34 replies to this topic

[THE "driverider"]

What happened to Dan Wheldon, the guy got snapped up by Andretti-Green pretty fast. Won a championship, signed by Chip Ganassi, nearly wion another championship. But then he was dropped, went to Panther and it seem to go so wrong. The guy was offered a place at BMW Sauber in 2008 and now he looks set to do NASCAR Trucks.

[MattPete]

Maybe his new teeth was his undoing?

[Imperial]

If he'd taken on the role offered by BMW Sauber he'd most likely have driven a few hundred kilometres of testing during an entire year, become unemployed at the end of it....and then be fishing around for a third rate Indycar or Nascar seat.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Well depending on which rumour you believe, he could have had Kubica's 2006 test seat.

[Zeroninety]

The IRL kept adding road and street races, where's he's pretty mediocre.

[schuey100]

Maybe his new teeth was his undoing?

Hehe, yeh, so funny. Thing is they were fine before. No idea why he went for the super massive and uber white look.

[KateLM]

The IRL kept adding road and street races, where's he's pretty mediocre.

And with that in mind, maybe it was a good thing that he didn't take the BMW test gig (if those rumours are true).

It doesn't always take a lot for things to go wrong very quickly in motorsport and the sponsorship situation in Indycar is dire, if you aren't at Ganassi or Penske (or have the sponsorship pull of Danica), your seat isn't safe (just look at TK). Wheldon hasn't won anything for a couple of years now and he's British, he doesn't really have that much appeal to sponsors right now.

[frp]

The IRL kept adding road and street races, where's he's pretty mediocre.

He was always a front-runner on the road courses in the UK. He just didn't find an opportunity to step up to F3, but managed to make a successful switch across the water.

I didn't know anything about the teeth until just now.

[se7en_24]

Yanks thing that bleaching their teeth once is more hygenic than cleaning them every day, hence the "OMG BRITISH PEOPLE HAVE NATURAL COLOURED TEETH" obsession they have. Hopefully Dan will get a job in K-Mart over there because he'll be laughed off the street in the UK.

[KateLM]

Yanks thing that bleaching their teeth once is more hygenic than cleaning them every day, hence the "OMG BRITISH PEOPLE HAVE NATURAL COLOURED TEETH" obsession they have. Hopefully Dan will get a job in K-Mart over there because he'll be laughed off the street in the UK.

He didn't just bleach them, they are veneers. And giant ones at that.

[krapmeister]

Guess he's gone for that Jim Carrey look...

[Bloggsworth]

The last thing I had veneered needed French polishing afterwards...

[Seanspeed]

He was always a front-runner on the road courses in the UK. He just didn't find an opportunity to step up to F3, but managed to make a successful switch across the water.

If he didn't even make it to F3, I'd be cautious in assuming he was anything special on a road course. The competition can definitely step up a notch or two at that level. I'd say his form on road courses in his IRL career confirm it isn't his strong point. I guess its possible that the years of driving on ovals made him lose some of his ability on the twisty stuff, though, I dunno. Montoya used to look extremely threatening on NASCAR road courses, but the threat doesn't seem quite as large as it used to be. Seems 'going oval' just requires a bit of a different mindset. Other drivers might retain more of the road course skillset, but it doesn't like Wheldon has. Or another possibility is that the teams he's been at simply aren't very good at setting the car up for those sorts of circuits. Thats giving him a big benefit of the doubt, though.

Edited by Seanspeed, 12 March 2011 - 22:05.

[hunnylander]

Maybe his new teeth was his undoing?

It may raise the Center of Gravity too much to remain competitive. That would explain the trucks too, there CoG is a smaller issue.

[frp]

If he didn't even make it to F3, I'd be cautious in assuming he was anything special on a road course.

I'm not assuming anything, and I must admit I never thought he was that special probably because I didn't really take to him personally, but he was competitive against the likes of Button and Burti, although he did have more experience than Button when they raced each other.

But someone with a front-running road racing background, who then successfully switched to ovals, should not obviously be at a disadvantage on road courses against contemporaries who have less competitive road racing backgrounds. But I could be wrong; it could be that ovals are just his natural forte.

[Seanspeed]

I'm not assuming anything, and I must admit I never thought he was that special probably because I didn't really take to him personally, but he was competitive against the likes of Button and Burti, although he did have more experience than Button when they raced each other.

But someone with a front-running road racing background, who then successfully switched to ovals, should not obviously be at a disadvantage on road courses against contemporaries who have less competitive road racing backgrounds. But I could be wrong; it could be that ovals are just his natural forte.

Its not that he'd be a disadvantage, its that he'd have to adapt to an oval-racing style, which could have dampened his abilities on a road course. Guys like Justin Wilson and Will Power are coming in at a time when the IRL is suddenly picking up much more road/street courses, so they dont have to compromise their abilities on those courses as much.

Like I said, Montoya in NASCAR seems to be an example of somebody who doesn't seem to be quite as good on road courses as he was earlier on. Perhaps thats the competition just getting better, but perhaps its also because he's simply adapted so much to the oval way of racing that the road course ability of his isn't quite as fresh? You see what I'm saying?

But yea, its also possible that Wheldon simply wasn't ever anything that great in the first place with the twisty stuff. I dont know his specific experience in the minor categories, but being in a more competitive team could make him look competitive against the likes of Button and whoever without actually having the same sort of ability/potential.

I admit I didn't see much of Wheldon pre-07 other than a few races I downloaded from torrent sites, but I'm also the sort that thinks that oval competitiveness comes largely from the ability of the team to set up the car rather than driver ability. I dont know what to think of him, to be honest.

[Risil]

Arie Luyendyk had a Euro road racing background, but always looked much stronger in CART on the ovals. Especially the superspeedways -- that kind of pedal-to-the-floor racing was pretty much standard in IRL when Wheldon had his greatest success.

[Rob G]

Yanks thing that bleaching their teeth once is more hygenic than cleaning them every day, hence the "OMG BRITISH PEOPLE HAVE NATURAL COLOURED TEETH" obsession they have. Hopefully Dan will get a job in K-Mart over there because he'll be laughed off the street in the UK.

I don't think you'd find another set of teeth like his outside of Hollywood or Beverly Hills. They're freakish.

[frp]

I admit I didn't see much of Wheldon pre-07 other than a few races I downloaded from torrent sites, but I'm also the sort that thinks that oval competitiveness comes largely from the ability of the team to set up the car rather than driver ability. I dont know what to think of him, to be honest.

By contrast, I haven't seen anything of him since 1998
It was a surprise to me just how well he did in IRL, though the teeth are the biggest shock! It's always difficult to guess how a driver will fare as he moves through the sport; there have been so many that have looked dead certs for the very top, but then their careers have just petered out. But the general paddock wisdom in the late 90s had Wheldon down as pretty good, in what was thought, at the time, to be a competitive era.

[whitewaterMkII]

Yanks thing that bleaching their teeth once is more hygenic than cleaning them every day, hence the "OMG BRITISH PEOPLE HAVE NATURAL COLOURED TEETH" obsession they have. Hopefully Dan will get a job in K-Mart over there because he'll be laughed off the street in the UK.

What is it with Brits and their teeth anyway?
I mean they shouldn't have a hang up at all.
Heck, America's first President had wood teeth.
I say all this Fashion/Beauty fetish can/should be be blamed on us SoCals
It was Hollywood that developed fake tits, face jobs and veneered teeth.

We also slammed Model T's and stuffed them with Horsepower, so at least we get credit for something good I hope.

Iskedarian Lake Racer, 1942

Edited by whitewaterMkII, 13 March 2011 - 01:47.

[JosTheBoss]

The last thing I had veneered needed French polishing afterwards...

there's a double entendre in there somewhere...

[Risil]

He could've said Polish Frenching...

[Bloggsworth]

I said French polishing, not French correction...

[Amphicar]

Arie Luyendyk had a Euro road racing background, but always looked much stronger in CART on the ovals. Especially the superspeedways -- that kind of pedal-to-the-floor racing was pretty much standard in IRL when Wheldon had his greatest success.

Amazingly it was much the same with Nigel Mansell. Admittedly, he crashed during practice for his fist scheduled oval race in 1993 (Phoenix), injured his back and missed the race. However, he did better at the next oval race, finishing 3rd in the Indy 500, having led much of the race. He had clearly "got" ovals by then because he won all the remaining oval races that season: Milwaukee, Michigan, New Hampshire & Nazareth on his way to the PPG Indy Car Championship. In fact if you look at his results that year, he did better on the ovals than he did on road or street circuits.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Maybe the Lola was better on ovals than the Penske?

[Xpat]

Maybe the Americans let Mansell win because they felt bad for him and his "British" teeth? Figured he could get some veneers and whitening treatments with the prize money.

[Risil]

Amazingly it was much the same with Nigel Mansell. Admittedly, he crashed during practice for his fist scheduled oval race in 1993 (Phoenix), injured his back and missed the race. However, he did better at the next oval race, finishing 3rd in the Indy 500, having led much of the race. He had clearly "got" ovals by then because he won all the remaining oval races that season: Milwaukee, Michigan, New Hampshire & Nazareth on his way to the PPG Indy Car Championship. In fact if you look at his results that year, he did better on the ovals than he did on road or street circuits.

It's a fun anomaly, isn't it? Mansell still won the first race of the year at Surfers Paradise, a street circuit. In 1994 he was generally a bit more competitive on the road courses than the ovals -- Penske had built a formidable short-oval racer for 1994. His qualifying performances in 1994 were exceptional (three poles, only off the front two rows twice, at Indy and Milwaukee, both ovals). Of the six times he qualified on the front row, five were on road courses, the other was at Michigan, a track that the Penskes didn't seem to fancy. And two of his three podium finishes were on road courses.

And let's not forget that Newman-Haas tended to get the latest Ford and Lola developments -- behind the Penske team Mansell probably had the most "works" car out there. It was only really when Reynard started producing winning chassis on a huge scale, and the engine development wars meant some really potent powerplants from Ilmor, Cosworth, Honda and eventually Toyota were widely available, that CART became such a total free-for-all. Back when Mansell was in Indycar, there was a much more F1-like Penske vs. Newman-Haas spin on the competition.

Interesting and probably meaningless fact -- the races where Mansell struggled in 1993 were by and large at the same places Montoya struggled in 1999 (Detroit, Toronto, Laguna Seca).

Edited by Risil, 13 March 2011 - 13:17.

[AllTwelve]

http://www.themockdo...out-of-control/

[Rocky]

When I saw the title of this thread I had a bet with myself that no one would mention his teeth until at least the third reply. I lost.....

[Disgrace]

Looking at this thread and his record, is it so much a far from grace as a fall from form? In which case, who cares?

[Ross Stonefeld]

I think the issue is there aren't enough funded rides for him to have a seat. He's interchangeable with Kanaan in that regard.

[Dolph]

What happened to Dan Wheldon, the guy got snapped up by Andretti-Green pretty fast. Won a championship, signed by Chip Ganassi, nearly wion another championship. But then he was dropped, went to Panther and it seem to go so wrong. The guy was offered a place at BMW Sauber in 2008 and now he looks set to do NASCAR Trucks.

Ahem...

http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=wheldon

[William Hunt]

The guy was offered a place at BMW Sauber in 2008

Source? I don't believe this statement is true.

[Ross Stonefeld]

He should mean 2006 as third driver. But most people now think that was just a negotiating tactic for his move from AGR to Ganassi.

[marcm]

Like I said, Montoya in NASCAR seems to be an example of somebody who doesn't seem to be quite as good on road courses as he was earlier on. Perhaps thats the competition just getting better, but perhaps its also because he's simply adapted so much to the oval way of racing that the road course ability of his isn't quite as fresh? You see what I'm saying?

That's just nonsense though. Juan has been absolutely mega at every single road course race he has done since moving to Nascar. Have you actually watched any of them?
At the Daytona 24hrs for the last 3 years he has IMO been the class of the field. You just have to watch for a few moments to see just how much more committed he is than the rest of the field.
All of the nascar races he's done, he's won 3, and been in contention for the win in the rest. Why hasn't he won them all you ask against those americans that only know how to turn left? Some of those americans aren't actually too bad turning left and right these days .. and secondly Nascars aren't really designed with road courses in mind - hitting the setup sweet spot (in fact it's actually cars purpose built just for the road courses) is realtively hit or miss, and other teams have done a better job at some of the races. That still hasn't stopped Juan from bring right up front desipite not having the quickest car!

Whatever you want to say about Juan and his racing career - you can't seriously question his ability on road courses! I see no evidence at all that he's lost any of that skill.