Dixon Beaten by Briscoe in Photo Finish

The fourth closest finish in IndyCar history was no consolation for Scott Dixon, particularly with only two races left in the season.

Winning the PEAK Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300 by 0.0077 seconds (or 28½ inches ) Ryan Briscoe has extended his series lead to thirty-three points over Dixon.

"I've seen this movie before," said Dixon, who fell short to Helio Castroneves in 2008 in the second-closest series race but wrapped up the driver championship. "Unfortunately at Chicago, we just keep finishing second."

The win gave Briscoe maximum points, with fifty for the win, one for pole position and two for leading the most laps. With two races left he has a twenty-five point lead over Dixon’s team-mate Dario Franchitti and thirty-three over Dixon.

"We've got to stay focused," Briscoe said. "The Target cars are going to be there in Motegi and Homestead, so we just have to stay focused. We've had good cars on all the mile-and-half ovals this year. We've just got to keep it together. We had a couple of mistakes tonight, but were able to come back. We've just have to try to avoid those situations."

It was the Lap 191 restart that produced the late-race drama as Briscoe and Dixon swapped the point four times over the final nine laps - never separated by more than 0.0834 of a second. Briscoe edged ahead for good on Lap 199 (by 0.0063 of a second) and rode the right side of Dixon's No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car.

"The whole night, I think we drove a better race," said Dixon, who has finished in the top five in three of the four 1.5-mile ovals so far this season. "The guys on the team did a fantastic job. The pit stops were flawless. We launched out there a few times but we just didn't have the speed. Our mile-and-half dominance that we seemed to have last year on the Target team has just really been affected. We need to play catch up with Penske. They clearly are a lot faster than us. That's all I had."

Mario Moraes, driving the No. 5 Azul Tequila/Votorantim/KV Racing Technology car, finished a career-high third (0.0609 of a second back).

The series now moves to Japan to race on the 19th September at the Twin Ring Motegi with the finale at Homestead Miami Speedway on the 10th October. With fifty points for a win Dixon needs to to achieve this with Briscoe preferably not finishing one of the races.

2009 Driver Standings