Helio Castroneves wins Sonoma IndyCar race

After going 29 races without a win -- during which Castroneves was deprived of his signature victory celebration of scaling the grandstands fence -- the Brazilian won the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County on Sunday.

Castroneves won from the pole at the curvy Infineon Raceway road course, slashing Scott Dixon's lead in the title standings to 43 points from 78 with two races remaining.

A frustrated Dixon finished 12th.

After taking the checkered flag, the ebullient Castroneves got out of his red and white No. 3 Penske Racing car, climbed over a 4-foot-high gray metal fence in front of the grandstands and plunged into the crowd, which mobbed him with high-fives and pats on the helmet.

"It's been a long time," said Castroneves, 33, who led 51 of the race's 80 laps. "The car was superb. I was pushing it to the limit, there was nothing left out there."

Asked whether he scoped out the Infineon fence before the race, Castroneves admitted he had and that he told a cameraman to be ready after the race.

"It was just a positive attitude," he said.

Castroneves' teammate Ryan Briscoe, who started second, finished second to give Penske a 1-2 sweep. Tony Kanaan was third, Dan Wheldon fourth and Danica Patrick fifth.

The victory was Castroneves' first since he gained widespread fame as the co-winner of the "Dancing with the Stars" TV show last fall, and he joked that despite all the dancing, he still was out of breath after climbing the Infineon fence.

None of which was funny to the taciturn Dixon, a New Zealander known as the "Iceman." It was his second-worst finish in a season that has otherwise been stellar, with six victories and a dozen top-five finishes overall.

"It was definitely a bad day," said Dixon, who drives for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. "I guess we just need to shrug it off and come back strong next week.

"I'm not upset with anybody particularly, we just did absolutely nothing right."

The win was the 13th of Castroneves' career, and he now has at least one victory in 10 consecutive years.

Castroneves' wins include two Indianapolis 500 victories, but he has never won the series championship.

The Penske sweep Sunday was even more notable because the team arrived in California wine country at a disadvantage.