Winning three in a row at Homestead-Miami Speedway is fine, but Dan Wheldon was barely out of the cockpit after his season-opening victory Saturday night in the Indy 300 before he was thinking about another race win he wants more.
“This is step one toward the Indianapolis 500,” said Wheldon, who won both the 500 and the IndyCar Series championship in 2005. “I’m all about the Indianapolis 500, nothing else matters to me. But to get three consecutive wins on the same speedway is a big deal, too.”
The Englishman, who started from the pole, fought off an early challenge from Sam Hornish Jr., another three-time Homestead winner, and easily overcame a bad pit stop to drive away with the 12th victory of his career.
“It’s a great way to open up the season,” Wheldon said. “We worked very hard over the winter to improve on what we started last year.”
Wheldon has led 345 of the last 600 laps on the 1.5-mile Homestead oval. It’s the first time in the 12-year history of the IndyCar Series that a driver has won three straight races at the same track.
Wheldon, who led all but 21 laps, pulled away to beat teammate Scott Dixon by 6.499 seconds – about a quarter of a lap. It was the biggest margin of victory in two years.
Even Dixon, the 2003 series champion, was impressed by his teammate’s charge.
“He was quick, man, no doubt about it,” Dixon said. “The car was just very fast. I know our cars are very similar in setup, but I don’t know if it was driving style or what. He was just quicker.”
Hornish, the reigning series champion, finished third, followed by Vitor Meira and Tony Kanaan, the only other drivers on the lead lap. Ed Carpenter, stepson of series founder and CEO Tony George, ran with the leaders most of the night before finishing a lap down in sixth.
The race started nearly an hour late because of a brief rainstorm.
Busch: Carl Edwards held off hard-charging teammate Matt Kenseth over the final dozen laps to win the Sharpie Mini 300 at Bristol.
It was a typical crash-filled Bristol race, with 12 cautions for 103 laps and one red-flag stoppage. NASCAR also confused things with a miscue on pit road that confused most of the field and gave Edwards, Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman a second chance.
Edwards used that free pit stop to get fresh tires and drive away to his first win of the season. Kenseth never got close enough to move him, and Edwards beat him to the line by 0.260 of a second.
“I just can’t thank Matt Kenseth enough for racing me that clean,” Edwards said. “He’s so great here and it meant the world to beat him.”
Kenseth said he tried to get past Edwards earlier, but couldn’t, and wouldn’t force the issue.
“This place is tough. It’s kind of a give and take race track and sometimes I struggle when to give and when to take,” he said. “I got under Carl two or three times and lifted his left rear tire, he chopped me pretty good, so I had to get it out of the gas. I could have stayed in and got him turned around, but I got out of it.”
A caution came out with 117 laps to go and NASCAR told its officials to open pit road. But pit road was closed when Busch and Edwards – the leaders – passed the entrance. They didn’t stop.
But pit road opened seconds later, and the rest of the field did stop.
