Dan Wheldon did not have the fastest car in the
Indy Japan 300, but a wild sequence of events in the final two laps would make
him the winner for the second year in a row
source:
irl.racing-live.com
"Everybody that had stuff to do with my car did a really good job with getting
the best out of what we had," said Wheldon who led thirty-one laps on the day,
though he struggled with a push whenever he had to follow any one.
Running in third with three laps to go, Wheldon first saw teammate Tony Kanaan
give up second place as he was forced onto pit road for a splash of fuel. Just
seconds later, leader Tomas Scheckter's amazing string of bad luck continued as
his own fuel starved car sputtered coming off of turn four.
Wheldon passed the slowing Scheckter who would be scored in tenth position and
has not finished a race in 2005.
"We need a little bit of luck, or we just don't need bad luck is really what it
comes down to," said Scheckter's team co owner, Doug Boles. "The options with
fifty laps to go where to run in the middle of the pack, hope you conserve fuel
and finish somewhere between third and fifth. Or run up front and hope you get a
yellow. With fifty laps you're probably gonna get that yellow, but unfortunately
we didn't. In our fabric at Panther Racing, there is not any desire to sit
around at the back, so we just decided to go for it."
The yellow Scheckter needed would come a lap too late as Helio Castroneves
crashed in turn two as Scheckter was coasting down around the track on the final
lap. The race was marred by a total of eight cautions for fifty-nine laps.