Power pads series lead with win at Sonoma

Australia's Will Power won at the track he had to be airlifted from a year ago, extending his IndyCar Series lead with a dominating run Sunday at Infineon Raceway.

Power never made it to race day in 2009, his weekend and season over with a practice session crash that left him with a broken back.

"Unbelievable. I watched this race from a hospital bed last year," Power said. "I said it all year, I'm coming back to win this because I thought this track owes me because of what happened."

The Team Penske driver never showed any sign of fear in his return to Sonoma. Power set an IndyCar record with his eighth pole of 2010 on Saturday and led 73 of 75 laps over the technically-demanding 2.3-mile (3.7-kilometer) circuit through the hills of the California wine country.

Power pushed his series lead to 59 points over Scotland's Dario Franchitti, who finished third behind Scott Dixon of New Zealand. Ryan Briscoe was fourth.

"It's a fairly large deficit, but it's four tracks we've run well on," said Franchitti.

"There's places we've done very well at. I don't underestimate the challenge. Will's going to be very strong. A lot of people are kind of writing him off because of his lack of experience on the ovals, but I think he'll be up there. We just have to do a better job."

Power's previous memories of Sonoma weren't so good.

Driving in a practice session last year, the Aussie came flying over a hill and didn't have time to react to Nelson Philippe's stalled car. Power hit him straight on and had to be airlifted from the track, his back and teeth broken, the season over.

Team Penske stuck with Power through his long rehabilitation and he's rewarded the loyalty with an impressive third IndyCar season.

The 29-year-old Power came into Sonoma with the inaugural IndyCar Series road course championship locked up thanks to four non-oval victories and had built a 41-point lead over Franchitti, the defending series champion.

Power found speed when he needed it in knockout qualifying, sneaking out of the second round with a fast last lap, then locking up his record-breaking pole with another quick turn around the hard-to-find speed course late in the final session.

He really wanted a win at Sonoma, in part because of last year's accident, but also because he'd like to build a little points cushion with the season's final four races all on ovals.

It's not that Power can't drive ovals. He's been picking up the nuances of turn-left-only racing, finishing eighth at Indy and fifth at Iowa. Franchitti, though, is a going-in-circles vet, with two Indianapolis 500 titles under the hood, so the more padding Power can get going into those final races, the better.

Power got just what he wanted, racing off from the green and building a nearly 6 second lead before Milka Duno caused a caution with a spinout on Lap 32. The lead was back up over 5 seconds after another caution, then Power lost it on Lap 56 when he went into the pits and Dixon didn't. Two laps later, Dixon went into the pits and Power was back up front, followed by Franchitti.

That was it.

Power gradually pushed the lead back up and held off Dixon after another pack-bunching spinout, coming around the final turn slowly for a local caution to notch his sixth career victory and a comfortable into-the-stretch lead.

"We felt we were in a good position to maybe challenge Will and get close to him and maybe win the race and take some points away from him that way," Dixon said. "We didn't have enough; obviously, Will won the race. We probably didn't help Dario's chances in that, so that was probably the downside to today."