Franchitti escaped uninjured from his overturned machine, while Wheldon, Scheckter and Carpenter also escaped serious injury despite their cars being eliminated. Dixon and Hornish had heavily damaged machines and made only brief returns to the track, while Foyt made it to lap 168 to claim eighth before joining his rivals in retiring with 'handling problems'.
With returnees Jon Herb and Milka Duno precipitating a retirement list that also included unrelated crash victims Vitor Meira, Helio Castroneves, Sarah Fisher and Darren Manning - the Briton and Castroneves receiving minor leg injuries - Kanaan was left to take a record-breaking 29th Indycar Series win for Andretti Green Racing, and his third success of an up-and-down season.
"First of all, I want to thank all the fans who stayed around the whole day for the race - from a fan standpoint, they had a lot of action," the Brazilian commented.
"Thank God I was behind at that point [of the accident]. I got chopped off by someone and ended up in the back, so I was behind the whole thing. For the first time, it paid off to be nearly last. I was thinking it was going to be a good day when it was either going to be me or [Andretti] who was going to win the race. I held my line and he tried on the outside a few times, but I think I had a little bit faster car. We played well - and that is the beauty of having good team-mates."
Andretti finished second, matching his season-best finish, admitting that he didn't have the pace to challenge the winner.
"The balance was really good, but the car was just way too slow," he lamented, "We came in and took the diffuser off and went all the way to the back of the field. That made a difference for us. We just didn't have enough speed like we had in a big pack at the end to get by TK."
Scott Sharp came through the carnage to finish a season-high third in the #8 Patron Rahal Letterman Racing car, happy with pre-race decisions taken by his team.
