#Helio castroneves indy 500 tv

Mears was the man who helped mentor a much younger, greener Castroneves when he first joined Team Penske in 2000. and Rick Mears) had done – and none of them had been on the cover of the program like that, especially when they were still running.” Castroneves: 'Are people going to accuse me of something?'įor months, Castroneves had been claiming that being part of ‘The Club,’ as it’s so famously been dubbed, felt almost like an out-of-body experience – like he didn’t deserve it, like he didn’t belong. “I think that’s when it really set in for him, that he’d accomplished something that no one other than those three (A.J. Again, he flashes those all-important four fingers, each adorned with a championship ring from one of his 500 victories. His face is lit up, exposing the wrinkles atop his forehead and under his eyes – the only giveaways that he’s no longer the 26-year-old who first scaled the fences here in 2001. On the 2022 Indy 500 program, an impassive Castroneves stands in his pink MSR fire suit against a dark backdrop. That was textbook Helio, a promoter’s dream.Ĭastroneves’ stone-faced image leaving the real thing in tears.

#Helio castroneves indy 500 tv

He’s posing with the sign, throwing up four fingers and flashing his Hollywood smile for the local TV cameras. As he’s done for more than 20 years, the showman inside took over. He stood on a small lift, slid off the cover and revealed the new Castroneves Drive sign.

Not long after he touched down at the track to put down roots for the next two-plus weeks, Castroneves was ushered over to the intersection of 4th and Hulman, where a street sign was conspicuously covered in drapes. For the four-time 500 winner and the fourth to do so, the symmetry couldn’t have been more perfect. Just off Hulman Boulevard, the artery coming in and out of IMS, Boles and his team came across 4th Street.

“And I told him, ‘Trust me, Helio, we’re going to take care of you.’” “He was relentless,” Boles said of Castroneves’ pursuit of some formal recognition around IMS.