SPARTA, Ky. (AP) Felipe Giaffone had to fight for his first career victory.

Giaffone, who has finished in the Top 10 in all but four of his 25 starts in the Indy Racing League, held off the fast-closing Sam Hornish Jr. to win the Belterra Casino Indy 300 on Sunday.

"The car was really good. Let's go for the next one. The championship is very open," said Giaffone, the ninth winner in 12 IRL races this season and a Top 10-finisher for the 10th straight race.

"It was one of those weekends when everything works great. We had a great car, and even in the warmups I said, `We don't have to change a thing."'

First place paid $125,200 from a purse of $1.053 million.

During practice for an Infiniti Pro Series race at the Kentucky Speedway earlier in the day, Actor Jason Priestley's race car crashed head-on into a wall at nearly 180 mph, breaking his back and leaving him in serious condition with a head injury.

The former "Beverly Hills 90210" television star was flown to the University of Kentucky Medical Center with a spinal fracture in the middle of his back and a closed head injury, as well as broken bones in both feet, Indy Racing League medical director Henry Bock said.

Giaffone, whose best previous finish was second at Texas last year and at Nazareth, Pa., in April, led the final 39 laps on the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway tri-oval after the leaders made their final pit stops for fuel.

Hornish dropped to third as the race seemed to come down to a battle between Giaffone and Buddy Lazier, the two-time defending race winner. But Hornish passed Lazier for second place with four laps to go and pulled within 0.041 second of Giaffone going into the final lap.

The 27-year-old Brazilian was able to pull around slower traffic and beat Hornish to the checkered flag by 0.0932 second. Hornish won $82,050 for second place.

"Sam showed he had a strong car," Giaffone said. "And that was my question: Is that it, or does he have something left? For sure, my car was great, but he could manage to run behind me, side-by-side, everywhere."

Lazier was third, followed by Scott Sharp, Helio Castroneves and Al Unser Jr., who missed the past two races while undergoing treatment for alcohol abuse.

"We had something for him," Hornish said of his challenge for the lead in the closing laps. "Too bad we came up on that lap traffic. It made it a little bit rough."

Lazier, whose brief lead midway through the race was his first since he won here a year ago, said he didn't have enough power to get by Giaffone late in the race.

"I'd get a run on him, and he did a good job defending. My only chance at the end was lap traffic hopefully clogging up the first two guys and I'd get a run on them, but I didn't quite have the legs for him."

Sarah Fisher, the first woman to start from the pole in a major racing series, led the first 26 laps and finished eighth.

Fisher appeared dominant at the start and began pulling away from the field before a crash by Richie Hearn brought out the first yellow.

All the leaders then made pit stops, with Billy Boat coming out first for the lead. Fisher, whose crew made a chassis adjustment as well as a tire change, fell to 11th before the green came out again.

Hearn, meanwhile, was taken to the infield hospital with a broken right foot, and Gil de Ferran - who came into the race as the series points leader - lost precious time in the pits for repairs after his car made contact with Hearn's car.

De Ferran finished 21st, 28 laps behind Giaffone, and fell to third in the IRL standings. Hornish now leads the series with 399 points, just four points ahead of Castroneves. De Ferran has 386 points and Giaffone is next with 382 - a margin of 17 points separating the top four with three races left this season.

Hornish, 22, won the IRL championship last year, becoming the youngest winner of a major open-wheel racing series.

Giaffone, who started third in Sunday's 25-car field, took the lead on the 60th lap while the rest of the leaders came in for pit stops at the second yellow, to clear debris from the track. The same strategy put rookie Will Langhorne briefly in the lead at the midway point of the race, but he was immediately passed by a line of cars on the restart and wound up a distant 18th.

Fisher, turning laps at more than 220 mph, began closing on the leaders and moved into second with a pass of Hornish on the 145th of the 200 laps. Hornish went around her on the next lap, however, and passed Giaffone a few laps later.

Giaffone regained the lead on lap 162 and stayed in front the rest of the way, averaging 149.024 mph for the 300-mile race.

The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.