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IndyCar - RHR Wins Baltimore


PHOTO

BALTIMORE, Sep. 3, 2012: For the seventh consecutive year, the IZOD IndyCar Series championship will be decided in the final race of the season.

Ryan Hunter-Reay made sure of that with a stirring victory in the second Grand Prix of Baltimore. Driving the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car, Hunter-Reay started 10th and overtook leader Ryan Briscoe on the front straight of a Lap 70 restart.

A full-course caution on the same lap for a four-car pileup in Turn 4 gave Briscoe, who won a week earlier at Sonoma, another shot. But Hunter-Reay used the last of his 90 seconds of push to pass on the Lap 73 restart and went on to a 1.4391-second win over Briscoe, who started 14th in the No. 2 PPG Automotive Refinishes Team Penske car.

Hunter-Reay made up 20 points on front-runner Will Power, who finished sixth in the 75-lap race on the 2.04-mile, 13-turn temporary street circuit and takes a 17-point lead into the finale Sept. 15 on the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway oval.

"We still have a shot," a beaming Hunter-Reay said on pit lane after recording his fourth victory of the season. "We all want it bad enough; we can go get this thing. The team deserves it; it's a matter of if we can put it together."

Hunter-Reay has four Indy car oval victories, including two this year (Milwaukee and Iowa). Power's lone oval victory came in 2011 on the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway.

"I knew it would be a day like this. It never comes easy," said Power, who earned the three bonus points for earning the pole and leading the most laps (22). "We just have to do our best and fight like a dog till the end. We'll come out swinging."

Simon Pagenaud, who a week earlier clinched the Sunoco Rookie of the Year award, finished third for the two time in the past three races and Scott Dixon was fourth in his 200th Indy car start. Rubens Barrichello overtook Power on the final restart to claim fifth. Oriol Servia, who started 16th, finished seventh.