Briscoe becomes first local Indy winner

Australian Ryan Briscoe has become the first hometown winner of the Gold Coast IndyCar race, as countryman Will Power's weekend unravelled with an error he called the worst of his career. Briscoe became the first Australian to win the race around the Surfers Paradise street circuit since its inception in 1991. The Team Penske driver drove a faultless race, holding off New Zealander Scott Dixon
and American Ryan Hunter-Reay to win the 60-lap race.

But Queenslander Power, the race favourite who had qualified on pole and dominated
every session this weekend, came unstuck on lap 17 while leading the race.
He clipped the wall going into a turn, damaging his suspension and sending him
nose-first into another wall to badly damage his Team Australia car and end his
race.
It was a third successive year of heartbreak for Power, who had qualified on pole
the previous two years only to crash out.
"The worst mistake of my career," Power said of his crash.
"I'm terribly disappointed. I just can't seem to win at this place." But there
was wild celebration for Briscoe.
The Sydney-born driver capped off an impressive year in Sunday's non-championship
race after a top five finish for the year in the IndyCar series.
The 27-year-old, a former Formula One test driver for Toyota, has driven US
open-wheelers for three of the past four years after returning to the unified
IndyCar series this season.
The only female driver in the field, Danica Patrick, had a nightmarish race.
After failing to post a qualifying lap yesterday and starting from the back of the
grid, she first damaged her car in a tangle with Helio Castroneves.
Then she found herself stopped on lap 22 by a three-car pile-up which didn't involve
her, but left her Andretti Green Racing car stranded across the track before she
could get herself going again.
She eventually finished 18th in the 24-car field.