By Jeff Olson

Ryan Briscoe led early, then faded dramatically on a bad set of tires, came back to run second for a stint after short fueling, and eventually settled for a 15th-place finish.

“I just got a bad set of tires,” he said. “After we got the lead we put a new set of tires on. After the restart, I just had nothing there. I had no grip in the front. I thought a tire was going flat. We had to pit, and we went a lap down. From there, it was just catch-up. And at the end, I was really excited again. We had gotten up to the top 10 and then up to second behind Helio. The car felt awesome. I really thought I had a car to win with, but we just didn’t have enough fuel.”

That left Castroneves alone in the lead with the laps ticking down. On the final restart on the 183rd lap, Castroneves leapt ahead of Wheldon and immediately opened a lead of more than a second, a distance he maintained to the finish.

Once the checkered flag waved, the tears flowed.

“To be here talking about this is very special,” Castroneves said. “This place is magic.”

RESULTS:
Pos  Driver             Team                      Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                    200 laps
 2.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                  + 1.9819s
 3.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green           + 2.3350s
 4.  Townsend Bell      KV                       + 2.7043s
 5.  Will Power         Penske                   + 3.6216s
 6.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                  + 4.2988s
 7.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                  + 4.9159s
 8.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                   + 5.5096s
 9.  Paul Tracy         KV                       + 6.5180s
10.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green           + 7.3312s
11.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest                 +10.5351s
12.  Tomas Scheckter    Coyne                    +10.9874s
13.  Alex Lloyd         Schmidt/Ganassi          +11.1944s
14.  Scott Sharp        Panther                  +11.4259s
15.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                   +12.6695s
16.  AJ Foyt IV         Foyt                     +15.4867s
17.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher                   +15.9774s
18.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold        +16.3488s
19.  John Andretti      Dreyer & Reinbold/Petty  +18.0868s
20.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold        +   1 lap
21.  Vitor Meira        Foyt                     + 27 laps
22.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon             + 27 laps
23.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                    + 40 laps
24.  EJ Viso            HVM                      + 61 laps
25.  Nelson Philippe    HVM                      + 70 laps
26.  Oriol Servia       Rahal Letterman          +102 laps
27.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green           +103 laps
28.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan      +115 laps
29.  Davey Hamilton     Dreyer & Reinbold        +121 laps
30.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green           +144 laps
31.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan      +145 laps
32.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision                   +181 laps
33.  Mario Moraes       KV                       +200 laps