Power wins wild IndyCar race at Texas under caution

On the restart, Carpenter had light contact with Vautier on the front straightaway.

Scott Dixon (9), of New Zealand, leads Mikhail Aleshin (7), of Russian Federation, out of Turn 4 during an IndyCar auto race at Texas Motor Speedway, Saturday, June 10, 2017, in Fort Worth, Texas. Veteran Tony Kanaan expressed concern about the pack racing after the race on Saturday.

Will Power survived a brutal night at Texas Motor Speedway to win Saturday night's Rainguard Water Sealers 600 Verizon IndyCar Series race that included blistered tires, crashed race cars, a red flag and some red-hot tempers. "We've got to figure it out".

The race ended under caution after Indianapolis 500 champion Takuma Sato made contact with Scott Dixon. It was inevitable something very bad was going to happen and that came with only a handful of laps remaining as Sato dropped into the dirt and lost it, veering up into Dixon and sending both cars out of the race. Marco Andretti was the final driver on the lead lap, crossing the line sixth.

"Sato was all over the place and was going to crash someone", Pagenaud said.

Simon Pagenaud escaped any contact to come home a respectable third for Penske, who put aside their lack of pace in qualifying to enjoy a relatively successful 248-lap race.

Though the chaos at Texas began well before the Kanaan-caused crash and extended well beyond it, the havoc hit its crescendo when James Hinchcliffe collided with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate Mikhail Aleshin on Lap 153 as the drivers went three-wide into Turn 3.

The resulting contact with Hinchcliffe saw carnage ensue further back, as Hinchcliffe slammed into the wall and Mikhail Aleshin collected Tristan Vautier.

While calling Kanaan someone he trusts on the track, Hinchcliffe said Kanaan drove from inside along the white line and up into him, and pushed him into Aleshin.

When told Ganassi said Hinchcliffe should have lifted, Hinchcliffe responded: "That's adorable".

That set up a spark-spraying chain reaction that took out both Dale Coyne Racing drivers, Tristan Vautier and Ed Jones, and sent driver-owner Ed Carpenter and his teammate JR Hildebrand to the garage.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was also in the pileup, added, "There were guys making too many moves out there late into the corner". The second caution flag of the race came out on lap 91 when Helio Castroneves got into the turn 2 wall because of a flat tire. Auto owner Dale Coyne went up to Kanaan's vehicle while it was lined up on pit road during the red flag, then leaned into the cockpit and said something.

Despite the stop-and-hold penalty that put Kanaan a couple laps down, it clearly didn't torpedo his chances as he was able to battle back and secure second place.

The Toowoomba driver led the small field of nine cars left on track to record his 31st career IndyCar win.

After the red flag delay Firestone and INDYCAR officials declared that after every 30 laps a competition caution would be called to allow the drivers to complete mandatory pit-stops, after severe tyre wear was experienced by several drivers.

Meanwhile Chilton ploughed into the side of Sato and Daly spun in avoidance, forcing the race to conclude under caution.

Polesitter Charlie Kimball and Alexander Rossi were already out of the race before then.

"Tony (Kanaan) has more experience in this kind of pack racing than anybody", Hinchcliffe said.

The first big collision of the night occurred in the pits after a caution on lap 37. As the unwilling member of the Honda crunch, Rossi found himself making side contact with Dixon on the low side, then rebounding into the side of Kanaan and spinning backward into the wall with the left side of his Andretti auto.

Before the green flag came out again, polesitter Charlie Kimball's auto was pushed to the garage because of an oil leak and done.

Dixon maintains a narrow championship lead as the series moves to Road America in Wisconsin in a fortnight.

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