Wheldon fastest on Thursday

 Wheldon recorded the fastest lap for the second consecutive night, making up for a rare blunder during Wednesday's IRL IndyCar Series test session at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

His lap of 24.9405 seconds - 214.350 mph - around the 1.5-mile oval was just 0.02 seconds faster than Sam Hornish Jr.'s best effort in the No. 6 Team Penske Honda/Dallara.
 
"It was a productive two days, other than the fact that I did $300,000 worth of damage," Wheldon said.
 
On Wednesday, shortly after recording what turned out to be the fastest lap of the day, Wheldon wrecked the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda/Dallara in Turn 2.

On Thursday, supplied with a fresh machine, Wheldon topped a field of 19 drivers with a lap that just less than a half second off Hornish's pole-winning speed for last year's race at Homestead.
 
"I never said I was perfect," Wheldon said. "When you race on ovals and you make a mistake, it can be expensive. Chip understands that. I think he respects the fact that if I make a mistake, I'll tell him. It doesn't really hurt my ego much."
 
The speeds were off in spite of Honda's new, larger 3.5-liter V8, mostly because of new mandates on wing angles. At the end of the session, a dozen cars were on track, running together in a pack in an attempt to get a handle on the new wing angles in traffic.
 
"The more wing they put in, the more we're going to run in packs," Wheldon said. "We have to make sure the car is good in those conditions.

"If it's not, I have Chip to answer to, and he's not the prettiest guy when he's pissed. We have to put our cars in these positions during tests and in the first practice. Maybe if we didn't have so much wing in the car, we wouldn't have to do that." 
 
Other top competitors during Thursday's final day of the two-day test included Tony Kanaan, who had the third-best lap of the six-hour session in the No. 11 Andretti Green Racing Honda/Dallara, and Marco Andretti, who was fourth-best in the No. 26 AGR Honda/Dallara.

Helio Castroneves was fifth in the No. 3 Team Penske Honda/Dallara, and Scott Dixon was sixth in the No. 9 Ganassi Honda/Dallara.
 
Hornish left immediately after the test on an overnight cross-country flight in order to catch a 7am drivers' meeting for the NASCAR Busch series race this weekend at California Speedway.
 
The 19 cars completed a total of 2,852 laps during Thursday's test. The IRL season opener is scheduled for March 24 at Homestead.