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Danica Patrick wins Indy Japan 300!

Danica Patrick emerged as the last driver standing in a game of fuel mileage and as a result, she has finally won her first IndyCar Series race.

As the leaders of the race continued to go into pit road to take final top-offs of fuel, Patrick took the lead from Helio Castroneves with three laps left and managed to hang on to win the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi. In tears as she emerged from her No. 7 Motorola machine in Victory Lane, Patrick exulted with her Andretti Green Racing crew.

“I feel like a wuss crying, but it’s been a long time coming,” she told ESPN’s Jack Arute. “Finally.”

Ed Carpenter was the first to be forced to pit, going onto pit road on Lap 195 despite short-pitting some forty laps earlier in order to make it to the finish. After him came Scott Dixon on Lap 196, followed by Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan with four to go. Finally, Castroneves was the last man to fold as he had to fall off the pace in order to make the finish on fumes.

We’ll have more on Danica’s breakthrough win on Sunday afternoon.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.