(We’ve decided to add a sports page to bobpriddy.net. With some re-construction going on with the Missourinet web page and its sports section, we’ve decided to move our weekly racing summary reports to this page—-and expand it with sometimes keenly insightful observations about other sports and their participants)
We watched something remarkable happen Sunday at the Indianapolis Speedway—not from our usual perch on the back porch of the media center but from the forced comfort of our living room recliner—put there by recent surgery and by limits on spectators and reporters because of COVID.
There is a Missouri connection with Helio Castroneves, the man we call “racing’s happy warrior,” and his career at the Speedway that now includes him as the fourth man to win the 500 four times. We’ll get to that in due course.
The phrase has been used in politics from time to time. When young Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated New York Governor Al Smith for the presidency in 1924, he called Smith “the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield.” The same title was applied to Senator Hubert Humphrey during his time on the national Democratic tickets, and more recently it was affixed to Joseph Biden by Barack Obama in his presidential victory speech.
But there is no one in all of sports, at least today, to whom that title applies more fittingly than Helio Castroneves, and watching him celebrate his long-sought fourth victory at Indianapolis Sunday makes it clear why. 
Castroneves, fierce behind the helmet’s face shield, is animated and joyous when the hat comes off and the most instant issues of car and contest are set aside. Any INDYCAR fan has seen it many times.
What he did Sunday, however, is only part of the incredible story of the race.
Let’s begin with this:
Castroneves’ fellow Brazilian, Tony Kanaan, won the 500 in 2013 at the record speed of 187.433 mph. Castroneves broke that record by more than three miles an hour. 190.690.
The first sixteen cars averaged more than 190 miles an hour. The slowest car to finish the full 200 laps, driven by2014 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, still was two miles an hour faster than Kanaan’s record. RHR finished 22nd. Will Power, the 2018 winner, finished 30th, three laps down, and was still faster than Kanaan’s record.
Let me put some personal context into this discussion.
When I was but a sprout, my parents and I went to the Speedway for the first time to watch the first day of qualifications for the 1954 race. From our seats in the low wooden bleachers between turns one and two we watched Jack McGrath in his yellow Hinkle Special run the first officials laps at the Speedway at more than 140 miles an hour.
Sunday afternoon, I watched SIXTEEN DRIVERS run the full 200 laps and average more than 50 mph more than Jack McGrath ran on my first day at the track.
And how about this: Castroneves was only 2.6 seconds per lap away from averaging 200.
Here’s another thing about this guy: He has finished second three times by .2011 of a second, .2290 of a second, and .0600 of a second. He has come within a combined total of less than one-half second of winning SEVEN of these races.
There a a few other remarkable things about what might have been (individual perceptions using individual standards will differ) the greatest 500 ever run. This race produced the most remarkable finish in race history, beyond what we outlined earlier.
Al Unser Jr.’s .0423 of a second victory margin over Scott Goodyear in 1982 remains the closest finish; the Castroneves-Palou finish ranks eighth at .4928 of a second.
BUT—-Until May 30, 2021, the closed first-to-third finish had been in 2006, when Sam Hornish Jr., beat Marco Andretti by .0635 of a second (now the third closest finish) and finished 1.0187 seconds ahead of Michael Andretti. This year, the top FOUR drivers finished within 0.9409 of each other (Castroneves and Palou, then 2019 winner Simon Pagenaud, and Pato O’Ward.
A couple of the Kanaan race records survived the 2021 race. His race had 68 lead changes involving 14 drivers. The 2021 race had 35 lead changes involving 13 drivers.
The Missouri connection to his story:
Helio (the “h” is silent) was born Hélio Alves de Castro Neves a little more than 46 years ago. His first taste of big-time open-wheel racing in the USA came in 1998 when he ran for Tony Bettenhausen Jr., with a best finish of second at Milwaukee. But it was when he drove for St. Louis trucking entrepreneur Carl Hogan in 1999, that he began to arrive. He started third and finished second at Gateway International (now World Wide Technology International) just across the river from St. Louis, leading 38 laps—more than he had led in his entire season with Bettenhausen, in this car, a Mercedes-powered Lola owned by Hogan.
The next weekend, he won his first pole at Milwaukee. There are those who thought he should have won at least three times that year for Hogan but mechanical issues short-circuited those hopes. In those days, Helio had not yet combined the last two parts of his name into one.
He became Castroneves in 2000 when, after gaining some prominence, some reports in the United States referred to him either as “Castro,” or “Neves” and he wanted them to use his whole name.
Hogan folded his team for financial reasons at the end of the year but the young driver by then shown the kind of potential a man named Roger Penske liked to see.
He drove for Penske in 2000, picked up his first three wins, and in 2001 as a rookie at the Indianapolis 500, got the first of his now-four 500s.
In 2003, the last year Gateway hosted an INDYCAR race until the series returned in 2017, Castroneves led a 1-2-3 Brazilian podium sweep with Tony Kanaan and Gil de Ferran finishing behind him.
He lost his fulltime ride with Penske a few years ago when Penske decided to bring in some younger talent. He drove for Penske’s sports car team until it was disbanded last year after winning the IMSA Sports car championship. He was picked up by Wayne Taylor Racing for the Daytona 24-hour sports car endurance race. He won it. But Taylor doesn’t run INDYCAR.
So IMSA competitor, Meyer-Shank Racing, which does run at Indianapolis, signed him. Many people doubted an aging Castroneves driving for a small team such as Meyer-Shank, could contend for a win. But Helio was fast throughout practices and was among the nine fastest qualifiers, an indication that he couldn’t be dismissed lightly. He ran near the top all day, led a few laps, and didn’t go away. And when crunch time came, he knew he could pass Alex Palou on the outside going into the first turn on the next-to-last lap and have his chance for that cherished fourth win. He won by a half-second.
So that’s our connection to this remarkably talented, persistent, happy, warrior. And anybody who has watched him climb the fence after each of his four wins at Indianapolis and especially who watched his unrestrained joy on Sunday has no doubts that he deserves the designation.
(photo credits: Bob Priddy, various times and places, and Meyer-Shank Racing Facebook)
-0-
We would be remiss if we didn’t report that NASCAR ran its longest race of the year, 600 miles at Charlotte, its Memorial Weekend tradition, Sunday night. Kyle Larson started first and finished first. He led 327 of the 400 laps. He averaged 151 miles an hour and he won by eleven seconds.
And that’s about all we can say about that race.
-0-