Wheldon won't back down in race for the championship at Chicagoland source: indycar.com / Dave Lewandowski Reigning IndyCar Series champion Dan Wheldon hasn't finished lower than fourth on 1.5-mile ovals this season. That should bode well at Chicagoland Speedway in Wheldon's final opportunity to successfully defend his IndyCar Series championship. The first-year Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver is 19 points off the pace of Helio Castroneves entering the season finale Sept. 10. Wheldon is confident he'll deliver on his end. "As fast as we've been all year, as aggressive as everyone knows I can be, no one is going to want to mess with me in Chicago," he said. "I have nothing to lose now and I'm not ready to give in and neither is the Target team. We've been really strong on mile and a half ovals and we can still win. We're still in this. "We just have to win at Chicago and the rest will be in the 'racing gods' hands. We've worked very hard all year to make a championship possible and it's not over yet." A challenge to his three conpetitors, or self-motivation? Maybe a little of both. Wheldon won his debut with the team at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but the remainder of the season has been relatively unfulfilled. A punctured tire at Indianapolis and botched pit stops at Texas and Kentucky have robbed Wheldon of potential victories. "Anytime you can win your first race with a new team in such a competitive championship is a great achievement," Wheldon said. "I would have to say that is my highlight. Ultimately, would I want that to be my highlight of the season? Not really. It's just a race win. "For me, personally, I was desperate to win the Indy 500 again. I was quietly confident that we were capable of doing that. I think everyone should be commended for the performance we had there. Everybody was talking about (Sam) Hornish (Jr.), and I respect Roger Penske and Sam immensely. They were very quick the whole month. For us, we were very quick, but it was one of those situations that cost us that victory."
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