Rice wins his third IRL race of season, still trails Kanaan

Tony Kanaan said race strategy cost him the victory.
BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) -- Buddy Rice made the right decision -- again.
Racing to his third IndyCar win of the year, the Rahal Letterman Racing driver made a late charge to edge Tony Kanaan by 0.0796 seconds in the Michigan Indy 400.
Both drivers said the key was guessing how much fuel the other had left in the waning moments of the 200-lap race Sunday.
"We knew it was going to be a long race," Rice said.
"We knew it was going to be a mental race. ... It came down to a bit of a fuel race. We obviously had saved more than he had."
Kanaan -- who had led the race for 183 laps before chasing Rice for the last 10 -- wasn't happy with how the final laps went down.
Poor strategy
The Andretti Green Racing driver said late-race strategy might have cost the team a victory.
He said he was advised to stop fighting Rice when he first attempted his pass, implying his team felt Rice might run out of gas or falter before finishing.
"It doesn't make me very happy," Kanaan said. "I am not going to point fingers. I'm a team player. I think I'm part of that, too. Today we were not very smart. The other team was smarter than us."
Rice's average speed -- 182.123 mph -- was the fourth-fastest in IndyCar history.
Rice has won three of the IRL's 10 races this season. But he still trails Kanaan in the points standings with six races to go. Kanaan has 400 points, 57 more than Rice.
Kanaan has three wins this season. He has finished in the top five nine times and in the top 10 in every race.
Dan Wheldon, Kanaan's Andretti teammate, finished third, 3.63 seconds off the pace.
Sam Hornish Jr. was fourth, followed by Vitor Meira.
Unsafe in pits
The race was safer for drivers than crew members.
Tomas Scheckter's car hit mechanic Steve Namisnak on a pit stop early in the race. Scheckter swerved to avoid Tora Takagi, who was leaving pit lane as Scheckter entered. Namisnak wound up with a broken leg.
A Wheldon crew member, Mike Horvath, was tripped by Meira's car but was not seriously injured. Meira's car bumped into Horvath when it was struck from behind by Adrian Fernandez.
Late in the race, Fernandez might have cost himself a high finish when he spun into his pit.
He sent Rhodri Griffiths, a crew member for Kosuke Matsuura, tumbling. Griffiths was not seriously hurt.
Fernandez -- running in third place at the time -- was forced to re-enter the pits for a "stop-and-go" penalty that dropped him into the middle of the pack.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.