Sam Hornish triumphed at an incident-packed IRL Sun Trust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday.

Hornish passed Gil de Ferran with less than two laps remaining and held on to take his third win of the season.

The defending champion's victory came in a race which saw numerous contenders crash out.

Driving a Dallara-Chevrolet, Hornish beat de Ferran by 1.8323 seconds. Felipe Giaffone was third, followed by South African Tomas Scheckter.

Their four-way dice over the final 30 laps kept the result in doubt until the end.

Of the 250 laps, 94 were run under caution.

Pit lane fire

IRL points leader Helio Castroneves spun on the eighth lap and hit a wall, but later returned to the race, 148 laps down.

Billy Boat spun and crashed on the backstretch on lap 31 and Scott Sharp crashed in the fourth turn 10 laps later. George Mack crashed on lap 56, just one lap after a restart.

Defending race champion Buddy Lazier was black-flagged for flames and smoke coming out of his exhaust.

When he came into the pits, the crew refuelled the car and a huge pit fire erupted on lap 93.

Lazier was pulled out of his car by crew members and safety workers.

Redon unscathed

Laurent Redon led for a while, but his victory bid ended when he pitted out of sequence and was back in the field and he was involved in a big crash in the fourth turn when Eddie Cheever spun on the 182nd lap.

Redon's car became airborne and crashed into the fence.

Neither driver was injured.

Results:

1. Sam Hornish jnr, 250 laps in 1hr 53min 29sec (Avg speed 99.124mph)
2. Gil de Ferran (Bra), at 1.832sec
3. Felipe Giaffone (Bra), 250 laps completed
4. Tomas Scheckter (Rsa), 250
5. Al Unser jnr, 250
6. Airton Dare (Bra), 250
7. Richie Hearn, 250
8. Jeff Ward, 249
9. Robby McGehee, 247
10. Alex Barron, 246
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