Motorsports

Castroneves puts Penske back on MIS map

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 31, 2006

BROOKLYN, Mich. - Helio Castroneves took advantage of a superior car and an aggressive strategy to win the Firestone Indy 400 on Sunday, ending team owner Roger Penske's open-wheel drought at Michigan International Speedway.

Castroneves beat Vitor Meira by 1.62 seconds, picking up his series-high fourth victory of the season and moving past teammate Sam Hornish Jr. for the points lead in the Indy Racing League.

The average speed of the race was 193.972 mph, the third-fastest event in the IRL's 11-year history. The race took 2 hours, 10 minutes, 20 minutes less than the rain delay.

"Our car was very fast," said Castroneves, who won the pole with a lap 2 mph faster than Tony Kanaan, who started third.

Castroneves took the lead for the last time on Lap 177 after his final pit stop. He navigated through a pack of drivers a lap behind to build a 3-plus second lead over Meira, who cut his deficit in half, but couldn't get closer.

He won the 11th IndyCar series race of his career and first at MIS.

Meira, who led more than a third of the race, was followed by defending champion Dan Wheldon of St. Petersburg, Kanaan and Tomas Scheckter.

Penske won his 10th open-wheel race at MIS, a track he owned for more than 25 years, and his first since 1991 when Rick Mears earned his last career win.

Danica Patrick finished 17th in the 19-car field, and she stomped around the track in anger afterward because her car was slow and having technical problems.

CHAMP CAR: Sebastien Bourdais avoided mistakes in a race filled with them and pulled away for his fifth win of the season, easily defending his 2005 victory in the San Jose Grand Prix and adding to his series points lead.

The St. Petersburg resident, well on the way to what would be his third straight title in the series, had not won since starting the season with four consecutive victories. But Bourdais' Newman/Haas Racing Lola was a dominating car this weekend, winning the pole and leading 69 of the 97 laps.

Paul Tracy took the lead from Bourdais at the start but was later penalized for jumping the green flag. That put Bourdais back on top until he pitted on Lap 54, when he fell to third behind Charles Zwolsman and Oriol Servia, both on a different pit strategy.

Bourdais remained patient for a while, knowing that both the drivers ahead of him would have to pit again. But, after Servia moved on lap with a pass on a restart on Lap 60, Bourdais got past Zwolsman for second on Lap 73. He regained the lead for good when Servia pitted on Lap 80, then pulled away for the easy victory.

FORMULA ONE: Michael Schumacher won the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim to capture his third straight race and cut the gap to points leader and defending champion Fernando Alonso to 11 points.

Alonso started the race in seventh place in a disappointing weekend. He jumped to fifth after a fast start, but that's as far up the field as he got, except for a brief spell in fourth early on.

GRAND-AM: Jorg Bergmeister and 17-year-old co-driver Colin Braun earned their second consecutive victory in the Porsche 250 at Birmingham, Ala.

Braun started the race from the pole position and led throughout his driving stint before turning the car over to Bergmeister on lap 36 of the 97-lap race.

He held off Max Angelelli by 1.327 seconds to earn his third victory of the season.

MOTORCYCLES: Kawasaki's James Stewart took advantage of Ricky Carmichael's late crash in the second moto to win the Toyota AMA Motocross Championship's Unbound Energy National at Washougal (Wash.) Motocross Park.

Stewart, from Haines City, had a 2-1 moto finish en route to his second overall win of the season. Tallahassee's Carmichael was second with a 1-2 finish, ending his winning streak at six races.

After seeing Carmichael come from behind to win the first moto, Stewart again saw an early lead slip away when Carmichael made a pass late in second moto. However, with two laps to go, Carmichael made an uncharacteristic mistake and crashed, handing the lead and the overall win to Stewart.

Late Saturday

Edwards wins on home turf

Nextel Cup star Carl Edwards overtook Denny Hamlin with nine laps left and held on to win the Busch Silver Celebration 250 at Madison, Ill.

After heavy rain delayed the start by 1 hour, 40 minutes, the race had few incidents during its 200 laps. Only two yellow flags came out for a total of 11 laps, one of several records tied or broken at Gateway International Speedway.

Maybe more importantly to NASCAR officials, the circuit's first test run with unleaded gas went off without any noticeable changes in speed from a year ago. Edwards averaged 119.152 in his Ford, nearly 3 mph faster than the previous record set by Kevin Harvick in 2000.

Edwards has won two of the past three Busch Series events and has three victories this season. He looked as if he might have lost his chance for victory when he pitted with 16 laps remaining. But that decision turned out to be the key.

[Last modified July 31, 2006, 02:35:37]