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Castroneves, who was leading Wheldon by inches going into the last lap, held desperately to the inside line on the final trip around the 1.5-mile oval, remembering losing to Marlboro Team Penske teammate Sam Hornish on an inside pass here in 2004.
“No way I’m going to give up the inside lane,” Castroneves said. “Dan did a great job. Now I don’t know what to do.”
As the two drivers passed in the interview room after the race, Castroneves leaned in to Wheldon and said, “I’ll race with you anytime, man.”
Hornish, who led a race-high 145 laps, fell behind after making a green flag pit stop on lap 160, moments before a caution flag, recovered to finish third, followed by Franchitti and Scott Dixon, Wheldon’s new teammate.
Andretti luck
Father and son Mario and Michael Andretti were almost as well known for their back luck as their many successes on the racetrack. Now, Michael’s son, Marco, seems to be following in the family tradition.
The rookie, who turned 19 on March 13, made two mistakes in his first 13 laps as an IRL IndyCar Series driver and wound up watching the rest of the race from the sidelines.
As the green flag waved for the leaders at the start of the race, Marco dove to the bottom of the track and passed two cars before reaching the flagstand. He was immediately black-flagged by IRL officials and penalized with a drive through the pit lane at the speed limit of 60 mph.
That cost the youngster a lap.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” he said. “I heard ‘green’ on the radio and thought that meant go.”
Then, making his first pit stop, Marco apparently jerked the gearshift trying to leave the pits and broke something in the drivetrain, ending his day.
“It might have been that I grabbed first (gear) too early,” he said. “I don’t know. I messed up initially, so we shouldn’t have been in that position to start with.”
Spark plugs: Wheldon, who won at Homestead for the second straight year, led only eight laps on the way to his 10th career victory. ... Wheldon and Dixon were also part of the winning team in February at Daytona 24-Hours sports car endurance race. ... Only 10 of the 17 cars that started the race were running at the finish, the fewest since 10 cars finished at this race in 2005. ... The winner average 167.730 in the race slowed by four cautions for a total of 32 laps. ... Sunday’s crowd was estimated at 30,000.
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