Helio Castroneves Wins at Kentucky on Fuel Gamble

This time, Helio Castroneves was all hugs with IndyCar's security director Charles Burns.

Castroneves won Saturday night's Kentucky Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway after his Penske team made a shrewd call for an extra pit stop during the race's second and final caution period. Just weeks ago, of course, Castroneves was violently shaking Burns after being denied of a win thanks to a last-lap penalty in Edmonton.

"You shouldn't actually interview me, you should interview (Tim Cindric)," Castroneves beamed after the race, crediting the winning call on fuel to Cindric, his race strategist. "It was kind of like rolling the dice, but this guy, he's kind of like the gambler."

Castroneves celebrated with his traditional frontstretch fence climb, and when he returned to the track gave Burns a hug as he walked back to his car.

Pole-winner Ed Carpenter finished second, Dan Wheldon third, Tony Kanaan fourth and Dario Franchitti fifth. Danica Patrick was credited with ninth, one of three Andretti Autosport teams in the top ten.

"I really thought after I beat Dario out of the pits, I thought we had it," Wheldon said. "That's the way racing goes. I'm bummed we lost that one."

All night long, Castroneves hardly showed up on the competitive radar as Wheldon and Will Power held the point. Castroneves, though, took advantage of the race's second and final caution flag to come down pit road under Cindric's direction and top off with ethanol as the field circled under caution.

The result was Castroneves pitting some three laps later than the leaders on lap 147 of the 200-lap race during green flag stops. Those three laps -- an extra 7.5 miles around the 1.5-mile track -- allowed Castroneves to conserve fuel, avoid a late pit stop for more and coast to a 13-second victory over Carpenter.

After NFL player Terrell Owens finished his ride-along around the track in the two-seater IndyCar, Carpenter led the field to the green flag.

Takuma Sato in the green KV Racing car continued that team's nasty luck this season when he crashed in turn four on the first lap. Ryan Hunter-Reay avoided Sato's smoking, sparking car and did a complete spin in the process, avoiding all contact.

The crash was Sato's ninth DNF of the season, all due to incidents.

"It just suddenly lost the back end in turn three," Sato said. "It looked like it bottomed out and there was cold tires."

Carpenter took the green flag again on lap nine but Panther Racing teammate Wheldon slid underneath two laps later to take the lead on lap 12.

By lap 50, Wheldon still led with Carpenter two-tenths of a second back. Will Power was third, Scott Dixon fourth and Ryan Briscoe fifth. Briscoe, though, was battling with Marco Andretti for the spot in the top five.

Briscoe had a rough time getting off turn four on lap 51 and lost five spots, giving the fifth spot to Andretti and moving Vitor Meira to sixth.

Wheldon and Carpenter both pitted under green for the first time on lap 55, with Wheldon holding the advantage coming off pit road. Carpenter's stop was a litter slow and it allowed Meira to exit pit road just ahead of him.

The race's second caution featured a grinding crash involving Briscoe, Miera and Simona de Silvestro. All three hit the wall in turns three and four to bring out the yellow. Meira's car briefly caught fire while Briscoe appeared to hurt his left leg a bit as he walked gingerly from his damaged car.

The wreck happened when Miera dropped low to pass the lapped car of de Silvestro as she was two-wide with Briscoe entering turn three. deSilvestro and Meira made contact, collecting Briscoe in the process.

"I was running the bottom line and I think (Meira) tried a little bit late to get in there," Silvestro said.

Briscoe also placed the blame on Meira.

"Vitor had a run on me and Helio and I saw him go down on the inside and thought, 'Oh, why are you doing that?'" Briscoe said. "It was a hard hit, and that's really disappointing."

As for his tender left leg, Briscoe said he was fine.

"My foot is really badly bruised but they took an x-ray and there's nothing broken," Briscoe said.

Meira, though, wasn't ready to take fault.

"I'm not going to blame anybody, but I was in front and I got hit. That's the bottom line," Meira said, pointing at a wheel mark on the sidepod of his crashed car that he indicated was from de Silvestro's front wheel.

Power again won the race off pit road in a tight duel with Wheldon. Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan followed in the top five. Kanaan, of course, started the race 26th -- continuing his run this season of bad qualifying days converting into strong runs through the field.

"I have to apologize to my Twitter followers," Kanaan joked afterwards. "I only passed 10 cars on the first lap, not 11 as I said."

The green waved on lap 95 and Power was still asserting his lead at the race's halfway point on lap 100. The race remained green through lap 130 with Power still leading the same cast of characters around the lighted 1.5-mile tri-oval.

Green flag pit stops again started when Kanaan and Hunter-Reay hit pit lane on lap 141. Power pitted as the leader two laps later, with Wheldon making his stop on lap 144.

Wheldon appeared to gain a pit of an advantage with a quick pit stop, but Power helped Wheldon even more when he nearly snagged the outside wall in turn four on his out lap. Power had to let off the throttle considerably, and fell back to fifth.

Wheldon took advantage and grabbed the lead with Franchitti, Andretti and Kanaan following closely.

Only with 35 laps to go did fuel mileage begin to emerge as a factor as several teams acknowledged they were three or four laps short on fuel. Power also began to fade through the pack as Carpenter again found the top five, and advanced to fourth on lap 169 around Andretti.

With 30 laps left, Power was scored 8th -- 1.4 seconds behind the leader Wheldon.

Carpenter started to show his pole-winning muscle, getting around Kanaan with 27 to go for third.

But back up front, Wheldon still held advantage over Franchitti with 15 laps to go, though Franchitti and Kanaan were looking to take advantage of any mistake he made. Castroneves, meanwhile, was conserving fuel by running laps considerably slower than the leaders.

Kanaan was the first of the leaders to hit pit lane for fuel when he pitted with eight laps to go. With his brake rotors glowing red to get on the pit access road, a three-second splash of fuel was all he needed as the leaders continued to stretch their tanks.

Wheldon, Franchtti, Dixon and Power all came down pit lane with four laps to go while Carpenter stayed out, as did Castroneves.

With three laps to go, Castroneves was shown as the leader as Carpenter came in. And Castroneves more or less coasted from there to win his second race of the season.