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The lead trio and Mutoh then pulled away from Patrick and the rest of the field, with the Conway yellow long enough to ensure that everyone now just needed one more pit stop to make the finish.

The out-of-sequence AGR pair again reeled off a string of very quick laps following their last stops and looked like they would pose a strong threat for victory. But once again the cautions fell perfectly for Ganassi, as Castroneves slid into the wall in traffic while on course for sixth, just as Dixon, Franchitti and Rahal were preparing to become the last people to make their third stops. That allowed them to retain the top three positions, with Dixon remaining in front of Franchitti in the pits and then getting a clear jump on his teammate at the final restart. He escaped a few scares in traffic to stay ahead over the closing laps and claim his third win of 2009.

Stuck among the lapped cars when racing resumed, Mutoh and Patrick could not do anything about Rahal and had to battle each other for fourth over the final stint.

Their AGR teammates Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti were next up, Kanaan unfortunate to drop a lap down during the second pit sequence having earlier made rapid progress from his unhappy 17th place on the grid.

Raphael Matos (Luczo Dragon) lost ground at the final stops and finished eighth, ahead of rookie rival Robert Doornbos, who came throughly strongly from a midfield start in Newman/Haas/Lanigan's second car.

Dan Wheldon completed the top ten for Panther, while Tomas Scheckter (Dreyer & Reinbold) and EJ Viso (HVM) fell back to 11th and 12th after their strong qualifying efforts.

RESULTS:
Pos  Driver             Team                 Gap
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              300 laps
 2.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              + 0.3109s
 3.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  + 2.4085s
 4.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       +13.5302s
 5.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       +14.1111s
 6.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       +   1 lap
 7.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       +   1 lap
 8.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         +   1 lap
 9.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  +   1 lap
10.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              +   1 lap
11.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 lap
12.  EJ Viso            HVM                  +   1 lap
13.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +   1 lap
14.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                +  2 laps
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 +  2 laps
16.  Mario Moraes       KV                   +  3 laps

Retirements:

     Helio Castroneves  Penske               245 laps
     Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    135 laps
     Ryan Briscoe       Penske               26 laps
     Jaques Lazier      3G                   0 laps