Dan Wheldon nipped Helio Castroneves to win the Peak Antifreeze 300 at the Chicagoland Speedway, and now must only show up at the next race in Watkins Glen, New York to clinch his first IndyCar Series title source: irl.racing-live.com The 2005 Indianapolis 500 champion led 88 of 200 wild laps to pick up three bonus points that now give him a 102 point lead with just two races remaining. "I'm gonna celebrate like a race winner, I'm not gonna celebrate like a champion," said Wheldon whose sixth victory breaks the IndyCar Series single season record previously held by Sam Hornish, Jr in 2001. "Until it's done, then I'm not the champion. I'm not sure exactly what is the case in terms of what I have to do at Watkins Glen, but if it's just a practice lap, that practice lap is going to be the slowest I've ever taken in my history." Pole sitter Danica Patrick had one of her strongest races of the season, finishing sixth after aggressively racing in the top ten throughout the race. "I finally led the first lap from pole, so I was happy about that," said Danica, who brushed off a post race comment from fifth place finisher Tony Kanaan who said she drove like an "idiot" today. "There were plenty of people today that I thought were driving like idiots," said Danica who had her best finish since a fourth place run at Indy. "He can have his opinion. Especially right after the race, emotions are running high - that's your opinion. I'm not mad at him. I think he's a great guy. I think he's a great racer. I hope I can see him so I can figure out what I supposedly had done." The race was marred by a spectacular crash on lap 20 when Ryan Briscoe ran over the left front wheel of Alex Barron and made heavy impact with the turn three catch fence. Briscoe's car disintegrated upon impact with fence, leaving Briscoe protected by only his Panoz chassis "tub" as he bounced back to the racing surface. His Toyota engine would lay smoldering by itself as the IRL safety team attended to Briscoe who was seen moving in the cockpit just after the car came to rest.
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