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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Dan Wheldon’s Comeback Remembered
Mike Kitchel, Wheldon's former PR man, remembers his friend with a personal tale surrounding the beloved Brit's comeback announcement last year at St. Pete.
The announcement of Dan Wheldon's deal with Bryan Herta Autosport led to one of the most amazing career turnarounds in IndyCar history. (Photo: LAT)
(Panther Racing PR ace Mike Kitchel, who grew to become close friends with Dan Wheldon during his two-year stint with the team, remembers his friend with a heartwarming story one year after the Brit announced his return with Bryan Herta Autosport for the Indy 500)
It was a year ago this weekend in St. Petersburg, on the eve of the first practice day of the 2011 season, that the IndyCar Series entry list had one very notable omission. Dan Wheldon, the former series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, was not slated to race in the season opener on the Streets of St. Petersburg, his beloved adopted hometown, and the site of one of the league’s signature events.
I’d told friends that if Dan didn’t secure a full-time ride before the start of the season, there was no way you’d find him anywhere near our open-wheel circus in St. Petersburg. He hadn’t spoken a word to the media all offseason and had no intentions to until he’d scored a seat. He had been close on some deals, but with the season opener within sight nothing materialized, and the previously ridiculous notion of Dan Wheldon walking through the IndyCar paddock on a race weekend in street clothes – and not a firesuit – was about to become a reality.
But as it turned out, his contract with Bryan Herta Autosport had come together, and open-wheel’s most beloved driver would, in fact, be in St. Pete that weekend. Not to drive, we all quickly discovered, but to announce a one-race deal with BHA to drive at the 100th Anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. We all recognized that this wasn’t a young rookie driver securing a top-flight drive at Andretti-Green Racing, or the most in-demand free agent in motorsports signing with Ganassi, or a still-hot commodity signing a multi-year deal to drive for the National Guard.
This was a one-race deal between a driver who needed a ride and a team that barely made the ‘500’ just nine months prior. The public consensus was quick: this wasn’t going to make headlines in Friday’s paper, and certainly wasn’t going to make waves on Memorial Day weekend. There were many who had written off Wheldon years before, and this announcement – they presumed – would do nothing but further prove their assertion that Dan Wheldon was a has-been.
Realizing our friend was in town, we urged him to meet us out; a small group of close friends, hanging out at a pub downtown watching Butler University start another Cinderella run in the NCAA championship. None of us expected to see DW that night. Surely he’d meet us out in Long Beach, or Iowa, or at any other track on the IndyCar schedule, but the fact he wasn’t going to be on the grid in his hometown – a place where he was recognized in public with a near Hollywood-esque frequency – was presumably going to keep ‘ole DW at home for most of the weekend.
But we were wrong.
Most of the time, you heard him before you saw him. I don’t use clichéd phrases like this very often, but the concept of Dan Wheldon “lighting up a room” simply couldn’t be more apt. He rarely entered a party without greeting everyone in sight. I was always amazed how many people he knew, how happy they all were to see him and, no matter who it was, how much time he spent with each of them. He remembered all their names and knew the names of their wives, husbands, and kids. He asked about all of them, remembered minute details and engaged each of them in a way that assured them he cared. A lot of fans don’t know what it’s like to have an elite driver look them in the eyes when they’re talking - DW gave out his e-mail address and demanded follow up.
And on this night, in parting, everybody he spoke to made sure to tell him good luck in the race on Sunday.
That was awkward. Maybe we’d allowed ourselves to forget the 800-pound gorilla sharing the room with us that night. The thought of Dan not having a ride was abnormal at best, even when we’d known it could be a possibility for months. But as the night progressed that damn gorilla kept showing its face. It came from every single person he talked to for an entire night. The later it got, the more it seemed like they were all saying it twice.
“Good luck in the race on Sunday.”
He smiled. He said thanks. And he let them go on their way. No sense in trying to correct or explain the situation to random strangers, many of whom over-served, in what surely – to the casual observer – wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense anyway. Wheldon not running in the IndyCar race this weekend? Now … wait. What?
“What do I say?” he would ask, somewhat seriously, after each of them walked away. It was a question he repeated throughout the night as each stranger departed, “What should I say?”
Having spent the better part of the last three years giving Dan ideas on how to answer questions, and always surprised by how much he listened, I had nothing for this one. I eventually acted like I didn’t hear the question, only to turn back and see him still staring, awaiting an answer. I literally had nothing.
There are a lot of words you can use to describe Dan, but ‘confident’ was always near the top. But what I always remembered about that night, as strangers approached – one after another – was that I almost, for the first time, caught a glimpse of uncertainty in him. There was a forced smile, a sustained stare into the distance, or simply a few awkward moments of silence after each stranger passed. For a guy who ended all his sentences – and text messages – with exclamation points, that was the first time I’d ever seen a question mark.
There was a modest crowd the following day at the press conference to announce his partnership with Bryan Herta Autosport, a team owned by his former teammate and a trusted friend. I can’t remember why I went. Maybe I felt obligated having attended all his appearances the last two years, because as we chatted beforehand – piecing together the play-by-play from the night before - it didn’t immediately occur to us that this announcement was in the ‘optional’ column of my schedule.
“Wait,” he said with a smile, as I moved to take a seat in the rear of the crowd. “What are you doing here, bro?”
It was a year ago this weekend in St. Petersburg, on the eve of the first practice day of the 2011 season, that the IndyCar Series entry list had one very notable omission. Dan Wheldon, the former series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, was not slated to race in the season opener on the Streets of St. Petersburg, his beloved adopted hometown, and the site of one of the league’s signature events.
I’d told friends that if Dan didn’t secure a full-time ride before the start of the season, there was no way you’d find him anywhere near our open-wheel circus in St. Petersburg. He hadn’t spoken a word to the media all offseason and had no intentions to until he’d scored a seat. He had been close on some deals, but with the season opener within sight nothing materialized, and the previously ridiculous notion of Dan Wheldon walking through the IndyCar paddock on a race weekend in street clothes – and not a firesuit – was about to become a reality.
But as it turned out, his contract with Bryan Herta Autosport had come together, and open-wheel’s most beloved driver would, in fact, be in St. Pete that weekend. Not to drive, we all quickly discovered, but to announce a one-race deal with BHA to drive at the 100th Anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. We all recognized that this wasn’t a young rookie driver securing a top-flight drive at Andretti-Green Racing, or the most in-demand free agent in motorsports signing with Ganassi, or a still-hot commodity signing a multi-year deal to drive for the National Guard.
This was a one-race deal between a driver who needed a ride and a team that barely made the ‘500’ just nine months prior. The public consensus was quick: this wasn’t going to make headlines in Friday’s paper, and certainly wasn’t going to make waves on Memorial Day weekend. There were many who had written off Wheldon years before, and this announcement – they presumed – would do nothing but further prove their assertion that Dan Wheldon was a has-been.
Realizing our friend was in town, we urged him to meet us out; a small group of close friends, hanging out at a pub downtown watching Butler University start another Cinderella run in the NCAA championship. None of us expected to see DW that night. Surely he’d meet us out in Long Beach, or Iowa, or at any other track on the IndyCar schedule, but the fact he wasn’t going to be on the grid in his hometown – a place where he was recognized in public with a near Hollywood-esque frequency – was presumably going to keep ‘ole DW at home for most of the weekend.
But we were wrong.
Most of the time, you heard him before you saw him. I don’t use clichéd phrases like this very often, but the concept of Dan Wheldon “lighting up a room” simply couldn’t be more apt. He rarely entered a party without greeting everyone in sight. I was always amazed how many people he knew, how happy they all were to see him and, no matter who it was, how much time he spent with each of them. He remembered all their names and knew the names of their wives, husbands, and kids. He asked about all of them, remembered minute details and engaged each of them in a way that assured them he cared. A lot of fans don’t know what it’s like to have an elite driver look them in the eyes when they’re talking - DW gave out his e-mail address and demanded follow up.
And on this night, in parting, everybody he spoke to made sure to tell him good luck in the race on Sunday.
That was awkward. Maybe we’d allowed ourselves to forget the 800-pound gorilla sharing the room with us that night. The thought of Dan not having a ride was abnormal at best, even when we’d known it could be a possibility for months. But as the night progressed that damn gorilla kept showing its face. It came from every single person he talked to for an entire night. The later it got, the more it seemed like they were all saying it twice.
“Good luck in the race on Sunday.”
He smiled. He said thanks. And he let them go on their way. No sense in trying to correct or explain the situation to random strangers, many of whom over-served, in what surely – to the casual observer – wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense anyway. Wheldon not running in the IndyCar race this weekend? Now … wait. What?
“What do I say?” he would ask, somewhat seriously, after each of them walked away. It was a question he repeated throughout the night as each stranger departed, “What should I say?”
Having spent the better part of the last three years giving Dan ideas on how to answer questions, and always surprised by how much he listened, I had nothing for this one. I eventually acted like I didn’t hear the question, only to turn back and see him still staring, awaiting an answer. I literally had nothing.
There are a lot of words you can use to describe Dan, but ‘confident’ was always near the top. But what I always remembered about that night, as strangers approached – one after another – was that I almost, for the first time, caught a glimpse of uncertainty in him. There was a forced smile, a sustained stare into the distance, or simply a few awkward moments of silence after each stranger passed. For a guy who ended all his sentences – and text messages – with exclamation points, that was the first time I’d ever seen a question mark.
There was a modest crowd the following day at the press conference to announce his partnership with Bryan Herta Autosport, a team owned by his former teammate and a trusted friend. I can’t remember why I went. Maybe I felt obligated having attended all his appearances the last two years, because as we chatted beforehand – piecing together the play-by-play from the night before - it didn’t immediately occur to us that this announcement was in the ‘optional’ column of my schedule.
“Wait,” he said with a smile, as I moved to take a seat in the rear of the crowd. “What are you doing here, bro?”
2013 INDY 500 Practice
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