Herta gets first win of season at Michigan

BROOKLYN, Mich. - Bryan Herta has piled up plenty of poles, but on Sunday he picked up his first IndyCar Series victory of the season.

Herta held off three drivers in a scramble to the finish, beating Andretti Green Racing teammate Dan Wheldon by less than a car length on the wide, 2-mile oval at Michigan International Speedway to win the Firestone Indy 400 for his first victory since 2003.

"We were the only ones on the team that hadn't won a race this year," said Herta, who spent part of his childhood in Warren, Mich. "We wanted to make that right."

Herta finished with an average speed of 167.197 mph, with Wheldon, the series points leader, second. Tomas Scheckter was third, followed by Tony Kanaan and Sam Hornish Jr.

Herta had won poles at Phoenix and St. Petersburg before notching his third at Michigan. But his best finish of the year was a third at the Indianapolis 500.

He was dominant for most of the Sunday's race, leading 159 of its 200 laps.

Rookie Danica Patrick, who had performed well on large ovals all season, struggled Sunday. She finished 20th after blowing an engine on her 164th lap, quickly pulling off the track and avoiding pit row.

"I just didn't want the thing igniting with me sitting in it," Patrick said.

Patrick started from the eighth position, but immediately fell back in the pack because of handling problems. She reported to her pit crew that the track felt slippery, and she had dropped to 20th in the 23-car field about 25 laps in.

Patrick's Rahal Letterman crew made tire pressure and other adjustments on her first pit stop, but she was a lap behind the leader on the 65th lap.

"I was struggling with the car all weekend," Patrick said. "It just wasn't consistent."

Wheldon increased his season series lead. He has 417 points, 78 ahead of Hornish with six races left.

"It was Herta's day," Wheldon said. "It's very good to see him in Victory Lane."

Scheckter performed well early, leading briefly when Herta pitted on the 38th lap. But Scheckter was assessed a penalty for entering the pits too fast, and was ordered to drive through pit row again. That knocked him out of the top 15, but a fast car, combined with yellow flags, allowed him to move back into competition.

On the last few laps, Scheckter was in a crowd of cars sometimes running three wide chasing Herta.

"The end was pretty crazy," Scheckter said. "It was just instincts."

Average lap speeds hovered around 210 mph in the first half of the race, on pace to be the fastest in IndyCar history. But a yellow flag on lap 122, when Ed Carpenter had mechanical problems, started to reduce the average speeds.

The speeds were reduced more when Helio Castroneves' car caught fire on lap 139, knocking him out of the race.

A four-car crash involved Townsend Bell, Jaques Lazier, Roger Yasukawa and Kosuke Matsuura with about 20 laps left. Bell spun entering the second turn and started the chain reaction. All four drivers were treated and released from the track's infield medical center.