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Handling Baffles Wheldon

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By TONY FABRIZIO The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 26, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS - St. Petersburg's Dan Wheldon went from having one of the two fastest cars in Sunday's Indianapolis 500 to not being able to run in the top 10.

He isn't sure why.

"I wish I knew," he said while walking through the garage area after finishing 12th. "The right rear seemed to really steer the car. I couldn't even run flat out on my own not in turbulence. I'm not 100 percent sure, but that's the way it goes sometimes."

Wheldon's Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon, won the race. But early on, Wheldon was as strong as Dixon. He passed Dixon for the lead on the third lap and led 30 of the first 93 laps.

At the midpoint of the race, Wheldon was having handling problems, and in the final 50 laps, he ran outside the top 10.

"I think we got a broken shock or something," team owner Chip Ganassi said. "Something is wrong with the car - the thing just lost its speed all at once. First we thought we had rubber on the tires, and that wasn't it."

RAHAL OUT EARLY: Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg winner Graham Rahal made an early exit, tagging the Turn 4 wall on Lap 36 when he got high while trying to avoid the slowing car of fellow-rookie Alex Lloyd.

"Lloyd, for some reason, wouldn't stay right on the bottom and when he came up just a couple of feet, I reacted slightly and just got in the marbles," Rahal said.

Rahal's Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate, Justin Wilson, crashed out on Lap 132. Wilson ran in the top three for several laps early in the race after he was unable to hear a call from his team to pit under caution when most of the other drivers pitted.

ATTENDANCE UP: Indianapolis Motor Speedway doesn't give attendance figures, but speedway president Joie Chitwood of Tampa was practically ecstatic about the turnout for the first 500 since open-wheel unification in February.

"We closed the infield to all but credentialed traffic at 8 a.m., and that's hours earlier than the past few years," he said.

ABC used the figure 300,000 during its telecast, but that number was probably high, given the limited capacity of the infield.

HOT LAPS: Ed Carpenter continues to impress for Vision Racing, the team co-owned by his stepfather, IRL CEO Tony George. Carpenter's fifth-place finish was his second top-five this season. ... Dixon's victory was the second Indy 500 title for Chip Ganassi Racing, but Ganassi was co-owner with Pat Patrick of 1989 winner Emerson Fittipaldi's car.

Tony Fabrizio

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