WHELDON WINS INDY 500
By Joe Shivak
Speedway, IN ( May 29 )……….Dan Wheldon drove his #98 William Rast- Curb/Big Machine Records car past the wrecked machine of JR Hildebrand in the final 100 feet of the Indianapolis 500 race. The #4 Panther Racing car of Hildebrand had just smacked the wall in the final turn of the 200 lap race and was limping to the finish line with his car mangled and hugging the outside retaining wall. The rookie driver from California had misjudged the slower lapped car of Charlie Kimball, another rookie starter, in turn 4 which sent him high on the track and into the SAFER barrier wall.
"I caught him in the wrong piece of track," Hildebrand said. "I got up in the marbles and that was it." He explained what he did after getting out of the race grove "After I hit the wall, I was not slowing down to the start/finish line. Obviously, I got to the point that I couldn't steer it anymore. I was making every effort at that point to try to lessen the blow."
This marked the second Indy 500 victory for Weldon who won the race in 2005 for Andretti - Green Motorsports. In last year's race, Weldon drove the #4 National Guard Team car to a second place finish, but was replaced this season by Hildebrand. He made a one race deal to drive in the 500 for Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb/Agajanian.
"I just felt a lot of relief. It's an incredible feeling," Wheldon said. "I never gave up." He added. "My emotions, I didn't have any. Right up until the point that I passed JR, I didn't. I was so focused. It was one of those races where it was so competitive that you had to be on your game. And the wind seemed to be getting under the front of my car. If I wasn't on the same line every time at turn three, I would have to lift. I was catching bears, I wasn't focused on what was going on in front. I had the run on her through Turn 3 and 4, then pulled out. When I saw him crash, I mean, I knew it wasn't serious. As soon as I knew it was not serious, there was a little smile on my face, I will say. From that point, it was just making sure that I didn't do anything silly. Then I think I got on the radio and started crying. I'm not normally that emotional. But having been through what we've been through, being able to deliver this for everybody is certainly very gratifying. Proud of everybody. In terms of what it will do for the future, it will make me a happier person on the beach. In terms of more races, you'll have to ask these guys."
Graham Rahal would finish third with Tony Kanaan fourth and Scott Dixon in the fifth position.
Regarding the race, Rahal said, "Obviously, I feel great about it. At the same time if it were two laps longer, I'd probably be drinking milk right now. I mean, I feel great about what my guys did today. Someone just told me we passed 67 cars today and didn't win. I mean, both guys finished ahead of me, I passed Hildebrand probably four times today and I passed Wheldon once. We knew we had probably one of the best cars out there. At the end, we were running probably a little bit too much downforce to do some of those big numbers, which is why Dixon passed me after that last restart. I didn't quite have the pace out front. But in traffic, I was as good as anybody. It feels great, to be honest. My Service Central guys did a fantastic job all day staying levelheaded. We went down a lap with 70 laps to go, got the wave-around. That took us from fifth back to 17th. We worked our way all the way back up.
I mean, it feels really good to be sitting where we are right now."
"We had a problem on a pit stop because of somebody else. We had a good car. We drove hard all day. It was a lot of fun. I am surely happy for Dan (Wheldon). He's been through a lot. He got thrown out the window. A lot of people said that he wasn't good enough. I've been through that at the end of last year. I didn't have the car to win. It was a good race for us. I'm happy for the KV guys. You have to remember, five days before the race (season opener in St. Petersburg), we didn't have a team." Kanaan said.
Dixon voiced his disappointment, "Between Dario (Franchitti) and myself, we had this one pretty well covered. This is one of those places where it's tough to win. We went on a bit of a run fuel-wise late in the race, and that's what paid off for us last year. The yellow came a lot later. We short-fueled, and why we short-fueled, I don't know. We stopped 10 laps later than anybody else on any strategy, there's no way we should run out of fuel. My car was pretty quick. When we were up front, we were burning the left front tire off early in the race. We finally made a few changes near the end, and the car was pretty good. It just didn't go our way. I definitely leave here thinking that I should have won my second '500.'"
The race was dominated by the Target Chip Ganassi team mates Dixon and Dario Franchitti but in the end boiled down to fuel mileage, as the leaders needed to adjust their usage affecting their track speeds. Hildebrand had last pitted on lap 164, while Wheldon was able to pit on lap 177 along with Rahal and a lap later Oriol Servia pitted, all under green flag conditions.
"I knew we were really tight on fuel coming to the end, and the spotters were in my ear saying, 'The guys are coming and they're coming hard,'" Hildebrand said. "We had to conserve a little fuel and the tires were coming to the end of their stint. I was hanging a little on to get the thing around. I made a judgment call catching up on the 83 (Kimball ) and I thought I don't really want to slow down behind him and pull out on the straightaway, and I've been able to make this move on the outside before and so I went to the high side and because it was at the end of the stint I got up in the marbles and that was it."
The race was slowed seven times for accidents for a total of 40 laps. There were no serious injuries. The lead changed 23 times among 10 different drivers.
The first caution came out on lap 22 when Takuma Sato hit the outside wall in turn 1 with his #5 machine. His team mate E.J. Viso would also bring out a caution for an incident in the same turn. Jay Howard was responsible for a yellow flag when he lost a rear tire right after making a pit stop and his car stopped on the inside of the track in turn 2. The fourth caution was credited to James Hinchcliffe who's #06 hit the wall in the short cute between turns 3 and 4. Caution five was for a brush with the wall by pole sitter Alex Tagliani who made contact with the outside wall in turn 4. The sixth caution flew for an accident involving Ryan Briscoe and Townsend Bell who wrecked in turn 1. The final caution was on the final lap for Hildebrand accident.
Dixon jumped to the lead by turn 1 on the three abreast start. The pole sitter Tagliani would take the lead on lap 8 as the cars would run single file and snake their way down the long Indy straightaways. Franchitti would make his way up to fifth after starting ninth, while Wheldon and Bell showed they both had strong race cars. Simona de Silvestro, the highest qualified female driver, would be the first car to brush the wall, and she would pit for repairs ending her day. Paul Tracy would also brush the wall and he would pit for a long repair, putting him many laps down to the field which was racing under green.
The first caution on lap #22 allowed the field to pit for fuel and tires. Tagliani would exit the pits first with the lead followed by Dixon, Bell, Servia and Franchitti. Will Power would have a problem on his stop as his Penske Team crew failed to get the left rear tire securely on and he would loose the wheel just a few feet after leaving his pit box. The tire would roll into the pit of the #67 Dollar General Team as Power continued out on the track with just three wheels. He would return to his pit on the next lap.
The restart would test the new double file restart procedure. Dixon would take the lead on the restart as Tagliani misjudged the restart speed. The yellow light would come on again for a crash in turn 1 when Viso, Hinchcliffe and Rahal would try to go three wide into the first turn. Viso would spin to the inside grass and then into the outside wall receiving heavy damage to the right side of the car. The two other drivers were able to continue. The wreck meant that two cars of the KV Racing Team were retired within a short time frame.
Viso explained from his side of the wreck, "I was running with Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe, and I believe that James Hinchcliffe missed a gear and he lost his momentum out of Turn 4. Graham Rahal went on the inside, and I went on the outside. Then when we were approaching Turn 1, I got hit on my rear left tire and it spun me."
Dixon would lead on lap #34 while Franchitti continued his march to the front. On lap #44, he would move to the second spot making Ganassi Racing 1-2 in the running order. On lap #50, with 25% of the race completed, the Ganassi team mates would be up front followed by Weldon, Tagliani and Bell. When the third caution came out and the leaders pitted, Ed Carpenter would lead making the race's fourth different leader in the Dollar General #67. With the pits still closed, some of the cars still had to pit to avoid running out of fuel, including the Go Daddy #7 of Danica Patrick. The race would restart on lap #71.
Ryan Hunter-Reay would brush the wall in his #41 ABC Supply, DHL/ Sun Drop car but there was no caution. The cars of Dixon , Franchitti, Tagliani , Wheldon and Bell would run in the top 5 as Dixon would stretch out his lead to a three second margin, the largest of the race so far. Wheldon and Bell would pit on lap #98 while Tagliani would pit a lap later. Dixon would pit at the half way lap, while Franchitti pitted the next lap just as the fourth caution waves for the Hinchcliffe crash. Hildebrand would be the new leader for his first time as the fastest rookie qualifier for the #4 Panther Racing Team.
The race would be slowed by the single car crash by Hinchcliffe. It restarted on lap #108 and produced some four wide racing coming out of turn 4. Franchitti's #10 would lead Servia's #2 but they would swap positions on lap #113 , making Servia the sixth different leader as Marco Andretti moves into the fourth spot. Andretti was the last car to qualify for the race on Bump Day having a problem finding the necessary speed all month. He claimed to have a good race car, but just not a fast car. The fourteenth different lead change occurred on lap #130 when Franchitti re-passed Servia.
Pole sitter Tagliani would go a lap down to the leaders on lap #136 while running in the sixteenth position. Franchitti would pit the next lap followed a lap later by Dixon. The leader would now be Bertrand Baguette, his first time leading the race followed by Hildebrand and Kimball. Once we cycled thru green flag pit stops, Franchitti would be at the point. Tagalina's team took off a small piece of paneling, allowing more air to cool the engine. "Tag" would however hit the wall a few laps later bringing out a caution flag. Andretti who was running fourth, makes a pit stop. Kanaan moves into the top five for the first time.
Tagliani explained his 500 mile race, ""The Bowers & Wilkins 77 car was fairly competitive early in the race. I can't thank enough my team. They did a fantastic job all month long. We had a really good, balanced car early on. It was nice to drive it. Then all of the sudden, it became very loose. I couldn't really get it back on track, you know, with all the tools I had in the car. So we were struggling with a very nervous car. In one of our pit stops, we thought we fixed it, but we didn't. It's a shame, because early on the car was so good I thought we had a shot at it all race long. But we kind of lost the car at some point; very curious. When the car became loose, I don't think we were going to become a threat for Dario (Franchitti) and Scotty (Dixon). It was a shame, because early on I think we had something for them. It's something we're going to have to look at. I don't know why exactly the car became loose."
The cars were slow to restart and Bell has a problem in a gaggle of cars coming down the front stretch. He looses several spots and then makes contact with Briscoe going into the first turn as they bumped wheels as both drivers wanted the same spot and then both make contact with the outside wall locked together. Helio Castroneves, Briscoe's Penske team mate had a right rear tire blow out in turn 3 at about the same time as the accident. He would come to pit row with the rim only. Franchitti would pit on lap 165 for what he thought would be his last stop.
Bell described the wreck, "It's a shame. The Herbalife 24 car was competitive here, running up front. I've got to see the replay, but it seems like somebody hit me in my left rear, I think it was Ryan. I saved it in Turn 1 and whammo, it got me again and pinned me in the wall."
Briscoe said, "I saw Townsend brush the wall in Turn 4. Everyone was going down the inside. I was just following through on the inside into Turn 1. I just think he didn't know I was there, and he just came down and pinched me. As soon as we made contact, the wheels interlocked. And that was it."
On the lap #166 restart, Rahal would become the eighth different leader as Thomas Scheckter moves to fourth ahead of Kanaan. The lead group of cars would take turns pitting under green , giving the lead to Danica Patrick. She would lead 10 laps, but would have to pit soon for fuel. With 12 laps to go, Baguette would pass Patrick in turn 1. Patrick pits on lap #190 for fuel and tires, while her team mate Andretti pits also, The two cars race down pit row, with Patrick ahead. Hildebrand would pass Franchitti for the second spot on the track, as his #10 begins to slow low on fuel. When Baguette pits with three laps left, Hildebrand becomes the race's leader. Franchitti, the defending race winner, would pit on lap #199 for a splash of fuel. He had led 51 laps and was running in the second spot on lap #195.
Patrick sums up her day, "That's what you have to do here at Indy; you have to take that chance because it's win or bust here, for the most part. While it's great to have top-five finishes every weekend, Indy is about winning. And I was just saying, 'Every time I come here and see someone else win, I hate it more every time.' So the more times I come here the more I love it, the more I want it. I have to say thanks to the fans for coming out. It was a packed house today. Everybody was great. The sun was shining. It was a good Memorial Day weekend."
Hildebrand would crash on the white flag lap in the final turn and be passed by Wheldon a short distance from the race ending checkered flag. The race ended under caution. The average speed of the race was 170.265 mph and it took 2 hours and 56 minutes to run.
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