2006 Kansas Lottery Indy 300

Live coverage of the race began at 12:00 PM Central Daylight Time (CDT) in the United States on ABC.^[3] Commentary was provided by Marty Reid, Rusty Wallace, and Scott Goodyear.^[24] Weather conditions at the start of the race were muggy, with air temperatures reaching 93 °F (34 °C) and track temperatures measuring at 128 °F (53 °C). Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas, commanded the drivers to start their engines and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford drove the pace car.^[21][25] When the race began, Wheldon maintained his pole position advantage and led the first lap of the race. Castroneves concurrently pulled ahead of Hornish Jr. for second place on the outside line, though he was quickly overtaken by Hornish Jr.,^[21] while Kanaan passed six drivers to move into the seventh position; by the fifth lap, he had improved to fifth.^[26] Two laps later, Hornish Jr. drove to the outside of Wheldon in turn one and completed the pass for the lead in turn three.^[21]

Over the next thirty laps, Dixon and Wheldon exchanged the second position, allowing Hornish Jr. to open his lead to 2.3 seconds.^[21] The first caution flag was issued on lap 37 when Castroneves slid backwards into the outside SAFER barrier in turn four, damaging the rear wing of his car.^[27] All the leaders chose to make pit stops during the caution period, including Dixon, who passed Hornish Jr. for the lead on pit road.^[21] Castroneves' team was able to repair his wing without being lapped.^[28] Simmons was sent to the back of the line for exceeding the pit road speed limit and Franchitti was handed a drive-through penalty for passing Dixon under the caution. Dixon led the field on the lap-45 restart, though he was immediately passed by Hornish Jr. and Wheldon. Hornish Jr. lengthened his gap over Wheldon to 1.2 seconds by lap 85.^[21] During this green-flag stint, Giaffone became the first retiree of the race on lap 66 because of an ill-handling car.^[29] On the 89th lap, the second caution was issued when debris was spotted in turn three. All the leaders elected to make pit stops for tires, fuel, and adjustments.^[21]

At the restart on lap 99, Wheldon nosed by Hornish Jr. to lead the lap,^[30] but Hornish Jr. passed him on the next lap. Wheldon retained Hornish Jr.'s draft and closely pursued him until the 138th lap, when he drove up the track to pass him. He led the next two laps before Hornish Jr. pulled away from him again. Nine laps later, Hornish Jr. kicked off the first (and only) cycle of green-flag pit stops when he made a pit stop for four tires and fuel, conceding the lead to Wheldon, who remained on the track until the 154th lap.^[21] The pit stops concluded after Sharp, who had taken the lead from Wheldon, entered pit road a lap later, giving the lead back to Wheldon.^[30] In the ten laps that followed, Wheldon sustained a 1.2-second lead over Hornish Jr. until the third caution was flown when ninth-place driver Sharp's suspension failed, causing him to spin into the wall in the third and fourth turns. Sharp climbed from his car and retired from the race.^[21][31]

Because of the recent green-flag pit stops, all the leaders chose to remain on the track.^[30] The fourth (and final) caution was displayed a lap after the restart on lap 175 when Rice spun backwards into the turn-four wall; he became the third retiree of the race. Castroneves elected to make a pit stop under this caution from the fourth position for tires and downforce.^[28] Wheldon led the field back up to speed at the lap-183 restart, while Meira passed Dixon for fourth place.^[32] On the next lap, Hornish Jr. drove to the outside line and overtook Wheldon for the lead. Hornish Jr. held a 0.4-second lead over Wheldon on the 185th lap, but within the next five laps, Wheldon closed Hornish Jr.'s gap.^[21] As Meira advanced to the third position,^[32] Wheldon drove up the track in an effort to pass Hornish Jr. on lap 197. He briefly succeeded, leading both that and the next lap by less than a tenth of a second.^[33] Despite Wheldon’s best efforts, Hornish Jr. retook the lead with two laps remaining and secured the win on his 27th birthday.^[27][28] Wheldon finished second, ahead of Meira in third, Dixon in fourth, and Kanaan in fifth. The top ten finishers were completed by Castroneves, Scheckter, Matsuura, Andretti, and Simmons, while Patrick, Franchitti, Herta, Cheever, Lazier, and Carpenter were the last of the classified finishers.^[34][35]

Hornish Jr. appeared in victory lane to celebrate his third win of the season and his birthday with his team; the win earned him $125,800.^[30] Hornish Jr. was pleased with his victory and described how his car drove throughout the race: "We had a good car all day long. The Marlboro Team Penske car was good on the bottom and good on the top. We put on a good show for the fans at the end of the race."^[36] Second-place finisher Wheldon was frustrated about losing yet another race: "I'm just disappointed to come up short again. We gave everything we had." However, he also felt that Hornish Jr. deserved to win because "mechanically his car was working a little better."^[37] Meira, who finished third, was happy with his performance during the race: "We improved what we had during the race and we were the best at the end, which is how you want it to be. This is great for Panther Racing, everybody on this team has so much passion about what we are doing."^[32]

Dixon, who finished fourth, was unhappy with how the final restart unfolded and believed that if he did not struggle with oversteer, he could have finished higher.^[38] Kanaan noted that while his car handled well, he could only pass other drivers during restarts, and so he aimed to exploit that.^[26] After finishing seventh, Scheckter wished that another caution had flown in the closing laps in order for him to compete with the leaders, but was pleased with his finish and hoped to keep his momentum going at Nashville Superspeedway.^[39] Regarding his lap-175 accident, Rice was saddened by the amount of times he and his teammates had wrecked throughout the season.^[36] Sharp, who wrecked ten laps earlier, thought his car was far too tight at the beginning. After multiple front wing adjustments, he finally obtained speed and began passing his competitors only to crash.^[31] The final result put Hornish Jr., with 300 points, into the Drivers’ Championship lead, overtaking his teammate Castroneves, who trailed by twenty points. Dixon maintained third with 261 points, and Wheldon, with 257 points, and Meira, with 227 points, rounded out the top five.^[40]

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Laps Led	Pts.
1	6	Sam Hornish Jr.	Marlboro Team Penske	200	01:49:00.3423	2	149	531
2	10	Dan Wheldon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	200	+0.0793	1	45	40
3	4	Vítor Meira	Panther Racing	200	+5.3892	6	0	35
4	9	Scott Dixon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	200	+5.5158	3	5	32
5	11	Tony Kanaan	Andretti Green Racing	200	+5.7762	13	0	30
6	3	Hélio Castroneves	Marlboro Team Penske	200	+7.0432	4	0	28
7	2	Tomas Scheckter	Vision Racing	200	+9.6925	8	0	26
8	55	Kosuke Matsuura	Super Aguri Fernández Racing	200	+9.9881	5	0	24
9	26	Marco Andretti	Andretti Green Racing	199	+1 Lap	11	0	22
10	17	Jeff Simmons	Rahal Letterman Racing	199	+1 Lap	17	0	20
11	16	Danica Patrick	Rahal Letterman Racing	198	+2 Laps	12	0	19
12	27	Dario Franchitti	Andretti Green Racing	198	+2 Laps	14	0	18
13	7	Bryan Herta	Andretti Green Racing	197	+3 Laps	15	0	17
14	51	Eddie Cheever	Cheever Racing	196	+4 Laps	19	0	16
15	5	Buddy Lazier	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	194	+6 Laps	7	0	15
16	20	Ed Carpenter	Vision Racing	184	+16 Laps	16	0	14
17	15	Buddy Rice	Rahal Letterman Racing	174	Accident	9	0	13
18	8	Scott Sharp	Delphi Fernández Racing	165	Accident	10	1	12
19	14	Felipe Giaffone	A. J. Foyt Racing	66	Handling	18	0	12
Sources:[30][41]

Notes

• ^1 — Includes three bonus points for leading the most laps.^[42]

Drivers' Championship standings Pos. Driver Points 1 1 Sam Hornish Jr. 300 1 2 Hélio Castroneves 280 (–20) 3 Scott Dixon 261 (–39) 4 Dan Wheldon 257 (–43) 5 Vítor Meira 227 (–73) Sources:[30][40]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included.