SPARTA, Ky. — Helio Castroneves wishes he and Scott Dixon would stop meeting like this.

Moments after Dixon passed Castroneves in the final yards to win the Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday, Castroneves climbed out of his Team Penske car and let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Every time he wins, I finish second,” Castroneves said. “Unfortunately, every time I finish second, he’s winning too.”

Dixon’s sixth win of the season, combined with Castroneves’ seventh runner-up finish, pushed Dixon’s lead over Castroneves in the IndyCar season championship race to 78 points with three stops left.

The Brazilian knows he’s going to need to show fancier footwork than anything he displayed on “Dancing with the Stars” to close the gap. Castroneves isn’t giving up, though it may take more than superb driving over the season’s final month to catch Dixon.

“I think I’m going to hire someone in Indianapolis to break his leg,” Castroneves said with a laugh before hastily clarifying himself. “Just joking. If it happens, it’s not me! I’m not that kind of person. I want to compete on the track.”

So do the other 24 drivers chasing Dixon.

Good luck with that.

Dixon was so dominant on Saturday — leading 151 of the 200 laps around the 1.5-mile oval — that Castroneves decided the only way to beat his rival was by going slower.

Castroneves pitted on yellow with 60 laps remaining and tried to stretch his fuel the rest of the way. He kept a light foot on the gas pedal, simply trying to keep up with traffic until the leaders were forced to pit for a splash-and-go.

The gamble almost paid off. Almost. Castroneves took the lead with six laps left when Dixon went in for a quick stop, then tried to hold on as Dixon scrambled to catch up.

Even as Dixon became an increasingly larger spot in Castroneves’ rearview mirror on the final lap, Castroneves figured he had just enough to take home his first victory of the season.

“When I was going into turn three, I thought, ‘I got it!’ Like I’m finally going to win this race,” he said. “And all of a sudden I’m coming out of turn four, all of a sudden the car just coughed.”

Castroneves was out of gas, and, much like he has all season, Dixon took advantage. He swept by Castroneves to take the checkered flag and move closer to the championship that eluded him last year when he lost to Dario Franchitti on the last lap of the last race.

“There is only one thing going right for one car only and that’s Scott Dixon,” Castroneves said. “Unfortunately for me, it’s not happening.”

Yet the perpetually optimistic Castroneves is hardly pouting. On a night when he didn’t have a particularly competitive car he still managed to reach the podium for the eighth time this year. If he’d opted for a more conservative pit strategy, he knows he would have struggled to finish on the lead lap.

“I was very happy because I would have finished sixth or eighth or 10th, and with a second place, it’s very good,” he said. “The championship, it ain’t over yet. We’ll still continue working hard.”

Hard work might not be enough. Even Dixon allows that his lead is “pretty healthy,” though he’s wary of getting too far ahead of himself.

“Definitely with Sonoma and Chicago and Belle Isle, tracks that those guys are very good at as well, we are going to make sure we don’t lose too many points,” Dixon said.

Then again, this is coming from the guy who’s lowest moment this season is a 22nd-place finish at St. Petersburg, one of two finishes outside the top five.

“Even when they make a mistake, they finish in the top 10,” Castroneves said.

Castroneves has been almost as consistent. His 12 top-five finishes are the equal of Dixon’s, but he’s spent most of the year playing the bridesmaid and is on the brink of the first winless season of his career.

“Hey, you’ve just got to say Scott is having a fantastic year,” he said.