Jon Herb came into the Menards Infiniti Pro Series expecting race victories. So far, he's batting .500.

Herb, who has competed in partial Menards Infiniti Pro Series and IndyCar Series seasons the past five years, recorded his best-ever result with a third place at the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway. On March 19, Herb won the Phoenix 100 by .7052 of a second over Chris Festa in an event shortened 10 laps by Indy Racing League officials because of time constraints.

Herb, starting fourth in the No. 6 AERCON Dallara/Infiniti/Firestone, passed pole sitter Travis Gregg on a Lap 20 restart after the second of five caution periods and held on in the day of attrition. Half of the 14 cars that took the green flag finished the race.

Herb, 34, won owns the Racing Professionals team, recorded top-10 finishes in two of his three Menards Infiniti Pro Series races last year. In a handful of IndyCar Series events, he has a best finish of ninth at Texas Motor Speedway in 2001.

"I got a good start initially and got up to second before the caution," said Herb, who plans to compete in the full 14-race Menards Infiniti Pro Series season. "Then I got a good restart on Travis, and we seemed to have a better car than those guys on the longer runs. Towards the end, lap traffic was an issue, but Chris Festa did a good job keeping behind me and making me stay on my game."

"It wasn't as easy as I'd like to have it, but I'll take it anyway I can get it."

Festa, who also started in Row 2 in the No. 19 SpacePak/CareCentric/Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry, closed to .5858 of a second behind Herb with one lap remaining but couldn't steal the victory. Festa finished 10th in the opener after being involved in an accident.

"Once we got going, Jon and I were keeping a pretty steady pace," said Festa, a series rookie. "Every time I'd get up close to him, he'd be a little bit better in turn 3 than I was and I would lose everything I gained. I'd have to spend the next 10 laps getting it back every time."

"But, all in all, it was a really good race for us. Congratulations to Jon."

Wade Cunningham, who started ninth in the No. 33 Visit New Zealand entry for Brian Stewart Racing, was the only other car on the lead lap and finished third. He was fourth at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"We had a really bad qualifying run," said Cunningham, also a rookie. "We were really, really struggling with the car. We made a lot of changes overnight. We didn't have the outright pace today to run up the front."

"Before the first-lap spins happened, we were running pretty good. We picked up spots every restart and just held it and drove a reasonably conservative race just to come home third."

Contact between the cars of Jay Drake, P.J. Chesson and Marty Roth on the green flag lap brought out the pace car again. As the field approached the start-finish line for the restart, the No. 1 car of Jaime Camara spun in Turn 4, collecting the No. 24 car driven by Jeff Simmons.

Herb's pass of Gregg on the restart mark the first laps led this season by a driver other than Gregg, who captured the Homestead 100.

Racing lasted 12 laps before the No. 91 car driven by Mishael Abbott made contact with the SAFER Barrier in Turn 2. Again, as the field was approaching the line for the restart, Gregg's spin in Turn 4 knocked out the No. 3 car of Al Unser. Gregg's Sam Schmidt Motorsports team replaced the crumpled nose-wing assembly and he returned to the race to finish sixth.

"It was an unavoidable incident," Unser said. "Travis spun on that restart. We clipped him, and we had one of those weekends. I'm glad I got that one out of the way. I'm ready to move onto St. Pete, and let's go get them. I'm tired of this running in the back stuff."