Dare

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Airton Dare can thank Tomas Scheckter's bad luck for his first IRL victory and A.J. Foyt's first win as an owner in three years.

Dare took advantage of a second-chance restart after Scheckter's late crash -- the only wreck of the day -- and passed Sam Hornish Jr. with less than three laps to go to win the Ameristar Casino 200 on Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

''I was able to put the car wherever I want -- inside, outside and flat-out all the way around,'' said Dare, who won for the first time in 31 starts.

Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves finished third, followed by Felipe Giaffone and Gil de Ferran. Castroneves leads de Ferran by eight points and Hornish, the defending IRL champion, by 19 atop the season's standings.

''Little by little, that's the way you keep a lead on the championship,'' said Castroneves, whose second straight Indy 500 win was upheld on appeal last week. ''It doesn't matter if you win a championship by one point or 20 points, as long as you are in the front.''

Dare's win completed a Sunday sweep for Foyt, whose grandson, A.J. Foyt IV, won the inaugural Infiniti Pro Series event, the Kansas 100. The senior Foyt's last previous win as an owner came in 1999, when Kenny Brack won the Indianapolis 500.

	Dare passed Hornish with just two laps remaining.

''Both boys drove a hell of a race,'' he said. ''What more could I ask of them?''

Scheckter, the South African rookie who shredded the Kansas Speedway record to win the pole in Saturday's qualifying, appeared headed for his first win -- and the first win by an Infiniti-powered car since Eddie Cheever Jr.'s victory here a year ago.

He led 101 of the 200 laps and averaged 185.625 mph on the 1½-mile tri-oval -- the fastest average by more than 4 mph -- but crashed in the second turn on the 191st lap when his right rear tire went soft.

''We just can't seem to get a break,'' said Scheckter, who led 85 laps of this year's Indianapolis 500 before crashing. ''We had an unbelievable weekend with winning the pole and leading so many laps. It was a perfect race up to the last 10 laps.''

Hornish, who took over the lead after Scheckter's crash, came out hard on the 197th lap, anticipating a green flag. But the restart was waved off for one lap.

Hornish and Panther Racing owner John Barnes both said the decision to drop the green flag in the 197th lap -- instead of the 198th -- caught Hornish by surprise.

''They didn't tell us it was going to go green,'' Barnes said. ''They left him hanging down there in Turn 4.''

Hornish also accused Dare of being out of position on the restart and of squeezing him on the pass.

''He was two spots ahead of where he would have been and not in line,'' Hornish said. ''If he feels happy about himself, let him.''

Dare said he gave Hornish plenty of room -- ''more room than he was giving to me previously.''

Hornish lost in the closing laps for the second time in as many races at Kansas Speedway. In the inaugural race last year, Cheever passed him with less than three laps to go for the win.

''The only car that we could not touch all day was Scheckter,'' Hornish said. ''When he went out, I thought for sure it was ours.''

Cheever, Scheckter's Red Bull teammate, struggled with steering problems early in the race. He took his car behind the wall for repairs, and returned to finish 17th.

''At the beginning the car was undriveable, and then the steering just blocked,'' he said. ''I just stayed out of the ways of the leaders, so we could take the checkered flag and earn some points.''

Before Scheckter's crash, there were only three cautions, two for debris and one to tow in Rick Treadway's stalled car.

The heat -- in the mid-90s, with a track temperature of 132 degrees at the midpoint of the race -- was more of a factor. Al Unser Jr., who led 23 laps, was overcome by the heat and had to pull out of the race. He was treated at the infield care center.