Franchitti started on pole at Fort Worth but had to settle for second ahead of Americans Alex Barron and Sam Hornish and Mexico's Adrian Fernandez.

Kanaan passed team-mate Dan Wheldon on a restart with 13 laps remaining and collected his second win in five races.

He now leads Wheldon by 35 points in the points standings, with Brazil's Helio Castroneves a further 29 adrift.

Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice is two points behind Castroneves and England's Darren Manning, who finished eighth, 20 behind Rice.

Kanaan and Rice duelled for most of the night at the Texas Motor Speedway until an incident with 20 laps remaining.

The cars of Rice and Manning touched and Hornish's car grazed the outer wall.

A broken drive shaft ended Rice's race.

Fernandez knocked the car of series champion Scott Dixon into the air as they both left the pits and the New Zealander was forced to retire.

Andretti-Green teammates Kanaan, Franchitti and Wheldon led at the crucial restart on lap 187 out of 200.

But Wheldon slowed with a gearbox failure and Kanaan sped into the lead with Franchitti in pursuit.

"I almost went past Tony on the restart but when I realised I couldn't catch him I just wanted to keep it single file," said Franchitti.

Kanaan said: "The only way to win a championship is to win races. That's what I'm concentrating on now."

English rookie Mark Taylor crashed on lap 124 just moments after Scott Sharp blew an engine.