{"id":79928,"date":"2021-06-01T07:53:51","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T14:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=79928"},"modified":"2021-06-01T07:53:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T14:53:51","slug":"helio-castroneves-makes-history-in-indianapolis-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/helio-castroneves-makes-history-in-indianapolis-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Helio Castroneves Makes History in Indianapolis 500"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Helio<\/a>
Photo: Joe Skibinski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s pretty clear God is a Helio Castroneves fan.<\/p>\n

After all, how can a 46-year-old veteran race car driver, who was viewed by some as potentially over the hill, put on an incredible show Sunday by capturing the 105th Running of the Indianapolis 500 in dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to also thank the Lord,\u201d Castroneves said.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old Castroneves passed youngster Alex Palou on the second-to-last lap and held on to win buoyed on the final lap by a screaming, cheering throng of 135,000 fans (the maximum number that were allowed due to COVID restrictions) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unbelievable,\u201d Castroneves exclaimed as he climbed out of his Meyer Shank Racing Honda. He then launched into arguably the longest post-race celebration ever seen at IMS, climbing the fence in the kind of joy the U.S. hasn\u2019t seen in well over a year due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like Castroneves let everything hang out and was not going to be denied.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a good reason for that: after 11 tries since his last 500 win in 2009, he finally earned his fourth Indy 500 win, lifting him into one of the most exclusive clubs in racing, sharing the title with three of the greatest drivers in IndyCar history who have also won the Greatest Spectacle In Racing four times: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears.<\/p>\n

\"Helio<\/a>
Photo: Joe Skibinski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Castroneves, who also won the 500 back-to-back in 2001 and 2002, is a huge fan favorite. He was even before Sunday\u2019s record-tying triumph, but this win was arguably more special than the other three.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian native said he won\u2019t think about whether he\u2019ll go for a record-breaking fifth win in next year\u2019s 500. \u201cWe\u2019ll talk about five in a week later,\u201d he said afterward.<\/p>\n

But still, there was no denying the significance of what Helio did Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won Indianapolis, we did it!\u201d an obviously excited Castroneves said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve still got it!\u201d<\/p>\n

And that right there is the key. While NBC touted that five of the top-eight finishers in the 500 were \u201cyoung guys\u201d (under 30), it also kind of skewed the overall picture, as five of the top-10 finishers were \u201colder guys,\u201d 37 years of age or older.<\/p>\n

Castroneves (46 years old), former teammate Simon Pagenaud (37), fifth-place finisher Ed Carpenter (40), ninth-place finisher Juan Pablo Montoya (45) and the 10th-place finisher and the oldest driver in the field, Tony Kanaan (46).<\/p>\n

That proved that, while IndyCar is trying to build its future on today\u2019s large crop of young drivers, Castroneves\u2019 win proved that the old guys still have a lot of gas left in their respective tanks.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom Brady won the Super Bowl (at 43), Phil Mickelson won the PGA championship (last week, at the age of 50),\u201d Castroneves said. \u201cSo, the old guys still have it and are still kicking the young guys\u2019 butt. We\u2019re teaching them a lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castroneves never gave up on his dream of winning a fourth 500, even though the 12-year gap between his third and fourth wins at Indy marked the second-longest winless streak in the 500 behind Montoya\u2019s 15-year spread between his Indy 500 wins in 2000 and 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never stopped dreaming,\u201d Castroneves said. \u201cI wanted to prove to the young kids that you can still win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he still has five other IndyCar starts scheduled for Meyer Shank Racing this season, Castroneves right now is batting 1.000: he was on the winning team at the Rolex 24 in late January and now is a four-time Indy 500 winner.<\/p>\n

Not bad for an old guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople put a label on a number,\u201d Castroneves said. \u201cMario Andretti and A.J. Foyt, all these incredible guys, were able to race into their 50s. All of a sudden, they see a young guy and are probably going to spend more time and money on the crashes he\u2019s (involved in while) learning then a guy who has experience and makes things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Helio<\/a>
Photo: Chris Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And Castroneves certainly made things happen Sunday. Yet in a twist of irony, he became the only driver to ever win the Indy 500 for two different owners. That\u2019s right, he won his first three during a 20-year tenure with Team Penske. But when he was told the team wouldn\u2019t be able to field a car for him in this year\u2019s 500 due to the addition of young New Zealand driver Scott McLaughlin to the Penske fold, Castroneves was left with a difficult choice.<\/p>\n

He could either essentially call it quits and retire from IndyCar racing, or if Penske didn\u2019t want him any longer, he could go out and find another team that did.<\/p>\n

Enter Meyer Shank Racing. They gave Castroneves the chance he wanted and he delivered in a big way, earning the first-ever IndyCar win for MSR at the same time. And in yet another salvo against the age situation, Castroneves proved he\u2019s far from being over the hill as Sunday\u2019s race was the fastest in Indy 500 history at 190.690 mph and at 2 hours, 37 minutes, 19.3846 seconds, breaking the old mark by more than 3 mph and over five minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted a chance to fight and we did,\u201d Castroneves said. \u201cSuper honored to be in this group. It was great to be with Penske and now my new friends, I\u2019m having a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the rate he\u2019s going, and with his career and life both reinvigorated by Sunday\u2019s historic finish, Castroneves may wind up racing not just into his 50s, but maybe even his 60s if he keeps this all up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have the fire, I love what I do, this is my passion,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t take that away. So for me, representing the old guys, I feel like with technology, we can still go for a long time. And as long as I have the opportunity, I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jerry Bonkowski reflects on Helio Castroneves epic (and historic) Indy 500 victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":79931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,3699,5029],"tags":[8465,912,1863],"class_list":["post-79928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-other-racing","category-racing","tag-2021-indianapolis500","tag-helio-castroneves","tag-indy-500"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/joe-skibinski-helio-praises-God-for-Indy-500-win-min-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-kNa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79932,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79928\/revisions\/79932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}