Castroneves Finally Gets Richmond Win

RICHMOND, Va. June 25, 2005; Hank Kurtz writing for the AP reported that Helio Castroneves didn't let this one get away.

One year after losing with the dominant car because Dan Wheldon's gamble on fuel paid off, Castroneves dominated again Saturday night to win the Indy Racing League's annual visit to it's shortest, diciest track.

But danger chased "Spiderman" all the way to the end.

With nine laps to go, he was leading by about three seconds when Darren Manning and Roger Yasukawa made contact just ahead of him.

The contact sent Manning's car skidding quickly into the outside wall, and then Yasukawa's followed, but not before Castroneves was able to squeak by, with Yasukawa's car missing Castroneves' by mere inches.

"When I saw both cars touching, I saw one going down and one going up and I said 'OK, there's only the middle here,'" Castroneves said.

"I just closed my eyes. ... It was the worst moment of the race, but after we went through it, I knew it was mine."

It took eight laps to clean up the track, leaving just one for a green-flag finish, and Castroneves made easy work of runner-up Dario Franchitti, beating him to the checkered flag by 0.5588 seconds.

Rookie sensation Danica Patrick, who started 21st after a difficult first day on the three-quarter-mile oval, was never a factor but avoided the many mishaps that took out numerous top drivers and finished 10th.

Patrick, who had never raced on the track before Friday, said her car got better during the race, but a steering problem lingered throughout.

"It would under-steer and over-steer, and I couldn't get up behind somebody. When I could almost kind of catch the next car, I couldn't do anything about it. ... That was kind of frustrating but I think that this place could be really fun if we get the car set up for traffic."

Patrick Carpentier was third, followed by Tomas Scheckter and Wheldon, the points leader and defending race champion who never really contended.

The race proved difficult for defending series champion Tony Kanaan, who crashed and finished 19th, and for Castroneves' teammate, Sam Hornish Jr., who was running second on lap 165 was he suddenly spun and crashed.

"It was driver error," Hornish said. "I was trying to push it too hard trying to get around Helio. It was a big mistake on my part."

Scott Sharp also had hard luck, becoming the first of two drivers taken out when trying to pass Yasukawa entering the first turn.

That incident came on lap 201, with Sharp running third, and left him fuming and wagging a finger at Yasukawa, who wasn't on the lead lap.

"I wish Roger would have just let me go," Sharp said.

Castroneves' victory, the first for Marlboro Team Penske in the hometown of cigarette-maker Philip Morris, came after he led 112 laps.

Franchitti led 56 laps, Hornish 42 and Vitor Meira 40 before he also crashed, taken out in a mishap with Kanaan exiting the fourth turn.

"I really had nowhere to go," said Meira, who was trying to get past Kanaan on the outside when Kanaan's car clipped him into the wall. For Kanaan, the wreck ended a streak of 25 races without crashing.

"I knew it was going to happen someday," he said.

The victory was the seventh of Castroneves' IRL career and his 13th including his CART/Champ Car career. It was his first since the last race of last season, and came with him nursing a deep bruise in his left shoulder, the product of a late crash during a test here eight days earlier.

But Castroneves had already turned record-setting laps in the test, and he and Hornish both took advantage with the top cars in the field.

Castroneves' injury, treated with patches that helped manage the pain, didn't seem to bother him when he made his traditional fence climb, his way of celebrating victories that earned him the Spiderman moniker.