KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Danica Patrick didn’t lead a lap Sunday during the Argent Mortgage Indy 300 at the Kansas Speedway, but the female sensation made enough of a move late in the race to provide another chapter for her storybook season.

The story of the race, though, came with another photo finish, when Tony Kanaan held off Andretti Green Racing teammate Dan Wheldon by taking the high side of the 1.5-mile track to win the 200-lap race by .0120 seconds, the sixth-closest race in Indy Racing League history.

“The biggest nose won,” joked the Brazilian Kanaan, who compared his own schnoz to the front of his green No. 11 Team 7-Eleven race car.

While most of the talk at the Speedway this weekend swirled around Rahal Letterman Racing’s 1-2-3 qualifying effort – especially the pole-sitting Patrick, who became just the second female to win an IRL pole – Kanaan said his team’s 1-2 finish certainly changed the subject.

Tony Kanaan, in No. 11 car, pumps his fist after crossing the finish line just .0120 seconds ahead of Dan Wheldon (26). Vitor Meira (17) came in third. The margin of victory Sunday at Kansas Speedway was the sixth-closest in Indy Racing League history.

“You guys wanted Danica to win? Sorry, you got to wait until next time,” said Kanaan, who also held off a late burst by Vitor Meira, who flew by both Kanaan and Wheldon under the white line at the finish, but had to settle for third, .0242 seconds back.

“I don’t hear anybody talking about Rahal Letterman now, so who cares? They can talk all they want,” continued Kanaan, last year’s IRL champ who won his first race since July. “The race is finished when the checkered flag drops, and now they’re going to have to talk about us.”

But there still were plenty of Patrick supporters among the capacity crowd, especially when she moved up to third in the last 10 laps before settling for a ninth-place finish.

“It would have been nice to finish up front, where I think the car was fast enough to finish, but I worked so hard today,” said Patrick, who was plagued by mechanical problems and bad pit stops. “I basically raced side-by-side for 200 laps. I did all that I could.”

Argent Mortgage Indy 300 winner Tony Kanaan shows off his hardware in Victory Lane.

So, too, did the current IRL points leader Wheldon, but still didn’t have enough speed to get past Kanaan at the end.

“I love Tony to bits. I’m glad he beat me instead of somebody else, but losing like this is difficult to take,” said Wheldon, who, though slow most of the weekend, overcame his 13th qualifying position to lead 111 laps of the three-caution race.

“But it’s one of those Kansas things. When somebody’s on the high side, they can get you, as Tony did,” continued Wheldon, whose points lead over Kanaan decreased to 75. “I don’t know that we found any more speed. I think other people lost some speed today.”

Meira knows all about close calls at Kansas, too, suffering another heartbreaking finish Sunday.

“I have lost the last two races (at Kansas) by about four feet and under .03 of a second,” said Meira, who in last season’s race lost to RLR teammate Buddy Rice by only .0051 seconds – the second-closest IRL finish. “If I could keep my foot down and on the inside, it’s a little downhill, so that was my only shot.”

Pole-winner Danica Patrick buckles herself in her helmet before competing in the Argent Mortgage Indy 300. Patrick battled mechanical difficulties and placed ninth Sunday.

Rice had his shot at a back-to-back victories expire when he pitted on Lap 196.

“We tried to save fuel for the end and hoped for a yellow flag,” said Rice, who qualified second behind Patrick. “With one yellow lap, we could have stolen the race.”

Many people felt Patrick – who made history at Indianapolis in May when she became the first female driver in 89 years to lead the world’s most famous auto race, and also had the best finish by a woman when she took fourth – was poised to win her first career race at the Speedway because of its long straight-aways, which seem to favor the RLR team.

Instead, Patrick gave up her No. 1 spot on the first lap when Rice passed her after a gearing situation.

“On the start, there’s nothing I could have done. It was foot to the floor. I couldn’t run fourth gear, and fifth gear was so long that everyone passed me,” said Patrick, who at one point ran into engine problems and nearly wrecked on pit road when her crew forgot to tell her it had turned off her traction control.

“As far as on the track, I felt like I had a really great car,” she continued. “That’s why I was so frustrated after it was over.

“Overall, we struggled in the pits today. We had a fast car. We did our homework. We worked hard. We got a fast car for the race. There was just a few things that went wrong here and there. When you add up a few things, this is where you end up.”

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Team owner Michael Andretti said he knew watching the last few laps that his two cars would finish fine.

“It was a good feeling, actually, because it’s a little bit of reverse deja vu, where Rahals were running 1-2 in that same position, and Tony was running in Vitor’s position,” Andretti said of last year’s race. “We knew Tony was in a helpless position last year, so we knew where Vitor was this year.

“Pretty much you felt that if everything went the way it’s supposed to go, we were going to win it, either Tony or Dan. It was where we wanted to be.”