Helio and teammate Ryan Briscoe lead for the lion's share of the 80 lap event, trading the lead back and forth due to being on a split pit stop strategy; a common Penske gambit. The only other drivers to lead would be rookie E.J. Viso, for nine laps, and Tony Kanaan, for one lap. In the end, it came down to Helio's pit strategy working out to be the better of the two, & he came home some 5 seconds infront of Briscoe.

After failing to win once during the previous 29 IndyCar races, Castroneves was elated to end the drought. "People kept telling me that the door (to Victory Lane) would finally open, and today we broke through it. The door was really stuck, but what an incredible effort by Team Penske. I can't thank them enough."

Helio closed the gap to points leader Scott Dixon from 78 down to 43, as the Kiwi & his Ganassi crew struggled to find form this time out. "I'm not upset with anybody in particular; we just did absolutely nothing right."  

Here are the complete race results: http://www.indycar.com/stats/boxscores/2008/infineon_08242008.pdf

Earlier in the day the Firestone Indy Lights Series held the second of their two weekend races at Sonoma. Chilean Pablo Donoso claimed his first series victory. Championship points rivals Raphael Matos & Richard Antinucci battled each other throught the race, with Raphael and one point getting the nose of his car under the rear of Richard's and pushing him off-line & out of the way. The IRL promised to investigate the incident, but there has been no word as of yet if any action will be taken that will effect their respective finishing positions.      

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