Press Releases - Wheeler Loses His Mind After Series Engine Failure #3 | F3 America

Wheeler Loses His Mind After Series Engine Failure #3 | F3 America

The first leg of Watkins leg looked all well and good for the American, Nick Wheeler, as he drove his machine at the front for more than 50% of the race. A small slip up put Brandon Knight through with 7 to go, but Wheeler maintained his 2nd position until all of a sudden the Rage machine died on the infield, leaving Wheeler to watch as he fell to 27th with just 3 to go.

Unable to contain himself Wheeler found his way to the pit area and began slamming his dead machine with a sledge hammer, throwing tools, and sending parts and pieces into opponents' pit boxes. The furious driver stopped for just a moment when he spotted Jason Anderson wandering through other Rage pitboxes and sprinted over to him.

Without any questions at all, Wheeler began a rant to challenge all rants.

"Why bother racing!? Why not just play the damned lottery!? You have a better chance of actually finishing that! If these stupid machines aren't going to work when they're set up perfectly, by creators' standards mind you, on the pole, in clean air, with almost no mistakes, there's no point in driving them. Hell this is the least I've pushed an engine all season and I'm rewarded with a pressure failure!? I take the safe approach for the first time in 200 races and the damn thing still broke! You've got to be kidding me. I may as well just freaking retire if the manufacturers of these things can't manage to build one that'll hold up with any normal success. 4 failures in a week. F&#*ing ridiculous."

Anderson: "So is it safe to say our assumptions about your anger towards manufacturers during post-qualifying was correct?"

Wheeler: "You tell me, Jason. Don't be an idiot. Imagine if you had a huge story to write and your brand new hard drive blew up and the internet goes down for no reason three quarters of the way through your story. Oh, but I guess that's no big deal, because you can just go find another machine and finish your story at a Starbucks. Unfortunately for us, if we get a piece of crap under us, we don't get a second chance to finish. Our careers are useless if these things don't work for 10 seconds. Don't ask me another question, or I'll just insult you, and you don't deserve that, Jason. Just.."

And with that Wheeler stomped away from Anderson and threw a few more tools at his machine on the way to his trailer.

We reached out to Wheeler for a follow up, but he was unresponsive. Assuming his machine holds up, watch for another 20+ position move from Wheeler on leg 2 at Watkins Glen.