Sam Hornish Jr finally got his first victory of the season and feisty Danica Patrick came out on top in her "Rumble at the Speedway" with a career-best finish at the Bombardier Learjet 550.
Despite being the closest finish in the IndyCar Series this season, Hornish had a dominating victory at Texas on Saturday night -- leading 159 of 228 laps and taking a more than seven-second lead before his final pit stop and then again before a late multi-car crash.
"We had a great car. It did everything we wanted it to do. It was phenomenal," Hornish said. "If feels good. I said all season, we were right there, right on the edge. Tonight the car was so good, we just needed things not to go against us."
PHOTO: AFP
The only thing that slowed Hornish's Team Penske car down on way to his series-best 19th career victory were the necessary pit stops and the late crash. That wreck tightened the field and forced him to hold off a late charge by a lucky Tony Kanaan and Patrick.
Hornish was one of only three drivers with top-10 finishes in the first six races, but led only five laps before getting to the 2.4km high-banked Texas track. He is the first three-time winner at Texas Motor Speedway, but hadn't won at the track since 2002.
For Patrick, her career-best finish came after all the hype this week surrounding her postrace confrontation on pit row with Dan Wheldon a week ago.
"Maybe we should make you mad more often," joked Kanaan, her Andretti Green teammate.
"There's a story, and all of a sudden I have a season-best. It was really just a matter of time I think. We've had fast cars," Patrick said. "It's a shame Tony and I didn't have more time to get Sam."
Hornish won with an average speed of 285kph and by a margin of only .0786 seconds -- the 11th straight Texas race finished under the green flag that was decided by less than a half-second.
Wheldon, knocked out of the race in the crash on lap 197, led four times for 52 laps a year. He led 171 laps at Texas last year and finished third after a bad late pit stop that left him storming out of the cockpit away from his team.
Kanaan slid unscathed through mangled machines and a flying tire.
"I'm not going to brag about it -- I have no idea how I went through," Kanaan said.
Sarah Fisher's car was running slow on the bottom of the track to avoid the car of A.J. Foyt IV, whose right rear tire had popped off and was bouncing on the track.
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