Danica Patrick notched her only IndyCar victory on Japanese soil, and for a while it looked like Japanese teammate Hideki Mutoh might claim his first victory in Richmond. The Andretti Green teammates were one and two for a short while, but a pit strategy that had them zigging while the rest of the field zagged left Mutoh in an unlucky fourth, with Patrick right behind him.

After a month of driving into walls, Tony Kanaan couldn’t be happier to see Richmond. The IndyCar veteran has suffered from horrible luck recently, and things didn’t improve last week, as he crashed in Iowa for the third consecutive year, causing him to wonder whether he was Bill Murray in the movie “Groundhog Day.“ If he is, that won’t be a problem this weekend—Kanaan is the defending champion in the SunTrust Indy Challenge, and his last tour victory came last year at RIR.