Castroneves, Franchitti seek fourth Indy 500 victories

  • By Dave Kallmann Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  • Saturday, May 25, 2013 7:59pm
  • SportsSports

INDIANAPOLIS — The club will grow. Of that, A.J. Foyt is convinced.

He founded it 36 years ago, when he cruised to the checkered flag after Gordon Johncock’s car broke to become the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Sweepstakes Race.

Then Al Unser joined him in 1987 and Rick Mears expanded the group to three just four years later.

“You know the way I look at that?” Foyt said. “It wouldn’t surprise to see me a six-, seven-, eight-time winner.

“Records are made to be broken. That’s what they’re there for. Like I said, with the equipment they have today, if a guy doesn’t win it six, seven times, it’s because he wasn’t trying.”

Two will try to break into Foyt’s exclusive club today in the 97th Indy 500, when for the first time in more than two decades the field will include more than a single three-time winner.

The bouncy Brazilian Helio Castroneves has waited impatiently through three unsatisfying Memorial Day weekends since he collected his third.

Dario Franchitti, a laidback Scot, is a student of racing history who brushes off talk about his part in it. He’s also the defending champion.

“They know how to race and they are here to win, that’s probably the only similarities those two have,” said Tony Kanaan, a childhood rival of Castroneves’ and a close friend and former teammate of Franchitti’s.

“Helio’s a happy guy that is always joking around. Dario is serious, focused. But when they’re both in the race car they’re extremely aggressive and fearless.”

Castroneves, 38, made Indy look easy when he arrived in 2001 and won in his first two tries. Then he waited through engine trouble, stormy weather, bad timing and bad luck — the stuff about which everyone always worries but no one has control — before reaching No. 3 in his ninth try.

Along the way Castroneves used racing success and a charming smile to compete on “Dancing with the Stars” and capture the hearts of unfamiliar Americans along with the show’s fall 2007 title. He also made news off the track with tax-evasion charges of which he was cleared in the weeks leading up to his third Indy win.

Castroneves wears his most recent champion’s ring with pride and doesn’t shy from talking about matching his mentor Mears with a fourth.

“Now I have more knowledge, not maybe a lot but I still have knowledge to keep the tradition of this place,” said Castroneves, who laughs about his trouble with English. “And I’ve been part of it.

“It’s since 2001 I’ve been here, and I never took it for granted what I was able to accomplish. That’s why I want to keep it alive and hopefully what the fans are asking for I’ll give it to them Sunday.”

Castroneves will start eighth — in the middle of the third row — in a Chevrolet-powered car fielded by 15-time 500-winning owner Roger Penske

“I’m putting in my mind,” Castroneves said of a fourth. “I’m dreaming because when you dream, dreams come true.”

Like Castroneves, the 40-year-old Franchitti missed the opportunity to get to the 500 earlier because he was on the wrong side of the open-wheel racing split that kept CART teams away from Indianapolis.

Franchitti missed 2003 with a broken back and 2008 during an experiment with NASCAR, so he matched Castroneves’ mark of three victories in nine 500s. Franchitti prevailed in 2007, his fifth start, when a late round of pit stops under darkening skies put him in front and a heavy rainstorm brought an early end to the already interrupted race.

Franchitti’s victories have all come under the yellow flag. In 2010 a massive accident occurred behind him on the final lap. Last year, Takuma Sato crashed while trying to pass Franchitti in the 498th mile.

Franchitti’s life also strayed into the celebrity magazines for his marriage to actress and activist Ashley Judd, a union that recently ended.

While Franchitti is free with his words on the politics and history of his sport, he insists he’s doesn’t think much about his own numbers.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Franchitti said. “It feels the same as the first one, going for that first win, and you focus on winning the next one. What happened last year or two or five or 10 years ago makes no difference.

“If I win it Sunday, I’ll think about it then. Right now, I’m just thinking about how I’m going to get this Target car balanced enough and find the grip and the speed enough so I can be in contention.”

Franchitti’s first two 500 victories came for Michael Andretti’s team and his third with Chip Ganassi. He will start 17th Sunday in car that had lacked top-end speed through practice and qualifying.

“It was frustrating last year to the same degree, and Honda brought obviously a much better race engine and we finished 1-2 in the race, Scott (Dixon) and myself,” Franchitti said. “If they make a similar step up this year, we’ll be all right. If they don’t it’s going to be tough.”

Of the 10 drivers who’ve won more than twice, only Louis Meyer, the first, also got to three as quickly as Castroneves and Franchitti. Foyt needed 10.

Mears was the quickest to four, reaching in 14 starts.

Of the seven-member three-timers club, Bobby Unser (1968, ‘75, ‘81) and Johnny Rutherford (‘74, ‘76, ‘80) are also still alive. Rutherford said it would neither surprise him nor bother him if Franchitti or Castroneves were to graduate. Unser said, like Foyt, it’s inevitable someone soon will.

“You just look at history, guys like Helio, Dario … they always finish,” Unser said. “They’re in good stuff. But all the cars are finishing and so it’s making it pretty easy to find a four-time winner. There could be a five-time. It has to happen.”

But to Unser’s point and Foyt’s, today’s drivers offer a counterpoint.

“Those guys talk about reliability and how we’re blessed, well, reliability can work against you when you have 32 other guys on the lead lap,” said Marco Andretti, whose family has managed one victory (Mario’s in 1969) in 67 starts.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable,” Franchitti said.

“If you look at how many careers of the four-time winners, especially obviously A.J. and Al Sr., there’s a few decades there. So it’s a very difficult thing to do. Obviously I hope I’m the next four-time winner.”

So …. will that happen? Today? Next year? Someday?

And if Foyt, Unser and Mears gain a peer, will it be Franchitti? Castroneves? Both? Neither?

“I think we are friends,” Castroneves said of his rival. “We know each other so long.

“It’s great to see history be done. I would love it to be me, but certainly it would be cool to see if not me, him, because that’s what fans want to see.”

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