I would disagree on it being a choke job.
He was low on fuel and made a rookie mistake of going to high into the groove. There is no grip above the groove there. Turn 4 at Indy is not a place to do side by side racing. It was really his only option though. Had he slowed down Weldon would have likely won anyway.
You have to remember these cars travel the length of a football field in less than a second and when he entered turn 4 you can clearly see Weldon in the short chute right behind him. Had he hit the brakes it would have been a sprint to the end which Weldon would have won. If I remember Weldon was running near 220 and the Rookie was running around 210 or below. Weldon was closing fast.
I will put the blame on the team crew chief and the spotter. The spotters job is to avoid such incidents. The spotters last words were Weldon is coming. That means go,go,go. So he did as he was told. Unfortunantley there was another vehicle in his way.
The team manager could have gotten on the radio with the slower cars owner way before this happened and asked for him to move out of the way. Either drop below the white line further or head into the warm up lane giving him a clear track. They can calculate this stuff pretty accurately.
Kimbell was running low on fuel as well I believe and was just trying to finish. That's racing. You had 2 rookies in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It cost him about a 2-3 million dollar pay day as well. But the $$$ is not what he lost. It was the fact of being the winner of the Indy 500. There is no price tag on that. This is not the first time Panther Racing has been in these kind of finishes and wound up on the short end.
Indy cars are not neck cars. You just don't push someone out of the way. Many can say waht they want about Jr. He drove one hell of a race. He gambled and lost. But I will not blame him. Drivers know one way to drive and that is with the pedal smashed.
I will blame his crew chief and spotter before I blame the rookie. He did a great job. Had he not had to conserve fuel the last 20 laps he would have won the race easily. Not the case though.
Hat's off to Wheldon. This guy had no ride until Indy. Tomorrow he is unemployed again unless someone gives him a full time ride.
I thought it was a great race.