LONG POND, Pa. — In the selfish, highly-competitive sport of the Verizon IndyCar Series, drivers have to trust each other but don’t necessarily have to be friends. Respect is more important than friendship but, in Justin Wilson’s case, he has both.
It’s virtually impossible to find anyone who doesn’t like the driver from Sheffield, England who lives with his family in the Denver suburb of Longmont, Colo. At 6-foot-3½ Wilson is considered the “Gentle Giant” of the IndyCar Series, where many of the drivers are diminutive in size to fit into the tight cockpits of the high-speed, open-cockpit, open-wheel race cars.
On Sunday night, Wilson is clinging to life after he sustained a severe head injury during the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway. Wilson is currently in a coma and in critical condition while undergoing further evaluation at Lehigh Valley Health Network Cedar Crest Hospital in Allentown, Pa.
Additional updates to Wilson's condition will be released when available.
After leaving Formula One following the 2003 season, Wilson came to the Champ Car Series in 2004 and won a total of four races before that series was absorbed by the Indy Racing League to become the current Verizon IndyCar Series in 2008. By the end of that first season of unification Wilson drove the Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing entry to victory in the Belle Isle Detroit Grand Prix.
His two wins for Dale Coyne Racing gives Wilson a total of seven IndyCar victories in his career.
Wilson was driving a part-time schedule for Andretti Autosport in 2015 after a full-season effort fell through because of lack of sponsorship. He started and finished 18th in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, started sixth and finished 21st in the 99th Indianapolis 500.
Wilson did not rejoin the series until the ABC Supply 250 at the Milwaukee Mile on July 12, and he was happy to be able to finish out the second half of the season for Andretti Autosport. He finished 18th at Milwaukee and 17th at Iowa Speedway on July 18 before scoring an impressive second-place finish to Graham Rahal in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Aug. 2.
On Sunday at Pocono Raceway, Sage Karam lost control of his car coming out of the exit of Turn 1 and slammed hard into the wall while leading the race with 21 laps to go ending a dramatic storyline for the 20-year-old driver from nearby Nazareth, Pa. Wilson was also involved in the crash with debris scattering across the track. It appeared part of the nose that had broken loose off Karam’s Chevrolet hit Wilson, rendering him unconscious before he hit the inside wall.
Wilson was airlifted to Lehigh Valley Cedar Crest Hospital in Allentown, where he remains Sunday night.
Wilson is considered one of the most talented drivers in the Verizon IndyCar Series because he is competitive on all types of circuits. In 2009, he drove under-funded Dale Coyne Racing to its first victory when Wilson won at Watkins Glen International. In 2012, he drove Dale Coyne Racing’s Honda to another win in the Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Wilson is able to get the most out of his race car and that is why he was a competitive force even on smaller teams. His goal was to get a full-time ride at Andretti Autosport — the top Honda team in IndyCar — because he believed it would be his best chance at winning the Indianapolis 500 and a Verizon IndyCar Series championship. Instead, he had to settle for part-time duty in an effort partially funded by Honda.
There were times during IndyCar’s long offseason that a new deal on a winning team was all but completed. Problem is, they never came to fruition.
“It’s just been a roller-coaster of an offseason,” Wilson told FOXSports.com at Barber Motorsports Park in March while IndyCar had its preseason open test. “There have been three occasions where I’ve thought, 'Great, we’re all set. Next week we will get a deal sorted for a full season and it will be great. It will be perfect.’ Then next week comes and the deal collapsed. It’s been one of those offseasons where you have a couple good days and then a couple bad days — this cycle or up and down, up and down.
“It just didn’t happen. It didn’t work out like I was hoping. There have been three times with two different teams where I thought we were good to go. And then something happened and two days later the deal was off. The sponsor was all set; looking good and it fell through.
“It’s frustrating,” Wilson admitted. “It ticks you off but what can you do? You can jump up and down and scream about it, but at the end of the day they either have the money, found the money, got the sponsor or they are making it happen to get to the track. What I’m working on is to try to be less dependent on the situation and be in the right place at the right time. I’m trying to get things sorted and try to take my own deals to the table.
“It’s just a hard world we live in right now, and it’s not easy.”
Wilson once had investors who bought shares of stock in his career and that helped fund him from one series to another with stops in Formula One, Champ Car and IndyCar. But that arrangement has dissolved and Wilson is in charge of his own destiny.
“That ended at the end of 2012,” Wilson explained. “It was a 10-year process so whatever was saved up got paid back to the shareholders. That was Dec. 31, 2012. That allowed me to change my approach and try to look at the overall picture of things. I think about me as a driver and my career as opposed to what is the best financial decision for the investors? I don’t have to wear that hat any more. Now, I can think what is my best chance to win the Indy 500? That has allowed me to change my approach and evaluate things.
“It’s hard to find the right guy at the right time and who is interested and tell them spend $2 million to $5 million on IndyCar and it will be great. The odds of that are one in 5,000 so there are a lot more doors to knock on.”
Honda and team owner Michael Andretti finally opened one of those doors for Wilson earlier this season on a part-time basis. After nearly winning at Mid-Ohio, the former Formula One driver appeared primed to get into Victory Lane before the end of the season.
On Sunday night, he is fighting for his life but has the combined force of the Verizon IndyCar Series community praying for his recovery.
“I actually thought when we won the race, just prior to that, I was told he was in the ambulance with Sage going to get checked and I thought everything was fine,” said race-winner Ryan Hunter-Reay — one of Wilson’s Andretti Autosport teammates. “Then, I come to find out, it wasn't that straightforward.
“Thoughts and prayers with him. He has a family, just like I do. He's a great friend, a teammate. Can't say enough about the guy on and off the racetrack. Thinking about his family, for sure. His two daughters. I can't imagine.
“These cars are inherently dangerous with the open cockpit like that, head exposed. Maybe in the future we can work towards some type of — we've seen some concept renderings of something that resemble as canopy, not a full jet fighter canopy, but something that can give us a little protection but keep the tradition of the sport.
“Just to be an innocent bystander like that and get hit in the head with a nosecone is a scary thought.
“My thoughts and prayers are with him.”
**
Be sure to catch Bruce Martin's Honda IndyCar Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. ET.
