Backstretch Motorsports

JOLIET, Ill., Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 - Helio Castroneves raced from the 28th starting position to first, winning a photo finish in the PEAK Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, but it wasn’t enough to keep Scott Dixon from winning his second IndyCar Series championship.

Castroneves started 28th due to a penalty during qualifying and raced his way through the field to take the lead on Lap 78. He led 80 laps total and was in first as the leaders pitted on Lap 185 with 15 laps to go. Series points leader Scott Dixon won the race off pit lane and led the next 14 laps as Castroneves pulled alongside for the final two. As the two took the checkered flag side-by-side, it took a review of photographs by IndyCar Series officials to determine that Castroneves had edged Dixon by .0033 of a second, the second-closest finish in IndyCar Series history.

The IndyCar Series Timing & Scoring photo system takes a picture every ten-thousandth of a second.

Castroneves celebrated his second victory of the season and the second time he’s finished runner-up in the championship in his career.

Dixon maintained a 17-point lead in the championship to become the second driver to win multiple championships in the IndyCar Series. Dixon also won in 2003.

Pole sitter Ryan Briscoe finished third.

Hideki Mutoh won Bombardier Learjet Rookie of the Year honors by six points over Justin Wilson despite finishing 22nd.

Also on Sept. 7, Raphael Matos won the Firestone Indy Lights championship with a third-place finish in the SunRichGourmet.com 100. Matos led the 66 of 67 laps after starting from the pole. His teammate Arie Luyendyk Jr. surged past him on a Lap 66 restart to earn his first career victory.

Richard Antinucci, who entered the race only three points behind Matos, finished 21st after contact with another car knocked him out of the race on Lap 26.

Ana Beatriz finished second, .0817 of a second behind Luyendyk, to finish third in the championship.

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FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS POST-RACE NOTES:

This is Arie Luyendyk Jr.’s first career victory in his 62nd career Firestone Indy Lights start. Luyendyk had eight career second-place finishes, including this season at Watkins Glen 2 and Infineon 1.
Luyendyk has six top-five finishes this season.
Raphael Matos wins the Firestone Firehawk Cup. It is the first championship for AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing.
Matos finishes the season with three victories, five poles and eight top-five finishes.
Matos wins the championship by 32 points, the third-closest final point margin in Firestone Indy Lights history.
Richard Antinucci finished 21st in the race and second in the championship. Antinucci finishes the season with two victories and nine top-five finishes.
Ana Beatriz finished second, her sixth podium finish of the season.
Bobby Wilson finished fourth, his third top-five finish of the season. He improved eight positions during the race.
The final margin of victory of .0817 of a second ranks as the fifth-closest Firestone Indy Lights finish at Chicagoland Speedway in seven races. All seven races have finished with a margin of victory of less than .6100 of a second.
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FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS POST-RACE QUOTES:

RAPHAEL MATOS (No. 27 Automatic Fire Sprinklers, third & series champion): “It was the best third-place finish of my life. We had a plan today for me to win the championship and Arie (Luyendyk Jr.) to win the race. He really deserved to win a race this year, and it worked perfectly for us. I’m very happy for him, and I’m really happy for the AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing team. They deserve this championship as much as I do.” (Did they tell you that Antinucci had trouble): “Yes, they did. I told them not to drink the champagne before we finished the race.”
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INDYCAR SERIES POST-RACE NOTES:

Scott Dixon wins his second IndyCar Series championship by 17 points over Helio Castroneves.
Dixon is the second driver to win multiple championships. Sam Hornish Jr. won three.
More details on Dixon’s season are listed below.
Helio Castroneves is the first driver to win a race from the 28th starting position. Buddy Lazier won from 26th at Phoenix in 2000.
More details on Castroneves’ season are listed below.
The margin of victory is the second-closest in IndyCar Series history. The closest finish is .0024 of a second at Chicagoland in 2002 when Sam Hornish Jr. defeated Al Unser Jr.
Hideki Mutoh wins the Bombardier Learjet Rookie of the Year honors with a six-point advantage over Justin Wilson.
Ryan Briscoe finished third, his fifth top-five finish of the season.
Tony Kanaan finished fourth, his 11th top-five finish of the season.
Will Power finished fifth, his best finish of the season on an oval.
Darren Manning finished seventh, his seventh top-10 finish of the season.
Milka Duno led five laps, her first laps led in the IndyCar Series.
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NOTES ON SCOTT DIXON:

Scott Dixon held first place in the standings in 2008 for all but three races. After winning the season opener at Homestead-Miami, Dixon fell to second with a 22nd-place finish at St. Petersburg. He rebounded to first with his win at Indianapolis.

Dixon averaged 38.0 points per race, just shy of the 40 points awarded for finishing second.

Since the start of the 2006 season, Dixon has 42 top-10 finishes in 48 races. In those 48 races, Dixon has 12 victories, 36 top-five finishes and has led 1,405 laps.

Beginning with the race at Richmond in June 2007, Dixon has 21 top-five finishes in 26 races. In those 26 races, Dixon has 10 victories, 23 top-10 finishes and has led 1,089 laps. A look at Dixon’s last 25 races:

Wins: 10
2nd: 5
3rd: 4
4th: 1
5th: 1
8th: 1
10th: 1
11th: 1
12th: 1
22nd: 1
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INDYCAR SERIES POST-RACE QUOTES:

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Team Penske, first): (About learning he won the race) “I found out when I was walking to the podium to receive the second-place finish. I actually thought I really won it, but sometimes when you’re going 215 mph it’s hard for me to see in the blink of an eye. But what a great effort by Team Penske. Ryan (Briscoe) helped me out tremendously. We put ourselves in that situation today. And I’m sure next year is going to be a lot of fun as well, so I can’t wait for 2009.” (About coming from last to first) “We tried to keep everything that happened behind and keep racing. I had no doubt that we’d have a good car. It was a big task but, like I said, we believed, we did everything possible. But unfortunately Scott (Dixon) was right there, too. I have to congratulate Team Ganassi, but what a great finish, what a wild race. It was kind of a little close, but I’m extremely happy for the way it came out here.”

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing, second): (About the race) “We were trying to work out where we needed to be, and I think I got a little complacent in the middle there. Some of those guys are so quick, some people we didn’t expect to be racing with. We got shuffled back in line a little bit, but what a great day. I still can’t believe it.” (About whether or not this trumps his championship in 2003) “Yeah, I think it does. We had to go through the cycles. In ‘03 we really knew what we won, but today was so emotional for the team. Everyone at Team Target worked together to make it happen. My hat’s off to them.” (About tough years in his career) “Yeah, it was so tough in those years. I think we tried to forget about them, but I think those years have made the team what it is today. I think those years were tough, but you’ve got to have those years to make sure that you come back and work hard. I’ve got to thank Chip (Ganassi) for keeping me around. It was a revolving door there for awhile. I’ve got to thank my teammate, Dan (Wheldon). He was a great help today.”

RYAN BRISCOE (No. 6 Team Penske, third): “It was awesome. It was some really great racing there, going three-wide for a while with (Dan) Wheldon and Helio (Castroneves). It was just a really good day and a good way to end the season. We’ve had a lot of progress this year, so this was an accomplishment going into 2009. I did my best to help Helio (Castroneves). I thought he might have had it. I was under that rear wing as close as I could get, so hopefully that helped him out.”

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The 2008 IndyCar Series season continues with a non-points paying race Oct. 26 at Surfers Paradise, Australia. The Nikon Indy 300 will be telecast live in High Definition at 10:30 p.m. (EDT) Oct. 25 by ESPN Classic and will re-air at 11 p.m. Oct. 26 on ESPN2. The race will air live on the IMS Radio Network. A Spanish-language telecast of the race will be carried by ESPNDeportes. The IMS Radio Network broadcast also is carried on XM Satellite Radio and www.indycar.com. The 2008 Firestone Indy Lights season has concluded.

Chicagoland Speedway :: Sun, 07 Sep 2008
Pos. Driver/Car No C/E/T S Qual
Speed Laps XL LL Status Pts
1 Helio Castroneves
Team Penske 3 D/H/F 28 215.372 200 9 79 Running 53
2 Scott Dixon
Target Chip Ganassi Racing 9 D/H/F 2 215.553 200 1 15 Running 40
3 Ryan Briscoe
Team Penske 6 D/H/F 1 215.818 200 3 41 Running 35
4 Tony Kanaan
Team 7-Eleven 11 D/H/F 4 215.368 200 2 47 Running 32
5 Will Power
Aussie Vineyards-Team Australia 8 D/H/F 10 214.583 200 0 0 Running 30
6 Dan Wheldon
Target Chip Ganassi Racing 10 D/H/F 6 214.967 200 6 13 Running 28
7 Darren Manning
ABC Supply Co./AJ Foyt Racing 14 D/H/F 23 212.406 200 0 0 Running 26
8 Marco Andretti
NYSE 26 D/H/F 5 215.064 200 0 0 Running 24
9 Ryan Hunter-Reay
Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol 17 D/H/F 16 213.430 200 0 0 Running 22
10 Danica Patrick
Motorola 7 D/H/F 3 215.548 200 0 0 Running 20
11 Justin Wilson
McDonald’s Racing Team 02 D/H/F 21 212.753 200 0 0 Running 19
12 Alex Tagliani
Sangari Conquest Racing 36 D/H/F 19 212.943 200 0 0 Running 18
13 A.J. Foyt IV
Lilly Diabetes/Vision Racing 2 D/H/F 15 213.485 199 0 0 Running 17
14 Milka Duno
CITGO/ Dreyer and Reinbold Racing 23 D/H/F 20 212.857 199 1 5 Running 16
15 Franck Perera
ABC Supply Co./AJ Foyt Racing 41 D/H/F 24 212.126 198 0 0 Running 15
16 Marty Roth
Roth Racing 25 D/H/F 9 214.794 197 0 0 Running 14
17 Oriol Servia
CDW/KV Racing Technology 5 D/H/F 12 214.441 196 0 0 Running 13
18 Jaime Camara
Sangari 34 D/H/F 17 213.417 187 0 0 Running 12
19 Graham Rahal
Hole in the Wall Camps 06 D/H/F 14 213.523 186 0 0 Contact 12
20 Bruno Junqueira
Z-Line Designs 18 D/H/F 25 212.040 184 0 0 Running 12
21 Mario Moraes
Sonny’s Bar-B-Q 19 D/H/F 27 211.451 181 0 0 Contact 12
22 Hideki Mutoh
Formula Dream 27 D/H/F 11 214.444 177 0 0 Running 12
23 E.J. Viso
PDVSA HVM Racing 33 D/H/F 26 211.996 136 0 0 Contact 12
24 Sarah Fisher
Dollar General Stores Racing 67 D/H/F 18 213.389 116 0 0 Contact 12
25 Buddy Rice
Dad’s Root Beer/DRR 15 D/H/F 22 212.682 110 0 0 Contact 10
26 Tomas Scheckter
Symantec Luczo Dragon Racing 12 D/H/F 7 214.855 87 0 0 Mechanical 10
27 Vitor Meira
Delphi National Guard 4 D/H/F 8 214.796 74 0 0 Contact 10
28 Ed Carpenter
Menards/ Vision Racing 20 D/H/F 13 213.790 36 0 0 Contact 10

Key:
No: Car Number C/E/T: Chassis/Engine/Tire
S: Starting Position F: Finishing Position
XL: Times Led LL: Laps Led
Pts: Points