Dancer Helio Castroneves racing with the stars in Toronto Indy
MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Helio Castroneves poses with Radio City Rockettes outside Radio City Music Hall in New York in May after winning the Indy 500. He’ll be at the Honda Toronto Indy next weekend.
Helio Castroneves of Brazil and Miami is one of only nine drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 three times. In his 11th season with Team Penske, he's won 29 poles (including one in Toronto) and 14 races but has never won a championship.
Castroneves joined Penske for the 2000 season as the replacement for Canadian Greg Moore, of Maple Ridge, B.C., who was killed in the last race of the 1999 season after signing to drive for Penske.
Castroneves is competing this weekend in the Indy Racing League event at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Next weekend, he'll be in Toronto for the first Honda Indy. I caught up with him by phone earlier this week.
Q: Are you looking forward to racing in Toronto again?
A: For sure. I feel good about coming back to Toronto and I missed being there all those years because I had good luck there. The fans there treat us really well, too.
In 1996, I won the pole for the Indy Lights race in Toronto and then in 1997 I won the Indy Lights race there. I won the pole for the CART race in 2000, the first year I was with Penske (he drove for lesser CART teams in '98 and '99). It's a good place for me and I'll be glad to get back there.
Q: Penske will be a three-car team when you get to Toronto and your new teammate, Will Power, won the last race here in 2007. Are you okay with all of this?
A: The IRL won't allow in-season testing anymore (to cut costs) so everything has to be packed into a race weekend. Another car will be good for us to collect data from and for Ryan (regular teammate Ryan Briscoe) and me to compare against. It will be good for the team.
Will is a good guy and a good driver and he'll raise the competition bar. Instead of me trying to beat one teammate, now I'll have two to go up against. It'll be a big benefit to have him out there.
Of course, there's a fine line between what's good for the team and what's good for the driver. Power will want to be doing his best to beat Ryan and me and I'll be doing my best to beat them.
Q: Now that your legal difficulties (U.S. income tax evasion) are behind you and you were acquitted of all charges, are you resentful of the way you were treated?
A: I guess it's the way the system works. The only thing that matters is that I got a fair trial. Obviously, it was not a very pleasant experience and is not one that I would want to go through again but I learned some things.
I know I'm a stronger person because of it and I know I'm much more patient now. I think, all-round, that I'm a better person.
Q: You're almost as well-known for winning Dancing With The Stars as you are for winning at Indianapolis. Are you still dancing?
A: I don't have anything to do with the show anymore. But I had a lot of fun and I had to work really hard to win that championship. It's not as easy as it looks. It was outside my element.
But it really helped my name to have it out there like that. And it helps racing, too. I'm glad I did it.
Q: Going into the three road courses – Watkins Glen, Toronto and then Edmonton – who's hot? Who's your toughest competition?
A: I would say that Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti driving for Ganassi are the team of the moment (they finished 1-2 at Richmond International Raceway last weekend). But our team is good on road courses so I think we are heading into a good stretch for us. Ryan is a fast guy and Will is a fast guy. We'll see.
Q: There's somebody else you're going to be up against in the three upcoming races, namely Paul Tracy. Are you looking forward to taking him on?
A: Paul is a very difficult competitor. You can never actually count him out and he's always tough. You see him and you have to be very careful because he's liable to pull just about anything out of his hat.
But he's a good guy and I like racing against him. He's just a tough guy to race against.
STOCK CAR VETS REUNITE: An interesting reunion is being planned for Honda Indy weekend. Next Saturday at noon at the Pinecrest Restaurant, 2661 Hwy. 7, west of Keele St., the survivors of what's believed to be the first organized and advertised stock car race in Canada will sit down for what spearheader Dave Boon thinks might be the final time.
On July 13, 1949, about 28 youthful stock car drivers took to the Pinecrest half-mile dirt oval (which soon became the famous, paved, Pinecrest Speedway) for a twilight of racing, complete with a program for spectators listing the drivers' statistics.
Among those who raced that night were three future inductees of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame — the late, great Ted Hogan and the great, still-very-much-alive-and-kicking, Wallie Branston and Norm Mackereth.
Others believed to be "still around" include Len Hurley, Jack Frazier, John McGiffin and, possibly, Gord Yates.
Organizer Boon – who also raced that day and is the author of the delightful feature in Old Autos newspaper entitled, "The older I get, the faster I was" – would like to invite relatives or friends of all drivers who raced back then.
Says Boon: "All who ran those two dirt ovals, their family members, their friends and fans are invited to attend and to give recognition to those stock car pioneers who breathed dirt and drove around the turns in the blinding dust well over a half century ago."
Boon says the program lists the following names: Gord Bugye, Bill Drew, Harry O'Dell, Tom Forbes, Bill Willis, Chick Brown, Ed Levich, Roy Willis, Nick Siminiuk, Phil Miuccio and Jim Corvani.
And Ted Watson and David Knight, who drove their MG sports cars!
Boon says local Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco has accepted an invitation to attend and the reunion will be MC'd by radio personality Ted Woloshyn, whose family owned the nearby Pinecrest Motel and who "grew up" at Pincrest Speedway.
A historic dirt-track sprint car – the legendary and faithfully restored Lloyd Shaw No. 3 – will be on display. This race car, which will be taken to the reunion from Dunnville by John Smith and Daryl Bray, was built circa 1952 by Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee and pre-war and post-war stock car and sprint car champion Shaw.
The car was raced on the Speedway Park half-mile oval (near Pinecrest) by Shaw and other top drivers of that era, such as Ted Race.
For more information, contact Ed Butt at ed@canadianmotorsportsexpo.com
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