Hornish wins at Richmond

Hornish made amends by driving a road-course car not intended for use in the SunTrust Indy Challenge to victory in the race at Richmond International Raceway after crashing the primary car during an open test two days earlier.

"They told me they'd put them together as long as I keep winning," Hornish said. "They said, 'We won't keep track if you don't.'"

Hornish beat Vitor Meira to the finish line under caution in the 250-lap race around the 0.75-mile oval for the second Richmond win of his career.

More importantly, the victory pulled him to within five points of Marlboro Team Penske teammate Helio Castroneves in the IRL IndyCar Series standings. Roger Penske has yet to win a championship since joining the IRL on a full-time basis in 2002.

"To give Roger something he can't buy and hasn't had before is an unbelievable thing," Hornish said. "Indy was almost as satisfying to win for him as it was to win it for myself. A championship would be even better.

"We're just going to keep going and try to win more races and try to make sure we make it to the end of all of them. We'll do everything we can to win the championship."

Meira passed Dario Franchitti for second place with four laps to go as Franchitti battled to lap Castroneves, whose flat right rear brought out a caution flag on the next lap. Hornish coasted to the finish line 0.3907 seconds ahead of Meira, who has now finished second six times in IRL races but has yet to win.

"We had the car to beat tonight," Meira said. "I don't know how fast I was compared with Sam, but definitely if we had another restart, we were going to be in the hunt.

"That was the best short oval car I've ever driven. It's amazing what we did today, falling back twice on pit stops and being able to recover on such a difficult track to overtake."

In fact, had the race finished under green, Meira and the No. 4 Panther Racing Honda/Dallara might have had a shot at Hornish, who left Panther to join Penske after the 2003 season.

"I didn't get to see what Vitor was able to do tonight," Hornish said. "I'm lucky I wasn't able to see what he did tonight. I could watch everything from my rear-views."

The race included just four cautions for 34 laps, record lows for an IRL race at Richmond. The previous cleanest IRL race at RIR was five cautions for 58 laps in 2004. The race ended in just 1 hour 26 minutes and 49 seconds, also a track record in the six-year history of IRL races at the track.

Franchitti came home third, but said he didn't care for the attention the flagman gave Hornish in a race in which, because of a single groove, traffic became troublesome. "My car was invisible to the flagstand," Franchitti said. "Hornish got plenty of wave-overs, but I didn't get any."

Following Franchitti's No. 27 Andretti Green Racing Honda/Dallara was teammate Marco Andretti, who nearly lost it coming out of Turn 4 on the final lap, a bobble that let Meira get by.

"I don't think you can get through an IRL race without a close call, but that's what makes it fun," Andretti said. "You try to put yourself in the best position possible, but yet you need to take advantage of the traffic because of track position. it's very hard to pass here, but I think it's fun to play the traffic."

Scott Sharp finished fifth, followed by a third AGR driver, Bryan Herta, and Vision Racing teammates Tomas Scheckter and Ed Carpenter. Dan Wheldon finished ninth.

Castroneves, who led 38 laps and chased Hornish through most of the other 212 laps, all led by the No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Honda/Dallara, faded to 10th with the deflated right rear late in the race.

"Thankfully, I was able to hang on to it," Castroneves said. "It's great that the team came away with a victory and I'm able to retain the points lead."

Castroneves now has 252 points at the halfway point of the 14-race season. Hornish has 247, and Scott Dixon, who finished 11th, is third with 230 points.

"I'm sure it's going to get interesting," Hornish said. "It's been a great start to the season for myself. We had a couple of races where we felt like we could have gotten more out of the car, but I don't think it's been for a lack of being fast.

"We've got a lot of tracks coming up that I really like going to -- Milwaukee, Kansas, Nashville. There are a lot of opportunities for me to win races."

The IRL season resumes next weekend at Kansas Speedway.

Pos  Driver             Team               Make          Time
 1.  Sam Hornish Jr     Penske             Dallara       1:26:49.4669
 2.  Vitor Meira        Panther            Dallara       +     0.3907
 3.  Dario Franchitti   Andretti-Green     Dallara       +     1.5895
 4.  Marco Andretti     Andretti-Green     Dallara       +     5.6677
 5.  Scott Sharp        Fernandez          Dallara       +     6.5400
 6.  Bryan Herta        Andretti-Green     Dallara       +    10.9217
 7.  Tomas Scheckter    Vision             Dallara       +     1 lap
 8.  Ed Carpenter       Vision             Dallara       +     1 lap
 9.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi            Dallara       +     1 lap
10.  Helio Castroneves  Penske             Dallara       +     1 lap
11.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi            Dallara       +     1 lap
12.  Kosuke Matsuura    Panasonic ARTA     Dallara       +     3 laps
13.  Buddy Rice         Rahal              Dallara       +     3 laps
14.  Eddie Cheever Jr   Cheever            Dallara       +     4 laps
15.  Danica Patrick     Rahal              Dallara       +     4 laps
16.  Buddy Lazier       Dreyer & Reinbold  Dallara       +     5 laps
17.  Felipe Giaffone    Foyt               Dallara       +     6 laps
18.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti-Green     Dallara       +   141 laps
19.  Jeff Simmons       Rahal              Dallara       +   191 lap