Well done by Wheldon
INDIANAPOLIS – There used to be this thing called the “Andretti Curse” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway because of all the bad luck and futility that the Andretti family had suffered here.
Used to be.
Sunday afternoon, in the 89th running of the Indianapolis 500, that curse became history as Dan Wheldon, driving a car for the team owned by Michael Andretti, made a pass for the lead with seven laps to go, held that lead and did what his boss was never able to do:
Win the biggest race in the world.
No matter that this year’s 500 probably will be celebrated by racing historians as the one that was almost won by a female driver.
Danica Patrick, a 23-year-old rookie, became the first woman to lead at Indy, getting out front three times and finishing fourth, the best by a woman. But she couldn’t catch Wheldon. Andretti, his father, Mario, and Wheldon partied Sunday as if it were 1969 – the only year in which an Andretti (Mario) won the 500.
Milk was guzzled, tears were shed, and all the lousy memories accumulated over three decades and two generations were pushed aside.
“No more talk of that stupid curse,” said Michael Andretti, who was zero for 14 as a driver in the 500. “That’s dead.”
Wheldon, a 26-year-old driver from Britain, was more than happy to lend a hand.
He went stream of consciousness as he talked about what it meant to add his name to the list of Indy winners.
“I’m just so satisfied in the fact that I’ve won the Indianapolis 500 in my career,” Wheldon said. “I mean, it’s a kid coming from England. I mean, you just, you know what the race is like through watching it on TV and reading about it in magazines. And then I first came over here in 1999 and watched Kenny Brack win. It just opened my eyes to the magnitude of the event and how much I wanted to be here and the fact that the whole event lasted a month.”
There was more, but you get the idea.
The victory was the fourth in five Indy Racing League races this year for Wheldon.
It was accomplished in very Wheldon-like fashion.
He started the race 16th, made zero mistakes, got great efforts from his pit crew and methodically worked his way to the front of the field.
“He drove a heck of a race,” Michael Andretti said. “Very smart from the drop of the green flag. Very aggressive, but didn’t take too many chances when he didn’t need to. He just drove a very smart race.”
About the only thing Wheldon did Sunday that was not smart was spinning victory doughnuts on the front stretch.
That stunt blew the last of his fuel load through the engine, and his car rolled to a stop a good quarter-mile from victory lane.
He had to be pushed, and then towed, to the biggest celebration of his life.
His boss waited rather impatiently.
And then they celebrated.
Wheldon’s victory was by 0.1302 seconds over Vitor Meira.
Bryan Herta, Wheldon’s teammate, finished third.
The Wheldon-Andretti victory came at the expense of one of the biggest stories in the history of racing.
Patrick appeared to have a legitimate shot at becoming the first woman to win the 500. She zoomed past Wheldon and into the lead on the 172nd lap of the 200-lap race. She did that when her boss, Bobby Rahal, opted not to pit with the leaders during a caution.
After the race went green again, Patrick was able to hold the lead until lap 186. She lost it to Wheldon as the two crossed the start-finish line.
Just seconds after that, the yellow flag waved again.
On the restart four laps later, Patrick shook the speedway and, potentially, history as she blew past Wheldon and into the lead again.
“My engineer, Ray (Leto), told me we needed to have the restart of the century,” Patrick said. “I think we had it.”
But because she was low on fuel, she had to dial back – that is, select a leaner fuel/air mixture.
On lap 194, Wheldon recaptured the lead for the final time.
The race ended under caution as a crash with a lap and a half to go brought out the yellow, but there was virtually no way anybody was going to get past Wheldon anyway.
And so ended the curse.
Mario Andretti is arguably the greatest American driver of all time. He won a Formula One world championship, he won the Daytona 500.
But in 29 attempts, he won just the one Indy 500. Another 500 victory was taken away on protest. He had many more frustrating moments here than thrills. Once, in a moment of angst, he referred to the Indy track as “this joint.”
He and his son have been reminded of their problems here every May for the last 30 years.
They won’t have to be reminded of that next May.
“You know,” Michael Andretti said in the fading light of central Indiana, “I just felt that one day, this place would repay me with some happy moments. And it has.”