MVN - Most Valuable Network

Birthday present: Dan Wheldon celebrates his 30th with Iowa IndyCar win

Holds off Hideki Mutoh, donates winnings to Iowa flood relief

On a day where he hoped to give flood-ravaged victims in Iowa a reason to smile, Dan Wheldon did just that.

He’s also going to give them a big hand in their recovery.

The 2005 IndyCar Series champion, who was also celebrating his 30th birthday, scored his second victory of the season by holding off a stellar Hideki Mutoh in the final stages to win the Iowa Corn Indy 250 by .1430 of a second at Iowa Speedway.

With Target Chip Ganassi Racing donating their race winnings to Iowa flood relief organizations, the resulting victory from Wheldon and fourth-place finish for Dixon should ensure a very big sum for victims affected by the tragedy.

Afterwards, Wheldon recounted his up-close look of the devastation:

“My wife and I drove from Chicago to Iowa earlier this week and we saw the flooding and it was just heartbreaking. Scott and I are glad we could help out as best we could this weekend.

“I hope the race today put a smile on the faces of the people of Iowa and took their minds off the challenges and most difficult times they are facing.”

It was a gutty effort for the British driver, who stretched his Firestone Firehawks over the final 90 laps and kept Mutoh and Marco Andretti in his rear view mirror. When it came time to make his decision, Wheldon was firm:

“It was a good call not to do it, but [car owner] Chip’s [Ganassi] not here, so if they had called me in, I don’t think I would have come in anyway.”

Wheldon was one of three contenders — himself, Mutoh and Danica Patrick — that stayed out under the yellow while the rest of the field (except E.J. Viso) pitted on Lap 190. The trio were 1-2-3 until Lap 212, when Tony Kanaan brought out the third yellow in that timespan for a crash in Turn 2.

While Patrick was jumped for third (Andretti) and fourth (Dixon) on the restart at Lap 227, Wheldon and Mutoh stayed at the front. But the Japanese rookie was unable to get by the No. 10 Target car.

He later admitted that he probably didn’t have enough to pass Wheldon, but he knew that he really wanted to keep his Andretti Green comrade behind him for the runner-up spot:

“I didn’t want to block Marco when he was behind me but we only had 10 laps to go and I wanted to pass Dan so I didn’t let him pass me. I wanted to have a clean race and I think I was able to do that.”

As for Andretti, he was able to put a botched opportunity at Texas behind him with a strong third-place effort to go along with his second place finish one year ago in the inaugural IndyCar race at Iowa.

The American credited his team for making his Blockbuster machine strong in traffic and also said that unlike last year, he enjoyed the racing on the 7/8-mile facility this time:

“It is tough, the track was pretty good. It was kind of what we set up for. We matched the setup with the conditions and how we thought the race would play out.

“It was completely different from last year. That made it pretty fun.”

Those are the words that Brian Barnhart, the IRL’s racing operations boss, probably wants to hear. After a dismal 2007 race at Iowa that saw unseasonably cool temperatures wreak havoc with the cars’ aerodynamics and make for a crash-filled event, Barnhart was much more pleased on Sunday.

Shortly after the ‘07 debacle, the IRL announced that they would be looking for a new Iowa aero package to try and combat the superspeedway-like nature of the Newton short track. But they ended up making no changes at all and save for a better-gripping tire from Firestone, the league chalked it up to last year’s freak conditions.

Sunday’s race was sunnier and warmer and along with the new Firestone tire, Barnhart credited the better climes for a better event:

“Firestone brought us a new tire that helped us a bunch, but I think the biggest factor was the weather. The higher temperatures and bright sunshine combined with the improved quality of the depth of the field, and I thought our drivers put on a great show.”

A second high groove also developed nicely and it was that groove that Dixon used to make a rally from the middle of the pack to finish fourth. Combined with tire pressure problems for Helio Castroneves within the final 20 laps (he wound up 14th after being forced to pit over the matter), the reigning Indy 500 champion was able to up his points lead over the Brazilian by 48 points.

Dixon fell back into the field from his No. 1 starting position as his No. 9 machine was very loose at the beginning. But after using the high line, he found that his car reacted much better. He reflected on things afterwards:

“Early on, the car was definitely not working the way I wanted. It was very loose, especially on the low line. I started using the high line and it came together better. The high line was definitely the choice of the day.”

Meanwhile, Castroneves was unable to capitalize on an “off” day from Dixon that’s becoming increasingly rare. He led four times for 92 laps, but the two-time Indy 500 champion said that after his final pit stop, his car started to go away from him:

“The guys looked into it, and we were losing pressure slowly. I’m not sure if I ran over a piece of debris from the previous crash or what, but we decided to take a chance and stay out for the final 20 laps to see if we could make it.

“Unfortunately, the car became too much to handle, and we had to stop for new tires.”

A.J. Foyt IV had a great day, charging from the 18th starting position to finish fifth in one of the better runs of his IndyCar Series career for Vision Racing. Jumping to 12th on the first lap of the race, the Texan was in the top 10 by Lap 8.

Of course, he was quite happy with his performance, especially after getting noticed during practice for using the high groove that many figured wasn’t going to show up in full by Sunday:

“I knew I had to have a great start to have a chance. I got a good start and just took the chance that everyone was going to let off the gas going into turn one on the bottom so I went to the top and made up some spots.

“I liked the high line, but everyone was making fun of me for using that line in practice, but it turned out that everybody ended up doing that later in the race.”

Patrick wound up sixth after losing two spots on the final restart of the day and another to Foyt later in the closing laps.

Ryan Briscoe finished seventh for Team Penske and was followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay, who finished eighth in the home race for his sponsor Ethanol. Two rookies cracked the top ten — Will Power in ninth and Graham Rahal in tenth.

The next IndyCar Series event is the SunTrust Indy Challenge this Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway; the green flag is expected to fall shortly after 8 p.m. ET.

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Material from Sunday’s trackside report, as well as multiple press releases, were used to create this article.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.