Lost in the hype surrounding Danica Patrick's prospective move to NASCAR, they ran an IndyCar race Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway. And Ms. Patrick rose to the occasion, matching her IRL career-best finish with a competitive run to fourth place.
Those fixated on Danica missed a decent race at the front, won by Scott Dixon over his Target Ganassi Racing teammate Dan Wheldon, who once again led the most laps only to fall tantalizingly short of victory.
Meanwhile, Marlboro Team Penske's Helio Castroneves struggled home in fifth place, but even that was better than the fate that befell Sam Hornish Jr. -- wall contact on the 129th lap.
All that drama adds up to one of the closest championship battles in the 11-year history of the Indy Racing League, with Hornish leading Dixon by just five points, Castroneves by six, and Wheldon by 16. But we'll get to that later so we can focus first on Danica's quietly impressive evening.
She qualified her Dallara-Honda 10th, again fastest in the three-car Rahal Letterman Racing stable. Then she found enough pace in the race to remain on the lead lap, benefiting from attrition to finish second in the non-Penske/Ganassi class behind Vitor Meira. Patrick handily outraced former Nashville champions Castroneves and Dario Franchitti in the process.
More importantly, she said she felt Rahal Letterman was starting to make substantial progress on its Dallara chassis program after switching in midseason.
"It was a good night in terms of catching up with the race car and catching a break or two," she said. "I was able to have enough adjustment in the cockpit to chase the car, and that's something that hasn't happened for a while. That means we're in pretty good range with the car, so I'm proud of the team.
"I'm relieved we were able to run up there for a while at the end," she added. "We still have a lot of racing to do this season and I hope we can build on this momentum for the team. Tonight was a product of a lot of labor, that's for sure."
In the wake of her reported interest in NASCAR, the second major wave of Danica-mania broke out heading into the Nashville weekend. Before the race, Patrick spent most of her time in Tennessee trying to deflect all the attention back to the present, and her spirited fourth-place drive was the strongest possible statement she could have made to show her heart remains in open-wheel.
"As I was getting into the car, I was really nervous, and tonight proved yet again the more nervous I am, the better I do," Patrick admitted. "Those butterflies never feel good in your stomach but they seem to work for me. Once I'm out there, I don't think about anything anymore and it's a relaxing feeling. It's just me out there."
Now it's up to IRL founder Tony George to find a way -- several million ways, actually -- to keep her on board with the IndyCar Series.
"If we can run with these guys up in the front, we can get a win," Patrick stated. "Everything went smooth for us tonight and the fuel strategy played into our hands. It sure feels good to run with the leaders again and now I want to continue to do that for the rest of the year."
Dixon, the quiet New Zealander, has watched teammate Wheldon lead most of the laps and attract most of the attention in the Ganassi team this season. But the 2003 IndyCar Series champion showed he will be a formidable contender for another crown down the stretch if his performance at Nashville was an indication.
Dixon won the fuel-mileage game, running six laps longer than Wheldon during one green-flag stint, and he had just enough pace to stay in front at the end.
"Tonight was quite good for us," Dixon said. "We didn't have the quickest car, but we came away with the win. It's been hard for us to seal the deal this year, as we've made so many little mistakes. We've been confident we had the speed to do it on either side of the team.
"It's just finally come for me."
Wheldon led 115 of the first 123 laps and was the top driver in sequence after two rounds of pit stops. That was where Hornish dropped out of the race; he emerged from the pits just behind eventual third-place finisher Meira and his Dallara-Honda washed out into the Turn 2 wall as he sized up a passing move.
"I'm really angry at myself, because I've been saying that you can't get up into the marbles here and that's exactly what I did," said Hornish.
That left Dixon leading Wheldon for the last third of the race, and the order didn't change for the most part. Meira jumped up to second after the final restart, but Wheldon regained the position with 10 laps to go despite some dubious-looking blocking from the Panther car of Meira.
Once again Wheldon found himself explaining how a race he felt he should have won slipped away.
"It's great to get the first 1-2 in the IndyCar Series for Target Ganassi Racing, so I think everybody is happy," he said. "We had a very fast car but just came up a little short.
"I mean, any time you close the [championship] gap, that's good. Any time you make significant points on Sam, it's a good thing because he doesn't normally give them away."
Now it's on to the Milwaukee Mile, where Hornish won last year, controversially bumping teammate Castroneves out in the process.
Dixon and Wheldon said they both think they can maintain their Nashville momentum, while Patrick said she believes her season is back on track after a mini sophomore slump.
"Milwaukee was a strong event for me last year and it was by far the best race we had on a short oval," she said. "I'd like to think the most fierce driving I did last year was at Milwaukee. I pushed very hard."
John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.