LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 22, 2007) - Canadian Club driver Dario Franchitti finished second Sunday in the inaugural Honda 200 at Mid-Ohio at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Franchitti leads the IndyCar Series championship by 24 points over second place.

Starting the race from the fifth position, Franchitti moved up to fourth on the first lap when teammate Marco Andretti retired from the race after an incident in the first turn. To avoid contact on the first lap, Franchitti was forced to slow, which allowed Scott Dixon and Darren Manning to get around him. Franchitti was consistently quicker than the leader, but with limited chances to pass he could not get to the leader. By lap 29, Franchitti was into third where he remained until he took the lead during the final round of green flag pit stops. Franchitti was posting his fastest laps of the day with just 10 laps remaining, but despite having a 16-second lead and taking fuel only, Dixon passed him as he was coming off of pit lane.

This was Franchitti's 11th straight top-five finish and is the only driver in the IndyCar Series to have finished all 12 races of the season in the top seven.

Dixon won his third-consecutive race. Andretti Green Racing teammates Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Helio Castroneves rounded out the top five in third.

After a week hiatus, next up for the IndyCar Series is the Firestone Indy 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, Aug. 5. ESPN2 will provide live coverage of the event at 12 p.m. (EDT). The race can also be heard live on XM Satellite Radio channel 145.

Dario Franchitti, #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone
"We finished in second place but unfortunately (Scott) Dixon was in front of us again. He really drove a great race and Helio (Castroneves) as well. We were pushing each other the whole time, pushing as much as our cars would allow. It was quite a battle out there. I know it's going to be a fight until the end for the championship, but I wasn't expecting anything else. We'll just keep pushing the Canadian Club car each week and we'll work on it. We kind of messed up there on the start because we had ‘Dixie' (Scott Dixon) covered but then Danica (Patrick) slid and Tony (Kanaan) spun avoiding her then Marco (Andretti) got involved. I had to check up to avoid getting wiped out by Tony and that was a lot of the race right there."