“What a race! What a race!” Franchitti said. Everybody loved him,” Franchitti said as bagpipes played over the public address system. “Everybody up there was a friend of Dan’s, and that about sums it up. Dixon crossed the finish line in second, and Kanaan was third. His wheels appeared to touch Franchitti’s, he spun hard into the wall, and Franchitti sailed past for the win - this one, just like the first two, under caution. So the last-lap pass attempt was Sato’s for the taking, and he couldn’t pull it off as he hugged the inside white line through Turn 1. But when the Scot made his final pass of Dixon with two laps to go, he pulled Sato with him and it sapped Dixon’s momentum. The race had shaped into what was expected to be a duel to the finish between Franchitti and Dixon. I think in that situation, seeing how it lined up with the top three, three of Dan’s friends, it was a tough one.” Franchitti won a wheel-to-wheel, last-lap battle, sailing away to the checkered flag when Takuma Sato spun out trying to make one last pass on the inside and slammed into the wall. “I guess maybe in the back of your mind, you figured he would probably help you out today, too. “I think a lot of us that were close to Dan, you know, you wanted it that little bit more,” Dixon said. Petersburg, Fla., to support Wheldon’s wife and two sons, and Kanaan, 0 for 11 now at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had openly wept following the death of his former teammate. Dixon, a one-time Indy 500 winner, temporarily relocated his family to St. “I thought, ‘Dan is laughing at us right now going at it.’ ” It was an absolutely fitting finish, even if the elation for Franchitti’s win was tempered by the heartbreak for two other deserving drivers. “Kind of like old times, the three of us back and forwards,” Franchitti said. As his three friends lined up with six laps remaining for the final restart - Kanaan out front, Chip Ganassi teammates Franchitti and Dixon second and third - they couldn’t help but wonder if Wheldon was at play. Franchitti stamped his name in the record books by winning his third Indy 500 on Sunday, a day that started and ended as a tribute to Wheldon, who won the race a year ago but was killed in an October crash in the Ind圜ar season finale. In the end, they celebrated a 1-2-3 sweep that honored D-Dub, their missing friend. No matter what, one of Wheldon’s best buddies was going to Victory Lane. And if it wasn’t going to be Franchitti, then it would be Scott Dixon. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Dan Wheldon couldn’t win his third Indianapolis 500.
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