Big interview

Fast bucks, slow fame

He has achieved more in the US than David Beckham and has earned more than Lewis Hamilton, but British driver Dan Wheldon is little known at home. This upsets his dad more than him, he says as he tunes up for the Indycar series - and the chance of another dazzling double
Dan Wheldon
Dan Wheldon's success has received far more recognition in the USA than at home. Photograph: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

The front terrace of the Vinoy Resort & Golf Club in St Petersburg is a quiet place. The elderly patrons sit and watch the world go by as they are fanned by a warm, Florida breeze blowing in off Tampa Bay. They might occasionally point out a pelican riding the air currents or a horse-drawn carriage trundling gently past the yachts in the harbour, but there is little else to pass the time in the city known as 'God's waiting room'. It is the last place you would expect to see a racing driver pull up in a flame-red Chevrolet Corvette, particularly one with large stickers reading 'Official Pace Car, 2005 Indianapolis 500' plastered on the doors.

'They give it to you if you win,' says a bright and breezy Dan Wheldon. 'It's a trophy. I'd never sell it. I don't drive it that often, it's done less than 100 miles. Recently I pulled up at the lights in it and a guy looked at me and said, "Dan, we all know you won the Indy 500".'

Wheldon's victory at Indianapolis three years ago, one of only four by a British-born driver in a race that was first run in 1911, catapulted him to sporting superstar status, the sort of person who appears on The David Letterman Show and throws the first pitch at Wrigley Field or Shea Stadium. But he is almost unknown on this side of the Atlantic.

'People don't recognise me in England,' says 29-year-old Wheldon. 'If I sign my name or they see my credit or something jerks the memory, then they would, but not often. My dad craves it more than I do. I think he wants to see me and American racing more recognised. It doesn't bother me so much.'

What does bother him is that he is yet to have a go around the track on the BBC's Top Gear. He looks at every new lap on YouTube and feels he would make quite an impression.

Wheldon is very settled in America, where he has been racing since 1999 after he failed to land the budget for a season of Formula 3 in England. The move has been a huge success and not only in terms of results. His on-track earnings are approaching the $10million mark since he made his Indycar debut in 2002 and, when you add in his endorsements and a salary rumoured to be in the region of $5m a year, he is currently comfortably ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the motorsport rich list.

'He's doing all right for himself,' says Wheldon of Hamilton, but he no longer harbours ambitions of heading to F1. An offer of a test drive at BMW at the start of 2006 held no appeal. He wants to race and be in a winning position, and he has that in America.

Wheldon's accent has a mid-Atlantic twang, but it is his teeth that really grab the attention. New wife Susie, who married him this month after she had worked as his personal assistant since 2003, trained to become a dentist and his pearly-whites are the sort of spectacular dazzlers that are far more Boca Raton than Emberton, the Buckinghamshire village where he grew up and his family still live.

'I get back home for Christmas,' he says. 'My favourite things are The Ali G Show and Only Fools and Horses, but I hate the traffic in England. We always get stuck in traffic on the M1 and the M25. It's cold, it's bleak, but at the same time it is still home. Whenever I'm there I always look forward to getting back to America. I would never not have a home here. How can you not like it here? If you don't like it here there's something wrong. It's a beautiful city.' He has a beautiful house, too, but a brief tour reveals a touch of David Beckham - an English sportsman who could do with a fraction of the success that Wheldon has enjoyed in the States - when it comes to having things 'just so'.

'Is he like that?' says Wheldon when told about Beckham's penchant for neatly arrayed cans of Coke in the fridge. 'I'm worse, much worse.'

He opens the door to one room to reveal row upon row of shoes, each pair equidistant from the adjacent pair and the row in front or behind. 'See,' he says, almost apologetically.

The house, on St Petersburg's upmarket Snell Isle, tells you everything you need to know about Dan Wheldon as well as the fact that he has earned a huge amount of money. There is a 'no shoes' (on the feet) policy and the kitchen is unused. 'I don't cook,' he says, opening the oven and hoping to find the instructions still inside. 'Damn, they were here yesterday. The cleaner must have moved them.' Elsewhere, there is plenty of evidence of on-track success.

Pictures, trophies, certificates, helmets adorn every surface and where there is a bit of wall space left it is covered by a flat-screen television - several of them in the 63in territory, with three more regular-sized screens above them. What does he watch? 'Motor racing,' he says and smiles as he turns up the volume until it feels as if we are at the Nascar race in California being shown. Outside, at the end of his private jetty, are a pair of jetskis that have been winched out of the water and are suspended from an automated gantry. As he leaves, Wheldon spends a little more time than is healthy getting the mat to line up with the door frame.

Before he bought his home in St Petersburg, Wheldon led a nomadic life in America because he insisted on living wherever the team he was driving for were based. Indianapolis might have been the scene of his greatest triumph, but it was while living there in 2002 that Wheldon encountered the other side of living in America.

'I had a gun pointed at me,' Wheldon says, matter-of-factly. 'I can remember it so clearly. I left this bagel place and, as I was going out of town, I'm in the right lane and there is a guy in the left lane and I obviously just reacted quicker to the light. The road merged into one lane so I was kind of coming across politely and I remember I had indicated, so I wasn't being like an idiot. And he comes running up the side of me and just comes over. This guy is crazy and gets me on the grass and the dirt and stuff and I am pissed off at this point. I am like "Dude, what are you doing?" I kind of tucked in behind him and I just sat right on his bumper.

'We get to the stop light just up the road and I decided to pull up beside him and I am like "Dude, there is no need to do that". And he goes right to his glove box and I tell you what, the gun was big. He pulls the gun out and points it right at my head. He goes, "You want to get out now?" At that point I just took off. I didn't even look to see if anybody was coming. White guy with a shaved head. He pointed that gun right in my face.'

If the memory of that incident makes Wheldon shudder, he nevertheless has a love affair with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and its 500-mile race. The Indycar season starts on Saturday in Miami, but Wheldon is already focused on the month of May.

'I would encourage anybody to compete in the 500 once because it is unbelievable,' he says. 'You get to be in the car a lot during that month. But I particularly like to be in the car when it's intense. And there is always that pressure. Whether it's 11 o'clock in the morning or 5 o'clock at night, there is always that pressure to perform. The event is just amazing.

'I definitely think Indianapolis is one of those places if you go to once it would be hard not to have a lot more enthusiasm for the event. We've had family friends that really know nothing else other than Formula One and they turn into really big Indycar fans. And particularly Indianapolis because you can get close to the cars and you can see how quick they really go, and that's very mind-blowing.

'The biggest thing for any driver coming from F1 is the safety aspect. I think they find that difficult.'

The majority of races in the series are contested on oval circuits and Indycars compete just inches apart, on the far side of 200mph and in close proximity to unforgiving concrete walls. Sky viewers who have been following the Indy Racing League for the past 10 years will be very familiar with the precarious nature of racing at those speeds. Collisions are commonplace.

'That part of the job is dangerous,' says Wheldon. 'TV doesn't do it justice. If you lock your front wheel into the side of somebody else's car, they are going to be a little apprehensive. That's not intimidating, that's just placing your car to put you in the strongest position so you can dictate how high that car is going to let you go or how low. That's the kind of strategy you have to employ to be able to win that race on these super speedway-type tracks. It's incredibly difficult and it takes time to learn.'

So how did Wheldon learn to become the dominant force on these high-speed tracks? 'You have to perform well when you're a kid and you don't have any money to get an opportunity,' says Wheldon, recalling his first test in an Indycar. 'To some degree you are not performing in over your head by any stretch, but you're jumping in a car that goes over 220mph. You are not experienced enough to know exactly how it is going to react in certain situations but you have to know you have to do it and run the risk of crashing hard to impress potential employers.

'My first test was in Kentucky and that went pretty well because it was all kind of low-key, which was kind of nice and I wasn't in the car a lot. I think I did about 25 laps. And then my next test was in Chicago and it was just before I was going to race so you had to trim the car out and run the bottom. I was to the point where, if this thing steps out, I just hope I am going to react quick enough to catch it. You have to do it otherwise you are just going to get lost in the mix. I have always been a believer that you have to stand out when you do an initial test otherwise people aren't going to care.'

Wheldon starts the season as the favourite to win the championship and the Indy 500 - a double he achieved in 2005 - particularly as the past two champions and Indianapolis winners, Sam Hornish and Dario Franchitti, have defected to the hugely popular Nascar series. Wheldon, too, was predicted to move to Nascar, but his desire to win at Indy again and put a disappointing 2007 behind him has kept him in Indycars for now.

'Last year started off so well, but you hear what people say and maybe the Nascar stuff became a distraction. So this year I want to eliminate as much of those distractions as possible, and the best way I can do that is by winning races and as this is my last year of my contract that puts me in a stronger position. Then I have hopefully more power to dictate what I want to do.'

Looking at Wheldon's shiny, red Corvette parked in front of the terrace, it is clear that all he wants to do is win, preferably at Indianapolis.

Sky Sports will show all rounds of the Indycar Series for the next three years, as well as action from Nascar, A1GP and speedway. Watch the season opener in Miami on Saturday from midnight on Sky Sports 2

29 March Miami (night race)

6 April St Petersburg, Florida

19 April Motegi, Japan

27 April Kansas

25 May Indianapolis 500

1 June Milwaukee

7 June Texas

22 June Iowa

28 June Richmond, Virginia (night race)

6 July Watkins Glen, New York

12 July Nashville (night race)

20 July Mid-Ohio

9 August Kentucky (night race)

24 August Sears Point, California

31 August Detroit

7 September Chicago

Today's best video

Today in pictures