🇺🇸 Stan Wattles

Stan Wattles was an established professional racing in IndyCar, the top single-seater championship in the United States, between 1996 and 2001. He drove exclusively on oval circuits for Hemelgarn Racing and Metro Racing Systems across 17 starts. His career spanned six seasons but did not yield a championship.[1]

Wattles finished 28th in the 1996 IndyCar standings in his debut season and did not improve on that position across the subsequent five years. He started the Indianapolis 500 in three consecutive seasons from 1998 to 2000, a credential that marked him among the entrants in the series' most prestigious race, but his results there and in other events remained modest. He recorded two eighth-place finishes, the best of his career, and led laps only once, early in his first race at Walt Disney World Speedway in 1996.[2]

Wattles raced regularly against Buzz Calkins and Robbie Buhl, both established professionals with substantially longer IndyCar careers of 53 and 78 starts respectively; he usually finished behind them. His most notable scalp was 1997 IndyCar champion Tony Stewart, whom he beat on six occasions, though Stewart went on to finish ahead of him in the championship standings. He also finished ahead of Gil de Ferran, an IndyCar regular with experience in International Formula 3000 and Formula 3 Macau, once across their meetings.