The Race Report.(auto racing)(Brief Article)

Gil de Ferran was standing in the infield after Saturday night's dominating Indy Racing League run at Richmond International Raceway when a sound blared over the loudspeakers. It was the replay of the radio man's frantic call of the last two laps of the race. De Ferran dropped his head; he didn't need to hear what he had just seen. ``I know exactly how it happened,'' he said. De Ferran had seemed on his way to his second-straight win in the series when Sam Hornish Jr. shot from virtually nowhere in the final 50 laps.

Hornish was seventh on the last restart but climbed up on de Ferran's rear wing with four laps to go. De Ferran, who led 168 laps, described himself as ``a sitting duck'' because his car was getting looser by the lap. Hornish capitalized, storming past on the next-to-last lap for his third win of the season (the sixth of his career).

So surprising was the late turn of events that Hornish, who crashed during Friday's practice and was sluggish early in the race, had to keep updating his expectations as his car improved. ``The way the race started I thought we might have a top-10 car,'' he said. ``As [it] progressed I thought maybe a top-five, then a top-three. At the end I was like, `I can win this.' ''

His margin of victory was 1.8323 ...