Sam Hornish, Jr., picked up his record nineteenth IndyCar Series victory as he outlasted Tony Kanaan by just 0.0786 seconds at the Texas Motor Speedway. Danica Patrick scored a new career best finish as she came home a close third.

“We had a great car tonight,” said Hornish who had a nine second lead erased by a caution flag on lap 197. “It did everything I wanted it to do.”

Kanaan stalked Hornish all the way to the finish, with Danica just behind, but a slight push made it impossible for the Andretti Green teammates to make it past Hornish at the line.

“Great result for the team,” said Kanaan, who quickly found the silver lining. “If you look back a year ago, we really struggled at this kind of track. I have to thank my team owners for spending the money so we could develop our car.”

Kanaan would have liked to get by Hornish, but it was just not to be on Saturday night. “I knew I could not pass him. My plan was to keep the pressure on him and maybe he would understeer on the last lap or something.”

The race got off to a bit of an ugly start as pole sitter Scott Sharp brought the field to the green much too slowly. The resultant bunched up mess behind him forced IndyCar Series officials to wave off that start and regroup the field.

Hornish, starting second, was slightly ahead the second time, but IRL officials allowed the green to wave as it was Sharp that was too slow and he was the one that was going to lose positions.

Once underway, Hornish jumped to the lead and left everyone else to fight behind him and they did. The action on the track was furious. Side by side racing had returned to Texas and drivers were trying many different lines to get to the front.

Hornish would eventually lead five times for 159 laps, but he also had a thrilling mid race battle with Dan Wheldon.

When Jon Herb spun entering pit lane on lap 47, it brought out a caution that allowed Wheldon's Ganassi Racing crew to make a great pit stop and move him in to the lead. He would keep it for the next 27 laps as Hornish sat behind him conserving fuel part of the time, and made vain attempts to take the lead at other points.

“I could get beside him beat him to the line,” said Hornish who ran side by side with Wheldon for several laps before leading lap 78. “But, I only wanted to give it a couple laps to try and get around him.”

Not being able to make the pass at the time, Hornish elected to just follow Wheldon and save fuel.

The second caution would come out soon anyway as Marco Andretti clipped Tomas Scheckter's front wing with his left rear tire as they raced through the first dogleg of the front stretch.

“First of all I have to apologize to Tomas,” said Andretti of one of his best friends off the track. “I thought he had enough room. It was obviously completely unintentional.”

Andretti would get a drive through penalty for ‘avoidable contact,' and then later drop completely from the race when his gearbox failed. Scheckter was less than happy as his car was sent sliding through the grass on the front straight, eventually stopping at the exit of pit lane. He went on to the racing surface and as Marco went by he threw his driving gloves at the moving car.

“The guy just swerved into me,” said Scheckter. “He's done it before. He tries to swerve into people and the unfortunate thing is that Marco is my friend...and obviously we are in the heat of the battle out there and he sees his teammates up there and obviously he needs to have a good race and it was probably just a little upsetting seeing a Vision car ahead of him.”

The next major turning point would come on lap 197. Most of the field had just completed green flag pit stops when AJ Foyt, IV's rear tire came loose as he entered turn three. The bouncing tire and spinning Foyt would collect several front runners as a total of six cars got involved in the resulting crash.

“I saw my teammate AJ Foyt's tire rolling off probably before the yellow and I start slowing down with AJ sideways in the middle of the road,” said Carpenter. “And (then Wheldon) comes flying by me and runs into me. And I drive away before another comes driving up the back of me. Maybe that is why they are so fast, they don't have brakes. We are professionals, it's not (the movie) Days of Thunder - you don't drive through accidents. You look where you are going and it's inexcusable to get run over by someone after you have slowed for an accident.”

Tony Kanaan actually did all of the wrong things described by Carpenter, but he narrowly avoiding the carnage and the bouncing tire.

“I had no brakes, and I think that may have helped,” said Kanaan who admitted he could barely stop on pit stops. “I'm not going to brag about it. I have no idea how I went through. It felt like ‘Days of Thunder.' I kind of closed my eyes and went full throttle and went through. I think sometimes you gotta be lucky.”

Not lucky were Dixon, Wheldon, Carpenter, Darren Manning and Helio Castroneves. There days were ended, though Manning limped a car with bent suspension around under the yellow to pick up a few more spots and finish 13th.

The caution ended what could have been a good day for Wheldon. “It's just one of those things. It's hard to avoid when you are in the middle of it and there's not too much you can do. It wasn't for lack of trying, but we were just a little bit off of Sam's pace.”

Following the lengthy clean-up, the race resumed with Hornish on point, Kanaan in pursuit and Danica and others stuck behind the lapped car of Scott Sharp. She would eventually clear Sharp and run down the leaders.

“It's a shame Tony and I didn't have more time to get Sam,” said Danica who didn't even know she had led her first laps of the season during a pit stop exchange. “I was trying to put myself in a position where I could get up behind Tony and push him past Sam. When you're trying to do that, the car is understeering and I was going wide.”

Dario Franchitti finished a distant fourth after winning a multi-lap battle with fifth place finisher Vitor Meira.

Franchitti now heads in to the off week with a twelve point lead over Kanaan in the championship battle.

Texas race result
1. (2) Sam Hornish Jr., Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $110,800
2. (4) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $90,950
3. (6) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $75,650
4. (3) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $60,700
5. (13) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $59,300
6. (8) Jeff Simmons, Dallara-Honda, 228, Running $48,600
7. (1) Scott Sharp, Dallara-Honda, 227, Running $57,200
8. (16) Buddy Rice, Dallara-Honda, 225, Running $46,000
9. (15) Kosuke Matsuura, Dallara-Honda, 225, Running $46,000
10. (18) Sarah Fisher, Dallara-Honda, 221, Running $44,600
11. (19) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 221, Running $43,200
12. (7) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 206, Running $51,900
13. (11) Darren Manning, Dallara-Honda, 200, Handling $40,700
14. (9) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 199, Running $39,100
15. (10) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 196, Contact $37,900
16. (5) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 196, Contact $36,600
17. (17) A.J. Foyt IV, Dallara-Honda, 195, Contact $35,200
18. (20) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 195, Contact $35,200
19. (12) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 140, Mechanical $33,800
20. (14) Jon Herb, Dallara-Honda, 44, Contact $32,600

ORS / CAPSIS International