Wheldon's misery is Kanaan's luck in Firestone 200

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. -- Dan Wheldon's bad luck turned into another victory for Tony Kanaan.

Kanaan saw Wheldon's right rear tire going flat after a tangle with Buddy Rice's car and grabbed the lead to himself before holding off Sam Hornish Jr. in a 12-lap shootout Saturday night in the Firestone Indy 200.

It gave Kanaan his third victory of the season and he said he felt sorry for his teammate, who probably had a better car than he did at the Nashville Superspeedway.

"His start was perfect. He made a decision on the setup I didn't believe would work, and it definitely worked pretty well. The beginning of the race I was thinking I should've gone that way," Kanaan said.

"Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't go your way. Tonight it wasn't his fault. But he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Kanaan led only those final 19 laps, but that was enough to pad his lead in the IndyCar Series points race from 28 points to 61 over Wheldon, his Andretti Green Racing teammate. Kanaan also won at Phoenix and Texas.

Hornish Jr., driving for the Marlboro Team Penske team that won here last year with Gil de Ferran, tried to chase Kanaan down. Hornish appeared to be ready to pass Kanaan on the backstretch of the final lap but couldn't finish and lost his momentum.

"I knew if I didn't make it work that I would have to get way out of the throttle and that someone might get a run on me, so I wanted to save it," Hornish said.

Hornish finished second ahead of teammate Helio Castroneves, who was third for a second straight year here. Darren Manning was fourth with a Toyota engine, followed by Townsend Bell with a Chevrolet engine.

Rice, the pole-sitter who was trying for his second straight victory, led 52 laps before losing the lead to Wheldon, who gambled on a pit stop on lap 165 by not taking any tires on the IRL's only concrete track and beat everyone out of the pits.

Rice tried to duck under Wheldon on the restart only to find himself bumping tires in Turn 2, damaging the nose of his car. He finished sixth and said he raced side by side at Kansas with no problems.

"He didn't want me to go to the inside, and he pushed my car onto the apron and we touched," Rice said. "We should have had a solid finish tonight, but there are some people who think otherwise. I think there should have been some racing room, and they didn't want to give any."

Kanaan said people will think he's taking Wheldon's side because they are friends. But he saw Rice trying to fit his car into a space where he had no room.

"I mean you have to race aggressive sometimes, not too aggressive so you take each other out," Kanaan said.

Kanaan checked out both sides of Wheldon's car during the caution and notified his team that Wheldon's rear tire was going down. He took advantage of the problem by passing Wheldon in Turn 1 on lap 181. Wheldon's tire came off the wheel three laps later, and he wound up 13th.

Vitor Meira, Rice's Rahal Letterman Racing teammate who had finished second in the last two races, appeared to have the car to beat. He passed Rice going into Turn 3 of the opening lap and led the first 113 laps heading into the pits during the fourth caution caused when Tomas Scheckter slammed into the wall of Turn 2.

But Meira and his crew stumbled.

Given the signal to head out, he started when someone noticed the vent hose still attached to the car. He stopped, and they pushed his car back a couple feet. With the hose removed, Meira then stalled the Honda engine, a mishap that moved him to 15th.

He zoomed back onto the track and quickly passed nine drivers to get up to seventh within 10 laps.

Back up to fifth, Meira had another pit problem on the final caution when an air gun malfunctioned. He finished 12th.

"We made some mistakes," Meira said. "Everyone here knew the Centrix Honda was the car to beat."

With no chance to race in Scotland, Dario Franchitti viewed this stop close to his Tennessee home as his hometown race. A broken first gear knocked him out after 65 laps.

Jacques Lazier made his first start of the season for Patrick Racing but didn't last but 64 laps when he broke an axle. His only other appearance this year came at the Indianapolis 500 where he replaced Robbie Gordon as a relief driver.

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