Franchitti holds his line at Iowa

Dario Franchitti hung around the lead as car after car ran into trouble on the Iowa Speedway’s new short oval. He made a daring move to grab the top spot as soon as he saw an opening, then kept it by using his head.

Franchitti, the IndyCar Series points leader, survived a slippery track and a late charge from teammate Marco Andretti to win the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250 in Newton on Sunday.

Franchitti, whose other victory in 2007 came at the Indianapolis 500, held the cherished bottom line on the final laps to win by 0.0681 of a second. The victory helped Franchitti open a 51-point lead over Tony Kanaan in the overall standings.

“I knew if I stopped at the yellow line, Marco was going to have a hard time getting around me,” Franchitti said. “He was very smart.”

Scott Sharp was third, followed by Buddy Rice and Darren Manning. Eight of the top 10 drivers in the points standings, including Kanaan and Sam Hornish Jr., were involved in crashes or had mechanical trouble through the first 100 laps.

Unseasonably cool weather left the drivers with cold tires coming out of pit stops. That led to three accidents that knocked out seven cars on the 0.875-mile track, which ran fast and offered very little room to maneuver.

A multiple-car crash on the 99th lap changed the course of the race, knocking Danica Patrick, Hornish, A.J. Foyt IV and Kosuke Matsuura out of contention.

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Paul Tracy pushed his way to the front and held off rookie Robert Doornbos on the final lap to win his third Grand Prix of Cleveland, ending Sebastien Bourdais’ three-race winning streak.

Tracy was involved in two accidents early in the race, but the gutsy Canadian worked his way through the field and took the checkered flag, finishing 0.513 of a second ahead of Doornbos and another rookie, Neel Jani, who was 5.405 seconds back in third.

The victory ended a 23-race winless streak for Tracy, whose last win came at Cleveland in 2005. With another win in 1992, he joins Danny Sullivan and Emerson Fittipaldi as the only three-time winners of the event.

Bourdais, the series’ points leader and dominant driving force this season, led for the first 30 laps and was still running second when he lost oil pressure and his engine automatically shut down on Lap 67.

He was towed back to the pits and his crew tried to restart his Cosworth engine before finally giving up.

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Larry Dixon beat Doug Herbert at the ProCare Rx NHRA SuperNationals in Englishtown, N.J., to get his 40th top-fuel title, breaking a tie with Kenny Bernstein for sole possession of second place on the career list.

Tommy Johnson Jr. won the funny-car event, giving team owner Don Prudhomme two wins for the day. Also, Greg Anderson won the pro-stock race, tying him with Prudhomme for sixth place with 49 wins.

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Ben Spies swept his first doubleheader of the season by winning the second leg of the AMA Superbike Championship at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.