Graham Rahal led 55 of 70 laps en route to a dominant victory Saturday in the first race of IndyCar’s Detroit double-header this weekend.
Rahal, driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, notched the fifth win of his 11-year IndyCar career and his first since he won a thriller at Texas Motor Speedway last August.
The win came 25 years after his father, Bobby Rahal won in Detroit in 1992.
Rahal started from pole position and crossed the finish line on the 2.35 mile (3.78 Km) temporary street circuit on Belle Isle 6.1474 seconds ahead of four-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon.
New Zealand’s Dixon reclaimed the lead in the series just a week after escaping serious injury in a spectacular airborne crash in the Indianapolis 500.
Dixon walked away after his car, struck by the car of Britain’s Jay Howard, careened into the air and slid along a guardrail on the inside of the track, a burst of flame shooting from the back end.
He said he was still feeling some after-effects in Detroit.
“It was a tough race no matter what. Physically for me I think it was tougher than normal. I think I was favoring a lot of things,” said Dixon, who added he planned to put his left foot, injured at Indianapolis, “in a big bucket of ice” with the second race of the weekend looming on Sunday.
With the runner-up finish, Dixon reclaimed the series lead after seven of 17 races with 275 points.
Brazil’s Helio Castroneves, who finished seventh is second with 273. Takuma Sato — who became the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500 in the 101st edition of the race last week — finished eighth Saturday and is third in the standings with 258 points.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.