The finish at Saturday’s IndyCar Peak 300 could hardly have been closer.
Ryan Briscoe grabbed the lead for good with two laps to go and edged rival Scott Dixon to win by 0.0077 seconds — the fourth-closest margin in Indy Racing League history — in a thrilling finish at Joliet’s Chicagland Speedway.
Briscoe, who was seriously injured in a 2005 accident at the same track, claimed his third victory of the season and first at Joliet.
“The final stages with Scott were really exciting and I didn’t think I was going to have enough [to catch] him,” said Briscoe, whose winning margin measured 28 1/2 inches. “[But] as soon as I was able to get beside him, it slowed both of our cars down a lot and evened things out and that gave me the chance to beat him across the line.”
Driving for Team Penske, Briscoe battled back into contention after losing time on an earlier slow pit stop.
Mario Moraes took third for his best career finish in the IndyCar series. Dario Franchitti, the 2007 champion, edged Graham Rahal for fourth while Illinois favorite Danica Patrick was 12th, less than one minute off the pace.
Dixon, who has now finished second five times at Chicago, held a 0.0834-second lead in the 198th lap.
Briscoe overtook Dixon by Lap 199 and maintained the tiny edge at the checkered flag.
“It was pretty simple, we didn’t have enough speed,” Dixon said. “I could tell if it was going to come down to a head-to-head race at the end with Ryan we weren’t going to have enough to get across.”
Briscoe, who earned the pole position earlier in the day, maintained his lead in the IndyCar championship race with 550 points.
Race results weren’t as positive for Briscoe’s teammate Helio Castroneves, the defending champion who started the race at No. 2 but was knocked out when he hit the wall with 16 laps to go.
Castroneves wasn’t injured in the mishap. Nor was Japanese driver Hideki Mutoh, who also hit the track wall. Pieces of his broken car littered the track, but Mutoh walked away from the crash.
Earlier Saturday, Daniel Herrington edged James Davison by 0.0613 of a second to win the Firestone Indy Lights Chicagoland 100.
Andrew Prendeville was third in the 100-lap race. J.R. Hildebrand took fifth but still clinched the Indy Lights overall series championship with 503 points, well ahead of runner-up Davison.
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See more online: For a photo gallery from Joliet, go to chicago tribune.com/irl
