Another heartbreaker for Scheckter.

For the third time this year, Indy Racing League rookie Tomas Scheckter led more laps than any other driver, only to drop out of contention because of a late race mishap whilst seemingly on course for a maiden IRL win.

Scheckter led four times for a total of 101 laps of the Ameristar Casino Indy 200 on Sunday and appeared to be cruising towards both his and Infiniti's first win of 2002 with ten laps to go when a flat tire caused him to crash in turn two.

Scheckter, who earned his second career IRL pole on Saturday at Kansas, also led more laps than any other driver at the Indianapolis 500 and Texas. In both events he went out of the race while leading. At Indy he had an accident and at Texas the clutch failed on the final pit stop.

On this occasion a deflating tyre and possible oil on the track combined to thwart the young South African driver who was eventually classified 15th.

Eddie Cheever Jr., who qualified third, ran in the top three for the first stint of the race but dropped back after the first pit stop because of poor handling. He had a lengthy pit stop before the halfway point of the race to repair a steering problem. He finished the race 16th.

"It's disappointing," understated Scheckter. "We just can't seem to get a break. We had an unbelievable weekend with winning the pole and leading so many laps. It was a perfect race up to the last ten laps. We improved our pit stops over the course of the race. I thought it was mine as soon as I took the lead after the last stop. We had a good car the whole race.

"With ten laps to go I had low tire pressure in the right rear. It deflated and there was no way I could control the car. I have to thank the Red Bull Cheever team. They have done a great job all weekend. And TWR Engines gave us great power here at Kansas with the Infiniti engine. Firestone has given us good tires all year. We just ran into some bad luck today."

Cheever was less talkative after recording his sixth finish of 15th or worse in nine races. "It was a horrible race," said the owner of the Red Bull Cheever Racing team. "There is not much to talk about. At the beginning the car was undriveable. Then the steering just blocked. We fixed the problem with the steering and then made some set-up changes. The car was fine after that, but we were several laps down by then. I just stayed out of the way of the leaders, so we could take the chequered flag and earn some points."

With just six races left on the 2002 schedule, Cheever and Scheckter are 13th and 15th respectively in the points standings.