Meira salvages day for Rahal/Panoz.

Lap 159 of Sunday's Toyota Indy 300 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway will go down as one of the most costly in the history of chassis manufacturers Panoz (G Force).

No less than half of the eight Panoz mounted drivers in the field came to grief in turn one at the same time with 40 laps remaining in Sunday's season opener and it was left to Rahal Letterman Racing's Vitor Meira to salvage some pride for both his manufacturer and his team.

Meira was the only member of the three-strong Rahal unit to see the chequered flag as he crossed the line in fourth place, following a three-wide race to the stripe with Sam Hornish Jr and Tony Kanaan.

Darren Manning was the only other Panoz runner to last all 200 laps and crossed the line in sixth place after escaping the lap 159 melee with only minor front wing damage.

"That was a wild race and a wild finish," said Meira. "I had to go to the third line and the car was sliding but I did get a run off the last corner. It was nice to finish the first race of the year."

Meira, who came from several seconds down to pass Helio Castroneves and then draw alongside Hornish and Kanaan in the final laps, was lucky to avoid the biggest IndyCar Series crash since Atlanta 2001. Not so lucky was his rookie teammate Danica Patrick who suffered a concussion after hitting Ed Carpenter, and then the back straight wall.

Also taken out in the melee was Manning's teammate Scott Dixon and Fernandez Racing teammates Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsuura. Matsuura, whose attempted three wide move on Sharp and Tomas Scheckter was widely criticised afterwards, apologised for the incident, which claimed a total of eight cars.

"It was a tough day," said the 2004 Bombardier Rookie of the Year.

Manning was never a front-runner, but was pleased to have avoided the same fate as that which befell Dixon and Chip Ganassi's newest addition, Aussie Ryan Briscoe.

"Sixth place is a solid result," said the Englishman. "We didn't quite have the speed but we did manage to avoid most of the accidents out there today."

Completing a largely miserable day for both Panoz and Rahal Letterman Racing was the early retirement of defending Indy 500 Champion Buddy Rice, who went out with a mechanical failure before the race reached half way.