Dan Wheldon overcame an electrifying run by Danica Patrick and ended 35 years of fabled Andretti bad luck to win the Indianapolis 500 Sunday.
Wheldon took team co-owner Michael Andretti with him to Victory Lane, ending years of frustration for the Andretti family, which last got a taste of the Indy winner's jug of milk when Michael's father, Mario, won in 1969.
Wheldon is the first Englishman to win at Indy since Graham Hill in 1966. To do it, he had to overcome one of the greatest rookie runs in the 89 years of racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the 23-year old Patrick overcoming two big mistakes to lead the race with just eight laps to go.
PHOTO: AFP
"It feels as good as if I won myself," said Michael, who retired from the cockpit in 2004 after leading more laps at Indy than any other nonwinner. "I finally won the Indy 500. No more curse."
Andretti gave all the credit for the win to the 26-year-old Wheldon, who has won four of five Indy Racing League events this year.
"I'm just so happy for him," Michael said. "I think this is the first of many for him."
PHOTO: AFP
Wheldon, who said after winning the season-opener at Homestead, Florida, that his major goal in racing was to win Indy, was in tears after getting out of his car.
"This has been a dream come true for me. I've loved the Indianapolis 500 ever since I was a young kid," he said. "I came here and watched it for the first time in 1999. I'm having an emotional moment. I'm so proud."
Patrick, running out of fuel in the waning laps, held on to finish fourth, helped by a crash by fellow rookie Sebastien Bourdais one lap from the end. Wheldon ran out of fuel on his cooldown lap.
PHOTO: EPA
The best previous finish by a woman was ninth by Janet Guthrie in 1978. The story at Indy all month has been Patrick, only the fourth woman to race at Indianapolis, and Sunday was no exception.
After starting fourth and becoming the first woman to lead a lap at Indy on lap 57, she stalled the engine in the pits on her Honda-power Panoz on lap 79, falling to 16th, last on the lead lap.
Patrick recovered and moved all the way to eighth before making another mistake as the cars begin to speed up for a restart after a long caution period. She nearly ran into the car of Scott Sharp, turning sideways and getting hit hard by fellow rookie Tomas Enge. Tomas Scheckter spun to avoid Patrick and slid into the inside wall.
"I'm sorry," she told her team on the radio. "They slowed."
Patrick was able to get her damaged car back to the pits, where the Rahal Letterman Racing team, which won the race last year with Buddy Rice, changed the nose and sent her back out on the lead lap. She made one more stop under caution on 159 to complete the repairs and got a full load of fuel on that last stop.
She came out 11th and moved up to eighth before the rest of the leaders pitted under a caution on lap 172, giving Patrick the lead again.
"She's been getting good fuel mileage, so we gambled," said team co-owner Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indy winner.
Wheldon caught Patrick and passed her on lap 186 seconds before Kosuke Matsuura crashed, bringing out another yellow flag. But Patrick had the huge crowd cheering when she passed Wheldon for the lead on the restart on lap 190.
"I thought for a second we were going to win that thing at the end," Patrick said. "When you've got to save fuel at the end you're not as quick."
As she tried desperately to conserve fuel, her speed dropped and Wheldon shot past into the lead on lap 194. By the time Bourdais crashed on lap 199, both Vitor Meira, Patrick's teammate, and Bryan Herta, Wheldon's teammate, had gotten past.
Buddy Lazier, the 1996 Indy winner, finished fifth, followed by Andretti Green Racing driver Dario Franchitti, Scott Sharp and pole-winner Tony Kanaan, the fourth Andretti entry.
Fernando Alonso survived a first corner bump and was handed a gift victory at the European Grand Prix when leader Kimi Raikkonen lost a tire with just one lap to go.
The Spaniard won his fourth Formula One race of the season Sunday and fifth of his career in a Renault.
But it started with some anxiety in the first turn as Ralf Schumacher's Toyota bumped him.
"Ralf hit me. I thought the car might have been damaged and that I would have to retire," Alonso said.
"After a few corners, though, it was clear everything was OK so then it was a case of pushing hard."
He pushed so hard he caused Raikkonen problems that eventually led to suspension failure caused by a flat tire on his McLaren.
"We were very lucky today but we were very strong also," Alonso said. "We were pushing so hard that at some point McLaren and Kimi made a mistake with the tire."
Nick Heidfeld in a Williams-BMW finished second for the second straight race. He ended up 16.5 seconds behind. Rubens Barrichello was in third in a Ferrari, 18.5 seconds back, for his first podium finish since the opening race of the season.
Alonso now has a huge lead in the driver's standings with 59 points, ahead of Raikkonen and Jarno Trulli with 27 each.
"If we keep this consistency, every time we will have more and more points. It seem we can do it," said Alonso, who is bidding to become the youngest driver to win the world title. He turns 24 in July.
Raikkonen jumped into the lead after overtaking pole-sitter Heidfeld at the start and appeared headed for his third straight victory in his McLaren.
"We knew Kimi would have the better start and in fact he went in front from the start," Heidfeld said.
Raikkonen led most of the race, losing it only when he went in for a pit stop twice and giving it up to Alonso or Heidfeld, who trailed throughout.
With 10 laps to go, Raikkonen had about a five-second lead over Alonso. But Raikkonen's front right tire started to wear down and he started losing time to the Spaniard. With five laps to go, the lead was 4.4 seconds and shrinking.
Raikkonen entered the last lap with a 1.5-second lead and the tire went off, sending Raikkonen skidding off the track before the first turn.
He said he had a locked tire for the last 20 laps which caused the flat spot. The wheel was barely held on to the car by the tether cord as he hit the wall and bounced over the gravel.
"I had a well-balanced car until a flat spot on my right front tire caused terrible vibrations which eventually led to suspension failure," Raikkonen said. "This is just a sad result."
David Coulthard finished fourth in a Red Bull with Michael Schumacher ending up fifth in a Ferrari, his second best finish of the season.
Mark Webber, who was third at the Monaco GP last weekend, got tangled up with Ralf Schumacher and caused several cars, including both Ferraris, to run into the gravel to avoid them. Webber was out of the race barely 10 seconds into it.
Ralf Schumacher bumped Alonso's rear and turned in. He came in for a quick change of his car's nose cone but went out of the race later.
For the first time this season there was not a Sunday morning qualifying session. That was voted out by the teams and the sport's governing body earlier this week. The starting grid was determined by a one-lap-only qualifying on Saturday.
The Formula One season now shifts to North America with the Canadian GP June 12 followed by the United States GP a week later.
Jimmie Johnson slid past Bobby Labonte in the final turn to win the Coca-Cola 600 for the third consecutive year. This one was nowhere near as easy as his previous wins.
Unlike his past two dominating victories, Johnson had to come from fourth place to chase down Labonte after a restart with five laps to go. Labonte did his best to hold off Johnson, who needed just three laps around Lowe's Motor Speedway to pull onto the leader's bumper.
Johnson got there on the final lap and edged ahead coming out of the final turn to grab his second victory of the season. He became the first driver to win three-straight Coca-Cola 600s.
"Three 600s, that's just amazing," said Johnson, the Nextel Cup Series points leader. "It will sink in as the days wear on. Today, regardless of the record book, regardless of what was going on, we just wanted to have a solid race.
"We did that, and went into the record books at the same time."
Labonte, off to a horrid start this season, kicked his car in disgust as he climbed out of it.
"I just did it my way, and I lost," said Labonte, who was trying to end a 47-race winless streak on the 10-year anniversary of his first career victory.
Johnson, meanwhile, had a bottle thrown at his car during his victory lap and was slightly booed when he got out of it. He didn't seem to care as he celebrated with his Hendrick Motorsports crew.
"I saw a few of them throwing beer cans at me," he said. "I don't think they liked [the win], but that's all right."
Carl Edwards was third, followed by Jeremy Mayfield and pole-sitter Ryan Newman. Greg Biffle was sixth, Martin Truex Jr. was seventh and Dale Jarrett, Ken Schrader and Rusty Wallace rounded out the top 10.
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