Dario Franchitti won his third race of the season and extended his lead in the IndyCar Series championship at Saturday's running of the SunTrust Indy Challenge from Richmond International Raceway. With eight races remaining, Franchitti holds a 65-point lead over second-place driver Scott Dixon.

Starting from the pole position, Franchitti wasted no time proving the Canadian Club car was the class-of-the-field Saturday. Franchitti pulled away from the field, leading the first 63 laps of the race until a mishap in the pits sent him out in second-place behind team-mate Tony Kanaan. On the ensuing restart, Franchitti would take the lead back and lead the final 179 laps of the race to secure his 17th career open wheel racing victory and his seventh IndyCar Series win.

Five of Franchitti's seven IndyCar Series wins have come on tracks that are 1.33-miles or shorter. Franchitti led a total of 242 laps setting IndyCar Series and Richmond International Raceway records for the most laps led in a single race.

Tony Kanaan finished fourth with team-mates Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti sixth and 12th respectively.

Dario Franchitti
"I enjoy driving Richmond a lot. I think it suits my style because you have to feel what the car is doing. The Canadian Club guys have given me really good cars here so it makes my job a little bit easier. I have to say big thank you to the engineering staff at AGR. We took some big gambles last night. Allen McDonald, my engineer, took an educated guess and it really worked out today."

Allen McDonald, Kanaan Race Engineer
"Dario is just driving great and doing a fantastic job - he and the whole Canadian Club crew. Dario has a very good feel for what he needs in a car and we worked very, very hard yesterday to try to find that. We had to make a choice on it and he was behind us in taking a bit of risk in where we were going to go. He obviously led us in the right direction."

Tony Kanaan
"I'm really disappointed. It was really tough today. We just never seemed to get the Team 7-Eleven car where I thought it needed to be. We were just hanging on today."

George Klotz, Kanaan Race Strategist
"Everyone seemed to have problems with grip tonight and the Team 7-Eleven car was no different. Tony was able to still manage a fourth-place finish and that may have been as good as we were tonight. We scored solid points and we'll move on."

Danica Patrick
"This wasn't a bad result. The balance of the Motorola car was OK, but we just didn't have enough grip. My guys did a good job in the pits and got us a couple spots, and we stayed with the lead group all night. Overall, we were OK, but I think we have some ideas as to how to make things a bit better next time."

Kim Green, Patrick Race Strategist
"We hung in there tonight. Even to finish on the lead lap at this place is an achievement, especially when you have a guy that is as hooked up as Dario was tonight. Danica did a great job using all her tools tonight and the Motorola guys did a good job over the wall. Every race we're gaining and hopefully we can deliver that magic win for Danica sooner rather than later."

Marco Andretti
"It was frustrating. We had a pole car in the NYSE car yesterday and the rain just killed us. We worked our tails off and we found a car that was good enough to run up front, but we were stuck back in traffic. Track position is everything and we just couldn't catch one break in the race. It was just one of those weekends."

Kyle Moyer
"We really needed to start up at the front on a track like this and it's unfortunate that qualifying got rained out because the NYSE car has been very good all weekend. You are in the back messing with everyone, on a track where it's very difficult to pass, and we got a lap down and that's our race. If we would have started up front I think we could have finished in the top six."

E.A.
Source AGR