Dario wins the inaugural Iowa event

Dario Franchitti survived the carnage at Iowa Speedway to pick up his second IndyCar Series victory of the season and jump out to a 51 point lead over Tony Kanaan.

Coming in to the race, the drivers were saying this was a short track that raced like a superspeedway. Instead, the race turned into a typical short track racing affair with unforced errors taking out much of the field.

"This is different," said Franchitti, who led 70 laps and picked up $115,800 for winning the inagural IndyCar Series race in Iowa. "It was a fun race, but pretty physical."

Following Franchitti across the finish line were Marco Andretti, Scott Sharp, Buddy Rice and Darren Manning as attrition helped everyone but Franchitti score their best results of the year.

The first major race at the new facility 20 miles west of DesMoines drew a standing room only crowd announced at 35,858 spectators. Like most new venues, they had their minor glitches, including a traffic problem that had a few fans still trying to get into the venue as the race started.

Recent rains made this even worse as the grass parking areas were inundated with moisture, making some of them unusable.

Iowa Speedway officials vow to make the appropriate changes for next season, including increasing seating capacity if demand holds. They built just 25,000 permanent seats and brought in 5,000 more temporary bleachers for this weekend.

Some of those late-arriving fans easily missed the first crash of the day as Dan Wheldon spun in turn two and collected Tomas Scheckter who had no place to go.

"To tell the truth I was trying to go too quick on the start for the temperature of the tires and got loose," said Wheldon. "What today's result does show is how hard the No. 9 and No. 10 Target crews worked to get (...) Scott Dixon and I back out there and make a big difference in the championship."

Wheldon's crew did indeed make repairs to his car, getting him on the track 105 laps down, but he was able to ride around to an eleventh place finish, salvaging several critical championship points. Dixon actually pulled into the pit lane when the race went back to green after the Wheldon/Scheckter incident with a steering box issue.

He would also get back out, but would finish tenth - 77 laps down. "The steering just seized up, and I couldn't turn anywhere past halfway," said Dixon.

Helping both Dixon and Wheldon pick up spots were the unforced errors of other drivers.

Helio Castroneves brought out the caution on lap 73 as he spun in turn two after his way out of the pits. Tony Kanaan would then spin on lap 85, just three laps after the field returned to green. Kanaan's crash ended what was a strong early run for Jeff Simmons.

"I was having a good run and ran into some turbulence, just got loose and hit the wall. I think we had a good run especially with so many cars in the championship out of contention - I think I just helped some of those guys out," said Kanaan, from the very busy infield care center. None of the drivers involved in accidents were injured.

"I had a really good restart, had some momentum going and was following Tony through and he just got loose," said Jeff Simmons.

Picking up spots on restarts had become paramount as passing was difficult throughout the race. Firestone brought a tire that could handle the expected high heat of an Iowa summer, but they instead got a race day of 71 degrees Fahreinheit.

"I told the team that the tires were not a problem, there was no drop-off in wear," said Franchitti.

Backing that statement was surprising fifth-place finisher Darren Manning, who actually liked used rubber over new ones, a very odd occurrence in modern racing. "It took 20 laps to get speed out of the tires. We changed them at the end on Firestone's advice, but we shouldn't have because the tires were so good. I could have run the whole race on the same set."

Manning's finishing position was helped by a lap 99 crash that took out several strong race cars. Coming down to the green flag with Vitor Meira leading the way, the field stacked up behind his slower than usual restart speed and a four-wide situation developed as they raced past the start-finish line.

Danica Patrick, having run in the top five most of the day, got caught in the slow restart and was overrun by Ed Carpenter, AJ Foyt IV, and Dario Franchitti.

"It looked like whoever was on the outside of me (AJ Foyt IV) passed before the green even happened and then underneath me was Ed Carpenter," said Danica. "I had nowhere to go. As I looked at the replay it looks like Dario was a fourth car on the outside and he was next to the car that was right next to me. It looked like a matter of everyone squeezing down with nowhere to go."

When the squeezing started, Danica first made contact with AJ Foyt IV, and she then bounced into Ed Carpenter's sidepod. With cars spinning everywhere, Kosuke Matsuura dove to the bottom, only to be hit and spun up into the wall by Helio Castroneves. Also involved was Sam Hornish, Jr.

"We got caught up in a restart that was a complete mess," said Hornish. "The leader wasn't up to speed on the backstraight, which caused everyone to check up. Then cars were four wide down the frontstraight and no one wanted to lift. I was lagging back a bit, but caught up in the mess in front of me."

With half the field either gone or just cruising around many laps off the pace, the race would finally settle in for a long run. Franchitti, Andretti and Meira controlled the pace with Scott Sharp, a repaired Ed Carpenter, Buddy Rice and Manning providing most of the excitement.

The race looked like it would come down to green flag pitstops with less than 50 laps remaining, with Dario getting a decided advantage as Andretti botched his stop.

"I overshot my pit box and (...) he ended up beating me out," said Andretti. Despite the mistake, he would get a couple of breaks in the next few minutes.

First, Vitor Meira's attempted green flag stop went wrong as soon as he hit the brakes to slow for pit lane. "I hit the brakes and then the left front tire was coming towards me. The force must have broken something in the suspension."

A caution on lap 226 would bunch the field and give Andretti, Sharp, Rice, Carpenter and Manning a shot at the win.

Alas it was not to be. Andretti could get close, but just could not make the move needed to score his second victory. "This place is all about distance and the outside was just too far around."

Carpenter had his fuel pump fail coming to the finish, leaving the final five on the lap to cruise home, even though Andretti was just a car length from Franchitti.

In winning his 16th career open wheel race, Dario Franchitti becomes the all-team victory leader for Honda's open wheel racing programs. He has victories in CART and the IndyCar Series, and surpassed Alex Zanardi's 15 Honda-powered win total.

Results of the Iowa Corn Indy 250 IndyCar Series event June 24 at the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, laps completed, reason out (if any) and money earned:

1. (3) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 250, Running $115,800
2. (12) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 250, Running $94,850
3. (4) Scott Sharp, Dallara-Honda, 250, Running $78,750
4. (17) Buddy Rice, Dallara-Honda, 250, Running $67,000
5. (15) Darren Manning, Dallara-Honda, 250, Running $57,300
6. (5) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 247, Running $50,200
7. (18) Sarah Fisher, Dallara-Honda, 247, Running $48,700
8. (2) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 246, Running $47,400
9. (13) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 216, Mechanical $57,400
10. (1) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 173, Running $55,900
11. (9) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 145, Running $44,400
12. (10) A.J. Foyt IV, Dallara-Honda, 99, Contact $43,100
13. (11) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 99, Contact $41,800
14. (8) Sam Hornish Jr., Dallara-Honda, 99, Contact $40,200
15. (16) Kosuke Matsuura, Dallara-Honda, 99, Contact $38,900
16. (7) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 85, Contact $37,500
17. (6) Jeff Simmons, Dallara-Honda, 85, Contact $36,100
18. (19) Milka Duno, Dallara-Honda, 60, Handling $36,100
19. (14) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 0, Contact $34,600

Race Statistics
Winner's average speed: 123.896 mph
Time of race: 1:48:14.1344
Margin of victory: 0.0681 of a second
Cautions: 6 caution flags for 67 laps
Lead changes: 13 among 8 drivers

Lap leaders: Castroneves 1-2, Dixon 3-12, Castroneves 13-69, Franchitti 70, Sharp 71, Meira 72, Andretti 73-75, Patrick 76, Meira 77-146, Rice 147-151, Franchitti 152-214, Andretti 215, Sharp 216-218, Franchitti 219-250.

Point standings: Franchitti 306, Kanaan 255, Dixon 254, Wheldon 252, Hornish 242, Castroneves 226, Sharp 199, Patrick 185, Meira 185, Scheckter 171.

ORS / CAPSIS International