As we touched on when speaking about Arie Luyendyk in our last update, the Indianapolis 500 has an ability to transform the career of a racing driver unlike any other motor sport event, with a good run on Memorial Day weekend helping turn even the most journeyman driver into a celebrated motorsport figure almost overnight. In recent years, no race has come to symbolise this better than the 2005 running of the 500, where a dramatic late-race finish and unprecedented pre-race hype helped turn two of the race’s competitors into global superstars both on and off the track.

Heading into the month of May, Dan Wheldon was a driver brimming with confidence. The Buckinghamshire native had begun his racing career at the age of 4, competing in karting events with funding from his father, developing through the junior ranks of the series where he developed a fierce rivalry with future Formula One Champion Jenson Button in the process. After a spell in Formula Ford failed due to a lack of funding, Wheldon made the decision to pursue his career in America as opposed to Europe, winning the US F2000 series in 1999 before finishing as runner up to Townsend Bell in the 2001 Indy Lights Championship. In 2002, Wheldon made his debut in the Indycar series competing in two events for Panther Racing, before being hired by Michael Andretti to drive for his upstart team during the 2003 season. Over the next two years, Wheldon quickly emerged as a potential star of the series, picking up his first win in the series at Motegi on his way to a second placed finish in the Championship, and after claiming three wins in the first four races of 2005, Wheldon approached Memorial Day weekend as one of the leading contenders for victory.

Despite his achievements however, Wheldon found himself upstaged heading into Indianapolis by a 23-year-old rookie by the name of Danica Patrick. Like Wheldon, Patrick had plied the early days of her racing career at a karting level, before moving to Europe at the age of 16 at the advice of former Indy 500 winning team owner John Mecom. It was during this spell that Patrick first burst into the public lime-light, taking second placed at the prestigious Formula Ford festival at Brands Hatch, the highest ever finish for an female driver in the race’s 30-year history. Upon returning to America citing homesickness, Patrick moved to the Toyota Atlantic Championship under the guidance of future Indycar team boss Bobby Rahal, emerging as a regular podium finisher in the series on her way to a third place finish in the 2004 championship, and doing enough to encourage Rahal to promote the Roscoe, Illinois native to his Indycar team for the 2005 season.

Although women drivers competing in the 500 was nothing new at this point, with the race having at least one female representative since 2000) Patrick marked the first time that a woman driver was seen as a legitimate threat to win the 500, and after the 23 year found herself at the top of the time-sheets throughout the month’s practice sessions media interest and hype surrounding the Rahal Letterman driver began to increase by the day. In qualifying itself however, a bobble entering turn one on her first lap forced Patrick to settle for fourth on the grid, whilst struggled during his pole day run to claim a 16th placed starting slot, well adrift of team-mates Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti starting first and sixth respectively.

At the start of the race itself it was Kanaan that led the field going into turn one just ahead of Sam Hornish Jr and former 500 pole-sitter Scott Sharp. Patrick meanwhile slipped back to sixth at the start, and ran with the lead pack for the majority of the race’s early stages, becoming the first woman ever to lead the race on lap 56 when she stayed on track a lap longer during a series of green flag pit-stops. Wheldon meanwhile had began to slowly work his way through the field, and by the 400-mile mark had moved to the front of the pack just ahead of Vitor Meira in second place.

On lap 155 however Patrick was involved in an incident that nearly ended her race. Running in eighth place, the Rahal Letterman driver suffered a half-spin going into turn three, collecting the cars of Tomas Enge and Tomas Scheckter in the process and forcing Patrick to dive to the pits to repair the damage suffered to her Panoz machine. Although the incident dropped Patrick to the tail-end of the lead lap, it also allowed the team to move off-sequence on pit-stops compared to the rest of the field, with the team returning to the pits shortly afterwards to top off the car’s fuel tanks in the hope of making the race without the need for another pit-stop.

With 30 laps remaining in the race, Roger Yasukawa brought out the yellow when his car blew an engine down the front stretch, forcing the lead-runners to pull into the pits for a final pitstop and allowing Patrick, along with fellow early stopper Bryan Herta, to cycle to the front of the field to the delight of the crowd. Upon the race’s restart Patrick pulled out a one second lead over Herta at the front of the field, but with concerns beginning to emerge over saving fuel for the end of the race, and causing the chasing pack, now led by Wheldon, to hunt the Rahal Letterman driver down entering the closing laps, taking the lead on lap 186 just before a Kosuke Matsuura accident brought out the race’s seventh caution.

There was however to be another twist to the tale. Heading into the final restart of the race Patrick got the jump on Wheldon coming out of turn four, taking the lead with just ten laps to go, generating an electric atmosphere unlike anything seen at the Brickyard for many years. Patrick would lead the next three laps of the race, but concerns about the level of fuel in her Panoz machine still remained prevalent, allowing Wheldon to retake the lead with seven laps to go whilst Patrick attempted to conserve fuel to make it to the end of the race. With three laps remaining, Vitor Meira and Bryan Herta both passed Patrick for second and third place remaining, before a Sebastian Bourdais accident with two laps to go brought out the race’s final caution, locking the field in place and crowning Wheldon as the winner of the race under yellow flag conditions, becoming the first British driver since Graham Hill in 1966 to win the 500. Patrick meanwhile would hold on to fourth place to claim the best ever finish for a female driver in the race’s 89-year history.

The race would go on to have a profound effect on the careers of both Patrick and Wheldon. The victory for Wheldon helped to cement his place as one of the stars of the series, picking up another two wins on his way to claiming that year’s series championship, and acting as the catalyst for a high profile move to the prestigious Chip Ganassi outfit for the 2006 season, claiming victory in the 2006 24 hours of Daytona in his first event with the team. A spell with Panther racing would follow for Wheldon in 2009, before the Bucks native claimed an historic second 500 victory in 2011 driving for Bryan Herta Autosport. Patrick’s fourth place meanwhile turned her into a global superstar, becoming one of the most marketable females in world sport and sparking a new wave of fans to sport in a phenomenon dubbed Danicamania by the motoring press. The result also helped the 23-year-old on the track, finishing 12th in the standings on her way to winning that season’s rookie of the year honours before making history in 2008 with victory at Motegi in 2008, the first and only win for a female driver in Indycar series history. Patrick would later break her 500 record with a third place finish in 2009, before moving to NASCAR in 2012 where she remains a much discussed figure within the sport.

For today’s video we have a 20 minutes highlights package of the 2005 500, and thankfully for us no Todd Harris in sight: