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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Only weeks after winning an emotional tax evasion trial Helio Castroneves scored a stirring third career victory in the Indianapolis 500 Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Castroneves started from the pole and stayed near the front of the field throughout the 93rd running of "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" to take the victory and follow-up his back-to-back victories in 2001 and 2002.

"This is incredible," Castroneves said after composing himself in victory lane. "I think my tears speak for everything. What a great team. I just have to thank, first of all, the Lord for giving me this opportunity, to be strong, to have a family that I have. I have to thank Roger (Penske), Tim (Cindric), my guys...everybody because they gave me my life back."

The victory gave team owner Roger Penske his record setting 15th career Indianapolis 500 win.

Castroneves cruised to a comfortable win over former 500 winner Dan Wheldon with the margin of victory nearly two seconds.

And to the thunderous roar of the crowd, Castroneves performed his trademark "Spiderman" routine climbing the frontstretch fence in celebration.

Danica Patrick came home third in another impressive Indy run for the Andretti-Green Racing driver.

Townsend Bell and Will Power rounded out the top five.

Defending race winner Scott Dixon was sixth with Dario Franchitti, Ed Carpenter, Paul Tracy and Hideki Mutoh completing the first ten finishers.

The race was punctuated by a number of hard crashes including one on the opening lap between Marco Andretti and Mario Moraes.

"The kid doesn’t get it, and he never will,” Andretti said pointing his finger at Moraes for the incident. “He’s just clueless out there.”

Moraes, who started seventh, had a different view of the incident.

“I know the 26 hit me, OK? I was in front,” he said. “I was holding my line, and he just hit me. I don’t know from where.”

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who worked his way into the field in last Sunday's "Bump Day" drama had an early exit when he crashed on lap 20, an incident that ended with his battered car sliding down pit road.

“It was completely my fault,” Hunter-Reay said. “I think A.J. (Foyt IV) was having some handling problems. I slowed down too much, and I was just following too close. Once I got into his wake, I was just a passenger.”

Another one involving second generation driver Graham Rahal, who for the second straight year ended his day in a crash when he hit the wall on lap 56, also set off some harsh words.

"We all caught traffic, basically. Milka (Duno) got in front of me, and she was absolutely clueless," said Rahal. "She would go low like she was going to let everybody by, but then she’d go fast enough where you can’t get by her. She would come out on track and run you real tight. I tried to go half a car width up in (Turn) 4 and it just went straight. Same thing I had last year. I’m really upset and disappointed."

An estimated crowd of 300,000, the largest in more than a decade at the speedway, turned out for Sunday's race.

The Indy Racing League now heads to The Milwaukee Mile next Sunday afternoon.

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