Dan Wheldon celebrates as he heads to the finish line.

Above, Confetti rains on Dan Wheldon after he won the Kansas Lottery Indy 300. Wheldon raced to the victory Sunday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. IN top photo, Wheldon celebrates as he heads to the finish line.

Dan Wheldon celebrates as he heads to the finish line.

Kansas City, Kan. ? Kansas Speedway has been a frustrating track for IRL IndyCar Series driver Dan Wheldon the last two years.

Each year, Wheldon has had to settle for second by the slimmest of margins – 0.0793 of a second behind last year and 0.0120 of a second in 2005, which was the second-closest finish in series history.

However, on Sunday Wheldon did not fall victim again and actually set a Kansas Speedway record for largest margin of victory by finishing 18.4830 seconds ahead of Dario Franchitti.

“I have to say I much prefer the widest margin of a Kansas race than the shortest, because I’ve lost on one of those shortest,” Wheldon said after the race. “As an IndyCar driver, you want to try to win at all the different venues you race at. I came up a little short a couple of times here. It’s nice to have this one in the books. I think going into these first five races now, I’ve won at every track : I like that. I’m very goal-driven. That’s something I’m trying to work on.”

After starting fourth in the race, Wheldon went on to lead 177 of the 200 laps – another speedway record – and win his second race of the young season.

“Any time you’re winning and leading laps, it’s very positive for everybody involved,” said Wheldon, who has led 484 of 700 laps raced in the series this season. “I can’t say enough. There’s so much pressure, it seems, this year because the competition is so close. People talked about going into the season that it would be between two teams; I think for all the drivers involved, they’re very glad that that’s not the case.”

Fortunately for Wheldon, he received some inadvertent help from the 12 lapped cars still racing down the stretch.

“That was a continuing theme all day with, again, the restarts, with them (Wheldon and fourth place finisher, Scott Dixon) being up front and me having to fight through ‘X’ number of back markers that seemed to start going quite a bit quicker when you come up to lap them,” Franchitti said. “It’s interesting like that. I guess if they drove like that all race, they wouldn’t be a lap down, right?”

The point standings leader heading into the race, Wheldon increased his lead to 27 points over Dixon.

Though it would seem cliche for him to say his focus now is only on the next race. But considering the prestigious Indianapolis 500 is up next, it’s understandable that he’s not too concerned about the points lead.

“The Indianapolis 500, I think, as everybody knows, is the be-all and end-all to me – that’s the race that I’m desperate to win,” said Wheldon, who actually won the race in 2005. “I’ve had a taste of that milk before.

“But I think that taste of milk makes you even more determined to win again. It’s kind of frustrating, really. We’ve got the championship lead, which is nice. But I think more importantly we scored another win, which is what I like doing the best.

“We’re going to a place where the Super Bowl : it’s the home of the Super Bowl champions. Hopefully we can overshadow them with a great race. Not to take anything away from the Colts because I like the Colts and Peyton Manning, too.”