KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – Sam Hornish Jr. celebrated his 27th birthday with his second straight Indy Racing League victory – and the season points lead.

Hornish blew past Dan Wheldon after a restart with 17 laps to go Sunday at Kansas Speedway, then won a back-and-forth battle down the stretch for his third victory of the season. He also extended his series record with his 17th career win.

“The last couple of laps were a little bit fun – but a little bit nervous too,” said Hornish, this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner.

Wheldon, the defending IRL champion, passed Hornish on the 197th lap of the 200-lap, 300-mile race. He was still narrowly ahead with two to go, but Hornish retook the lead in the white flag lap and held it until the end of the Kansas Lottery Indy 300.

Vitor Meira was third for the second straight year, his third straight top-three finish here.

But it was little consolation for the 29-year-old Brazilian, who extended one IRL record for futility and matched another.

Meira has not won in 53 career starts, extending his own record, and his 53-race winless streak matches the longest in league history. Robbie Buhl and Billy Boat also went 53 races without a win, but each of those streaks came after a victory.

He was followed in the top 10 by Scott Dixon, 2005 race winner Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves, Tomas Scheckter, Kosuke Matsuura, and rookies Marco Andretti and Jeff Simmons.

The race looked to be little more than a duel between Wheldon and Hornish, who started in the top two positions and held them for much of the day, until two late crashes tightened the field.

Hornish, starting second, moved ahead of Wheldon on the seventh lap and led until Dixon got out of the pits first in the 41st lap. Hornish was back ahead by lap 46 and held the top spot for much of the remainder of the race.

“I was just really surprised to get out of here with a win after the way that happened,” he said. “When you lead that many laps early, something tends to go wrong and you don’t end up winning.”

Wheldon retook the lead when Hornish pitted under green in the 149th lap and was still leading when Scott Sharp spun into the wall on lap 168.

Then, after Wheldon pulled away from the resulting restart with 25 laps to go, Buddy Rice hit the wall in turn four and brought out another caution.

“With the place as hot and slick as it is, as soon as I made a move, it made the car step out and it just got away,” said Rice, who edged Meira two years ago by 0.0051 seconds – the second-closest finish in series history. “We qualified ninth and were running between sixth and ninth all day, so this was just a disappointing finish to the day.”

Castroneves, who came in leading Hornish – his Marlboro Team Penske teammate – by five points, spun into the back wall in the 37th lap and knocked his rear wing loose. His crew was able to reattach and tighten it during subsequent pit stops, though, and Castroneves worked his way back through the pack to finish sixth.

After Castroneves’ crash, the race settled into a pattern: Hornish, Wheldon and Dixon up front, with Kanaan, Matsuura and Meira well back and contending for the fourth through sixth spots.

Castroneves and Scheckter caught up with the latter group in the 135th lap, and Castroneves moved up to fourth after a round of pit stops that started with about 50 laps to go. He was running fourth when Sharp crashed, but fell to eighth on the resulting restart.

AP-ES-07-02-06 1550EDT