And with drivers turning three-and-a-half laps per minute, this all happened in the space of an hour-and-a-half.
When the checkered flag fell, Tony Kanaan earned his first win since June 2008, on a track where he had crashed in all of the his three previous races. After qualifying badly and starting in 15th, Kanaan moved up to third by lap 68, took the lead on lap 120, and lost and retook it several times in battles with Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves.
After the race, Kanaan thanked his Andretti Autosports teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti for their support.
“It’s been a long time, two and some-years,” Kanaan told Versus-TV. “I want to dedicate this to my son. Since he was born, I haven’t won a race for him yet. Today is Father’s Day, so this is for Leo.”
“I‘ve got to thank Ryan [Hunter-Reay] and Marco [Andretti] for the help this weekend,” Kanaan continued. “After qualifying, they came and talked to me for 45 minutes trying to cheer me up, because I was pretty beat down from my poor qualifying.”
“Great battle with Helio. It brought me back some good memories from back in the day when we were eight and nine [years old] in go-karts.”
Penske driver Helio Castroneves fought his car the whole race. Things got worse on lap 54 when Castroneves, Kanaan, and Scott Dixon came together leaving the pits, bending Helio’s steering arm.
His crew kept working on the car during pit stops until, by lap 196, he was the fastest car on the track, and he took the lead. He held it until lap 240, when, his tires worn away, he lost the lead to Tony Kanaan.
“The race was 10 laps too long; the race should have ended earlier,” Castroneves joked at the post-race press conference on Indycar.com. “There was nothing I could do. The car had completely no front [grip] at all. In fact, it wasn’t [Kanaan] going faster, it was me actually slowing down.”
Third-place finisher E.J. Viso was the only one of the three-car KV Racing team to make it to the checkered flag. Teammates Mario Moraes and Takuma Sato crashed, Moraes through no fault of his own. Moraes got rammed by the spinning Justin Wilson, who lost control of his car halfway through the first lap.
Sato, a rookie in IndyCars though a veteran of Formula One, had never driver an oval before, and this was his first short oval track. Nonetheless he took his car to third before running into the aero wash of a slower car and sliding into the wall on lap 177.
Viso was left to carry the KV banner and he acquitted himself well, coming from 19th to third.
“It’s been a very tough year for the team,” he told Versus-TV. “We all knew that we could get there. I hope this is the start of good things to come for the rest of the season.”
Dario Franchitti had a heartbreaking day. After spending most of the day in the top three, he lost his transmission on lap 200. This dropped the Ganassi driver from first to third in the championship, behind Penske driver Will Power and Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon. Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe sit fourth and fifth, with Tony Kanaan sixth.
Iowa was the first win for a team other than Penske or Ganassi on an oval since Kanaan’s win in 2008. If the Penske-Ganassi stranglehold is indeed broken, and with several road courses coming up, it is just barely possible that IndyCar will finally see a different team win the championship.
Championship Points | |||
|
| Driver | Points | Gap |
| 1 | Will Power | 274 | 0 |
| 2 | Scott Dixon | 263 | 11 |
| 3 | Dario Franchitti | 260 | 14 |
| 4 | Helio Castroneves | 251 | 23 |
| 5 | Ryan Briscoe | 240 | 34 |
| 6 | Tony Kanaan | 229 | 45 |
| 7 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 225 | 49 |
| 8 | Justin Wilson | 191 | 83 |
| 9 | Marco Andretti | 184 | 90 |
| 10 | DanWheldon | 183 | 91 |
| Iowa Corn Indy 250 | |||||
|
| # | Driver | Laps | Gap | Status |
| 1 | 11 | Tony Kanaan | 250 | --.---- |
|
| 2 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | 250 | 4.2030 |
|
| 3 | 8 | EJ Viso | 250 | 5.2538 |
|
| 4 | 6 | Ryan Briscoe | 250 | 9.0536 |
|
| 5 | 12 | Will Power | 250 | 9.5902 |
|
| 6 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 250 | 15.2683 |
|
| 7 | 14 | Vitor Meira | 250 | 16.8703 |
|
| 8 | 37 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 249 | 1 lap |
|
| 9 | 24 | Graham Rahal | 249 | 0.6879 |
|
| 10 | 7 | Danica Patrick | 249 | 5.9292 |
|
| 11 | 4 | Dan Wheldon | 249 | 6.4652 |
|
| 12 | 77 | Alex Tagliani | 248 | 2 laps |
|
| 13 | 19 | Alex Lloyd | 248 | 2.0109 |
|
| 14 | 2 | Raphael Matos | 247 | 3 laps |
|
| 15 | 26 | Marco Andretti | 244 | 6 laps |
|
| 16 | 34 | Mario Romancini | 244 | 1.0292 |
|
| 17 | 36 | Bertrand Baguette | 237 | 13 laps |
|
| 18 | 10 | Dario Franchitti | 212 | 38 laps | Pit |
| 19 | 5 | Takuma Sato | 177 | 73 laps | Contact |
| 20 | 06 | Hideki Mutoh | 131 | 119 laps | Handling |
| 21 | 78 | Simona de Silvestro | 128 | 122 laps | Handling |
| 22 | 67 | Sarah Fisher | 92 | 158 laps | Contact |
| 23 | 18 | Milka Duno | 31 | 219 laps | Handling |
| 24 | 22 | Justin Wilson | 0 | 250 laps | Contact |
| 25 | 32 | Mario Moraes | 0 | 0.4888 | Contact |
