DESTINY'S CHILD: Part 2 of 2; Sam Hornish Jr. wins an Indy thriller.

Byline: CURT CAVIN

The race will be remembered for the way Hornish zoomed past 19-year-old Marco Andretti on the final straightaway, but it was won when Penske called Hornish back to the pits for more fuel during an earlier 13-lap caution period. That allowed Hornish to go the remaining distance without stopping, something the other front-runners could not do.

When the race restarted, Hornish and fellow nozzle-breaker Townsend Bell came down pit road at 60 mph to serve penalties handed down by chief steward Brian Barnhart. Hornish returned to speed nearly a lap behind the leaders, so he turned the fuel mixture back to conserve and maintained a consistent pace.

Wheldon, Tony Kanaan, Andretti and Dario Franchitti darted to the pits for more fuel, and then Felipe Giaffone slapped the wall on lap 191, allowing the final shootout to take shape.

Michael Andretti led the restart followed by three lapped cars, then Marco, Scott Dixon and Hornish.

For a few minutes, a crowd in excess of 250,000 sensed that Michael Andretti was on the verge of a storybook return to the 500. He hadn't driven an Indy car in three years, but his family's heartbreaks at the Speedway are infamous. This was Andretti's 15th 500, the first alongside his son.

But on lap 197, Marco blew past his father on the outside of Turn One, a move that brought back memories of Mears' pass of the same Andretti to win the 1991 race. Michael considered blocking, but he realized that it would have hurt both of them, and his son clearly had the faster car. Michael then turned his attention to slowing Hornish, who was running his fuel mixture full rich for the first time since the pit-road debacle.