The twenty-fifth running of the Honda Indy Toronto felt like a battle for survival for most of the day. The first to come out from the pile was the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi car of Dario Franchitti after overtaking Graham Rahal’s No. 38 Service Central car on Lap 71 and holding off his teammate in the No. 9 car, Scott Dixon, the rest of the way.

It was a big win for Target Chip Ganassi Racing with a solid 1-2 finish.  It was the thirtieth victory of Franchitti’s career and his third on the streets of Toronto.

“From the first time I competed here back in 1997, I have loved Canada,” Franchitti said.  “A lot of that had to do with Greg [Moore] and spending time with him and his family, I really got to know the Canadian people.  Whenever I come up here I always think of him and now it puts a smile on my face.”

The race did not come without plenty of controversy.  On Lap 56, the two front runners in the driver’s championship standings, the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car of Will Power and Franchitti tangled for position and ended up connecting with each other.  The contact turned Power’s car in the opposite direction and left Power steaming after he eventually got sidetracked later in the race by the No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins car of Canadian Alex Tagliani.

There was talk of a penalty for Franchitti and that it was later rescinded, but it was only found out in the post-race interview by race official Al Unser Jr. that no penalty was ever given to Franchitti.

“I always race him clean and he always races me dirty,” Power said. “He gets away with everything. IndyCar never penalizes him for anything.”

Franchitti admitted that he would share in 50 percent of the blame for the incident, but that it was just a racing incident and nothing more than that.  However, things got more heated after the race through social networking.  Power took to Twitter and called Franchitti a princess and thanked him for the tap.

For the rest of the field, there were plenty of bumps and bruises along the way. Andretti Autosport’s No. 28 DHL/Sun Drop car of Ryan Hunter-Reay gave a very good showing with a third place finish, equaling his result of the previous year in Toronto.  In a season that has had very little success for Hunter-Reay, he was very happy with his result.  Hunter-Reay’s third place result didn’t come without controversy either, as late in the race he knocked Graham Rahal out of a podium finish and well back in the pack with a thirteenth place finish.  Rahal was leading the race for a considerable amount of laps and was attempting to win in Toronto 25 years after his father Bobby won the city’s inaugural race.

Finishing fourth was Andretti Autosport’s No. 26 Team Dr. Pepper car of Marco Andretti.  Andretti started near the back of the pack in twentieth, but bumped his way up the field in a NASCAR-type manner ending the chances of multiple drivers late in the race including Justin Wilson, Oriol Servia, James Hinchcliffe, and Mike Conway.  In the end, that’s the type of wild race the narrow streets of Toronto has become, especially when none of the drivers give an inch.

As for the Canadians in the field, it was not a successful showing, due to the amount of crashes all three Canadian drivers were involved in.  Tagliani was involved in three separate incidents, while Paul Tracy managed to tangle in two of his own.  In one of the incidents on lap 38, it was James Hinchcliffe and Paul Tracy going neck-and-neck in a game of chicken where one would have to lose.  In the end, it was the rookie that prevailed and basically ended the day for the veteran Tracy.

Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe finished the top Canuck, driving his No. 06 Sprott/Newman-Haas Racing car to fourteenth place; the No. 8 Make-A-Wish Dragon Racing Car of Paul Tracy finished sixteenth; and Tagliani finished a distant twenty-third after a good showing in qualifying and throughout the race.

Cooler heads should prevail in the next few days, but Power will definitely be focused on victory when they take the series to Edmonton, AB in two weeks time in a potential must-win for Power if he hopes to stay in the driver’s championship race.