Tony Kanaan celebrates in Gatorade Victory Lane.

Tony Kanaan started on the pole and erased some demons by winning tonight's SunTrust Indy Challenge "under the lights" at Richmond International Raceway. Kanaan had the hardest crash of his career only six days ago in Iowa, and had never won at this track even when he had some dominant cars in previous years. It was the first IndyCar Series win of the season for Kanaan.

"We've done it,” Kanaan said.  “We have turned it around. It was a team effort. There was a lot of action. It was a typical Richmond race, very tough. Marco (Andretti) and I had strong cars. Luck was finally on our side."

Finishing second by 4.7691 seconds was Helio Castroneves, who started way back in 18^th position. Castroneves had moved up to the top 5 by Lap 100 and used quick work by his crew to make it onto the podium.

"Wow! That's the only thing I have to say,” Castroneves said. “I had to find grooves that didn't exist. I really wanted to win here. This is one of my favorite tracks. A lot of things were happening all night. The Andretti Green cars were more consistent on long runs than us."

The early parts of the race were marred by a number of caution periods.

"When you race 26 cars on such a small track, you can have problems like that," Kanaan said.

Scott Dixon had a solid run in third and maintained his lead in the points standings. Dixon now leads the championship point standings ahead of Castroneves, 351 to 308. Dixon's Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Dan Wheldon finished fourth when his car sputtered on the final lap, allowing Dixon to gain a valuable place.

Oriol Servia finished fifth after starting in the 10^th position. This matched his best finish of the season for the Spaniard.

"It was a really busy day,” Servia said. “It's a physical place. The car was great. I told the guys we had a top 5 car. Every spot we gained, I had to work hard. I'm extremely pleased because this was on an oval."

Kanaan led a race-high 166 laps. Marco Andretti led 90 laps after he switched to a different fuel strategy mid-way through the race. Jaime Camara led 44 laps early in the race when he too used a different fuelling strategy. The time of the race was 2:04:05.5111. There were nine caution flags for 102 laps. The average speed of the race was 108.790 mph.