Kanaan finishes season’s every lap

FORT WORTH, Texas — While his Brazilian buddy got to climb the fence after finally winning another race, Tony Kanaan completed a more impressive feat in his IndyCar Series championship season.

Kanaan finished all 3,305 laps, the last 200 Sunday in the season-ending Chevy 500 at Texas Motor Speedway where he was second behind Helio Castroneves.

“This car never stopped,” Kanaan said. “You know how many million pieces that could fail on this car or how many positions I could put myself in that I could be out of the race.”

Instead, Kanaan made it through 16 races over nine months for Andretti Green Racing without an accident, engine failure or even a flat tire. He is the first driver in any major series to complete every lap.

“What we did, it’s remarkable,” said Kanaan, who clinched the season title with a runner-up finish two weeks ago in California.

The last IRL season finale at Texas and Castroneves’ first win in 19 races wasn’t without some controversy.

Andretti Green, which had Dan Wheldon running second at the time, contended that Castroneves jumped on the throttle too early on the final restart with two laps to go after a lengthy caution.

IRL agreed, ruling nearly four hours after the race ended that Castroneves accelerated before the designated restart zone between the third and fourth turns.

Castroneves was penalized 15 points and fined $50,000. But the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner kept the win worth $122,500 and remained fourth in season points.

On the restart, Castroneves quickly shot ahead and wasn’t challenged again. Kanaan finished side-by-side with Wheldon, edging his teammate by a nose at the finish line.

Wheldon and Kanaan conceded that it probably didn’t matter that Castroneves sped up early.

“I wasn’t going to be able to pass him,” Wheldon said. “He just went before the restart zone.”