion Tony Kanaan to win the season finale Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.
While Castroneves got to climb the fence to celebrate his first victory this year, Kanaan capped off a season in which he ran all 3,305 laps -- the first driver in a major American series to complete every lap.
Kanaan clinched the series title with a runner-up finish in California two weeks ago. He finished outside the top five only once, and the Chevy 500 Sunday was the sixth time this season he was second across the finish line.
In the last IRL season finale at Texas, Kanaan finished side-by-side with teammate Dan Wheldon, edging him by a nose. Wheldon finished second in season points and, like Kanaan, won three races.
Castroneves, the polesitter, regained the lead with 21 laps left and was still in front when Dario Franchitti and Alex Barron slammed hard together into the wall coming out of the fourth turn on the 185th of 200 laps.
Barron was running behind on the outside when the back end of Franchitti's car appeared to break loose. The impact pinned Barron's car against the wall and they continued to slide through the front stretch.
Once the wreckage was cleaned up, there were only two laps left and Castroneves jumped out to a big lead on the restart.
Wheldon, running in second place out of the caution, contended that Castroneves may have been a little quick on the throttle. Then he conceded that it didn't matter.
"He definitely went fairly early," Wheldon said. "At the end of the day, you can't take anything away from Helio and Team Penske. I wasn't going to be able to pass him. He just went before the restart zone."
Castroneves felt his restart was good.
It was the first win in 19 races for Castroneves, since Nazareth in August 2003. And it was a bookend finish for Marlboro Team Penske and Toyota, whose only other wins came when Sam Hornish Jr. won the season opener.
Honda-powered engines won 14 straight races after Homestead-Miami, including eight by Andretti Green Racing.
Castroneves won with an average speed of 256.470kph. He led four times for 104 laps.
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