Wheldon scores second Lights victory

It was a cruel blow for the American Dorricott Racing driver after he had completely dominated the race before a late-race rainfall caused a backmarker to go off and the safety car emerged to bunch up the field.

Series leader Bell had simply driven away from the opposition over the opening 20 laps, as his Irish Dorricott team mate Damien Faulkner and Mexican Javier Diaz disputed second place.

Wheldon held a watching brief behind this duo for much of the race, until Diaz' tyres went off and he fell behind both Faulkner and Wheldon. When the rain began to fall with nine laps left, Faulkner got caught out by the greasy surface and spun exiting the hairpin, promoting Wheldon's PacWest car up to second.

Three laps later, and Cory Witherall crashed his car into the tyres, bringing out the safety car for three laps as the drizzle continued to fall. This negated Bell's 15-second lead and gave Wheldon two laps on his tail to try and make a move.

Bell held him off at the re-start, but coming down the hill into the chicane for the final time Wheldon tried to go round the outside. Bell braked later to defend the inside line, but the Briton was expecting this and through the right hander exit slithered his way to the inside to pass into the lead down the sweeper that led to the flag.

"Sure Townsend was unlucky with the pace car, but after that I'd put myself in a position to make a move and it paid off," said an ecstatic Wheldon. "This feels even better than my maiden win at Gateway a few weeks ago, because this time I beat Townsend in a straight fight, and not many people do that."

Bell may have been disappointed to lose out on his fifth win of the year, but with Wheldon and Faulkner - who recovered brilliantly to finish third - now tied in equal second in the championship, the American actually extended his lead to a nearly unassailable 29 points with two races left.

Nevertheless, Wheldon hasn't given up. "Anything can happen in these races as today has shown, and until I'm without any mathematical chance we'll keep pushing."


Dan Wheldon, PacWest, 42m57.29s
Townsend Bell, Dorricott, + 0.25s
Damien Faulkner, Dorricott, + 2.28s
Derek Higgins, Mexpro, + 1.41s
Mario Dominguez, + 0.84s
Jon Fogarty, + 1.11s