All the spin from Indy 500

AUSSIES lucked out in this year's action-packed race.

Falcom XY

THE US knows how to deal with dole-bludging, won't work, Pommy no-hopers. Yes, siree, Bob. They put them in race cars to win $2.5 million in the Indy 500.

This will be the basis of my submission to the Gillard government on fixing the problems of the mature-age, long-term unemployed from Britain.

Dan Wheldon was born in Emberton, Buckinghamshire; he started kart racing at age four. Toying with an F1 career, he decided it was all too expensive and moved to Florida, where it took him only six years to win the Indianapolis 500 in 2005, becoming the fifth Englishman to take the flag in 100 years. (An Australian has never won the race but Kiwi Scott Dixon did in 2008, so let's claim him.)

Wheldon's contract with team owner Bryan Herta Autosport ended at midnight on the day he won so he ran around the pits yelling: "I'm unemployed." But once again real-life motor racing outdoes fiction, with Wheldon being given the flick last year by his old team, Panther Racing, and being replaced by young Yank driver J.R. Hildebrand. So, with one lap to go in this year's race, who is in the lead? Yup. You guessed it, rookie J.R. in his Panther Racing car.

J.R. is coming into the final turn and a $2.5m cheque but sees a car that is a lap behind in his way. "I thought I'll breathe it and go to the high side because it was a move I used earlier in the race to get around some slower cars in a fairly similar situation," he says.

"I guess with the tyres as worn as they were, the run being as long, that sort of stint of the race being as long as it was, there were a bunch of marbles on the outside. Once I got up there, there wasn't a lot I could do. I was flat on the gas. What are you gonna do at that point?"

There was only one thing he could do. He hit the safety wall, flattened the car but somehow kept going.

"After I hit the wall, I was not slowing down to the start-finish line. Obviously, I got to the point that I couldn't steer it any more. I was making every effort at that point to try to lessen the blow." J.R. finished second to Dan Wheldon and $1.5m lighter.

But the fun doesn't stop there because then there was the issue of Michael Andretti buying a drive for his boy Ryan Hunter-Reay. Now, to understand how truly eccentric the Indy is, you need to know that about 30 per cent of the drivers, like Wheldon, are part time. This is despite many of them being winners or podium place-getters on this track. And that, in true American style, race organisers hired Randy Bernard, from the Professional Bull Riders circuit, to brighten the race up.

So Bruno Junqueira from the cash-strapped A.J. Foyt team qualifies and Hunter-Reay from the cash full Andretti team doesn't. No problem. A quick call from Andretti to A.J. Foyt and Bruno gets the flick (for the second time) and Hunter-Reay gets a drive.

But back to the most critical part of the race. How did our sun-bronzed Aussies do? Well, Toowomba's Will Power qualified fifth and Summer Hill (Trinity) High's Ryan Briscoe was 26th, just behind Danica Patrick.

On the first pit stop Power drove out with a loose left rear wheel that decided to race on its own while he drove around the track on three wheels, still managing to finish 14th. Briscoe had a prang and came in 27th.

If all this has fired up your petrol-head carbon-emitting juices then head down to Sydney's Double Pay later this month where Sotheby's is returning to the auction business with a public tender sale on some serious metal.

There is a beautiful blue Bugatti Type 37 rebuilt for the 2005 International Bugatti Rally in Australia, one of only 37 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IIIs painted in yellow ochre, and a superbly restored 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster.

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