Sam Hornish Jr. emerged from one of the closest point battles in IndyCar Series with his third IndyCar Series title – the first for Marlboro Team Penske in the IndyCar Series.

Dan Wheldon won the IndyCar Series season finale and picked three bonus points for leading the most laps (166), tying Hornish with 475 points. Race victories – four to two in Hornish’s favor – were the deciding factor.

“This is about as excited as I’ve ever been,” Hornish said. “It’s been a great day for us and a great year. Winning the (Indianapolis) 500 was the highlight of my career, but this is right close to it.”

Wheldon, who won the first and final events on the 14-race schedule, beat teammate Scott Dixon by 0.1897 of a second. Hornish, a two-time winner on the 1.5-mile Chicagoland oval, won at Indianapolis, back to back at Richmond and Kansas, and at Kentucky.

“It was a clean race, lots of good racing,” said Roger Penske, who has 14 Indianapolis 500 championships. “It was a long year, great season; an Indy win for Sam and the team. We have all of these sponsors and supporters to thank. We came over to the IRL to support the Indianapolis 500, and I’m sure glad we could win this championship this year.

“It was one we didn’t have and when you don’t have something, you really want it.”

Wheldon said the day before he wanted to lead the most laps and win the race, with the points race shaking out among the positions of the other contenders. He needed Hornish to finish one spot lower.

“All credit goes to Roger Penske’s organization and to Sam Hornish,” he said. We’ve had a somewhat difficult year. This is perhaps a bittersweet end. It was a lot of hard work for Target Chip Ganassi Racing and the boys at Honda. You could see that there was nothing but equality with the engines. This is Target’s 50th win with Chip and we are happy for that. I was very determined to win.”

Helio Castroneves, the points leader entering the race, finished fourth in the race and third in the standings (two points behind). Vision Racing’s Ed Carpenter finished a career-high fifth, with Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira sixth and Andretti Green Racing’s Tony Kanaan seventh. Rahal Letterman Racing’s Jeff Simmons was eighth, Delphi Fernandez Racing’s Scott Sharp ninth and Vision Racing’s Tomas Scheckter 10th.

Results:

Pos Driver Diff Laps

1 Dan Wheldon (10) … 200
2 Scott Dixon (9) 0.1897 200
3 Sam Hornish Jr (6) 0.2323 200
4 Helio Castroneves (3) 2.6913 200
5 Ed Carpenter (20) 1 lap 199
6 Vitor Meira (4) 0.9239 199
7 Tony Kanaan (11) 1.0084 199
8 Jeff Simmons (17) 1.1515 199
9 Scott Sharp (8) 1.3908 199
10 Tomas Scheckter (2) 3.9424 199
11 Kosuke Matsuura (55) 4.0965 199
12 Danica Patrick (16) 4.3515 199
13 Buddy Rice (15) 4.6053 199
14 AJ Foyt IV (27) 2 laps 198
15 Bryan Herta (7) 4.6821 198
16 Sarah Fisher (5) 4.7542 198
17 Jeff Bucknum (14) 7.8670 198
18 Marco Andretti (26) 9.5037 198
19 Marty Roth (25) 40 laps 160

Bookmark to: