IndyCar

Team Penske today announced that Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc., the nation’s largest online mortgage lender and third-largest mortgage lender in the country, will join the team’s IZOD IndyCar Series racing efforts as a sponsor beginning in 2013.

As part of the new multi-year agreement, Quicken Loans will be featured on the cockpit of both the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet IndyCar driven by three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet machine driven by three-time series road course champion Will Power. This marks the return of Quicken Loans as a sponsor of Team Penske. During the 2003 season Quicken Loans was a sponsor of the team that saw Gil de Ferran earn the 13th of Team Penske’s record 15 Indianapolis 500 victories.

“We are very excited to have Quicken Loans back as a partner of Team Penske,” said Penske Racing President Tim Cindric. “Quicken Loans’ remarkable record of success and growth makes it a great company to be affiliated with and we look forward to building our relationship in the future.”

Quicken Loans has also been announced as the presenting sponsor of the IndyCar doubleheader race weekend at the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix. The Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit presented by Quicken Loans will feature the first IZOD IndyCar Series races held on back-to-back days next season – June 1-2, 2013 at Detroit’s redesigned Raceway at Belle Isle Park street circuit.

“As a Detroit-based company, we are looking forward to partnering with Roger Penske, who has a tremendous legacy in our hometown, as well as his amazing race team,” said Jay Farner, President and Chief Marketing Officer for Quicken Loans. “Through this sponsorship we are aligning ourselves with great drivers and great people, and in the case of the Belle Isle Grand Prix, doing great things for the city of Detroit.”

About Quicken Loans Inc.
Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc. is the nation’s largest online home lender and the country’s third largest retail home mortgage lender. The company closed a record $70 billion of volume across all 50 states in 2012. Quicken Loans generates loan production from web centers located in Detroit, Cleveland and Scottsdale, Arizona. The company also operates a centralized loan processing facility in Detroit, as well as its San Diego-based One Reverse Mortgage unit. Quicken Loans ranked #1 in customer satisfaction among all home mortgage lenders in the United States by J.D. Power and Associates in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Quicken Loans has ranked among the top-30 companies on FORTUNE Magazine’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 10 consecutive years. It ranked in the top-15 of Computerworld magazine’s “100 Best Places to Work In Technology” for eight years in a row, ranking in the top-5 in 2012. The company recently moved its headquarters and more than 7,000 of its 8,000-plus team members to downtown Detroit. For more information about Quicken Loans, please visit quickenloans.com, on Twitter at @QLnews, and on Facebook at facebook.com/QuickenLoans.

About Penske Racing
Penske Racing is one of the most successful teams in the history of professional sports. Competing in a variety of disciplines, cars owned and prepared by Penske Racing have produced 365 major race wins, 423 pole positions and 24 National Championships, including the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title. The team has also earned a record 15 Indianapolis 500 victories in its storied history. For more information about Penske Racing, please visit www.penskeracing.com.

[Source: PenskeRacing.com]

When it comes to racing excellence Roger Penske is the gold standard. From his series-high 161 IndyCar wins, including a record 15 Indianapolis 500s, to his 72 career NASCAR victories, including the 2008 Daytona 500, Penske has visited Victory Lane 353 times in his storied motor sports career.

So far this season, Penske’s drivers have won both IndyCar races, with Helio Castroneves winning at St. Petersburg and Will Power at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Ala. In NASCAR, Brad Keselowski drove to victory at Bristol in March and A.J. Allmendinger finished second in the last NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway on April 1.

Penske, who was Sports Illustrated’s Driver of the Year in 1961, is also one of the top industrialists in the world. Even at 75, the man shows no signs of slowing down and recently sat down to talk with SI.com about a variety of topics, including NASCAR, IndyCar and his decision to switch engines.

SI.com: You are joining Ford in NASCAR next year. How are things going with that?

Roger Penske: We’ve had a lot of conversations with Ford leading up to the announcement and are talking to a lot of people in Ford moving forward. … I have not had a meeting with Jack Roush yet. At the end of the day it’s a business and Jack has done a great job. If Ford is successful he will get the benefit and so will we. We have a lot of people calling us wanting to run Dodge. We have a big investment in our engine shop so we are not going to shut the door. That engine shop will operate in some mode because we have transient dynos and things like that. I think we bring a lot to the party. If Dodge is interested in having us build engines as a separate source, then our shop can be available for that.

SI.com: Ralph Gilles of Dodge noted that Ford gave you a long-term contract. Did that play into your decision?

Penske: You want a long-term commitment from your employer if you can. We are in a business where we are contractually bonded with race engineers, drivers and sponsors. We prepare contracts to make sure we are in a position to commit to our people, so a long-term commitment is very important to us. We had very good discussions with Dodge and based on their senior management they weren’t able to make the kind of commitment we felt was necessary to compete at the higher levels. …We haven’t won the championship in NASCAR yet and combining our efforts in ways that are meaningful for Ford would be good. Ralph Gilles and the whole SRT team were very supportive. They understood our position. We had a lot of discussion with them from the standpoint of what we could do. One wins and one loses and that was the pressure for me because we were with Dodge for 10 years.”

SI.com: Are you pleased with where IndyCar is right now?

Penske: One of the great things is we have a full field of cars and will have 27 when we go to Brazil [on April 29]. The new engine programs with Chevrolet and Honda are in pretty good shape. I think Lotus is a little bit behind but [they] have been fielding the five cars they are committed to. Overall, the cars have been good. I like the looks of the cars. It’s a new look and a new season and quite honestly a change always makes it better.

SI.com: Will the change in cars and engines effect influence wins races and titles or will it be you and Ganassi?

Penske: We didn’t want to change cars and go backward. I think the good news is we didn’t have any idea how we would stack up when we came to St. Pete. but the good news is we were all competitive. We feel good about it and I think there are some good drivers there. With new cars and new engines we have a level playing field. We don’t have the experience with some of the subtleties you can build into the car after you’ve had it for a number of years. That is going to be important. Our drivers know they have to perform. Certainly, Chip Ganassi feels the same way about his team. He’s with Honda and we are with Chevrolet so it is a pretty interesting battle just from that standpoint of the engine side. I think resources are sometimes overplayed. We all have exactly the same car and this car is so limited from what we can do in terms of the changes we can make. We can’t change a bracket without approval. … Then it comes down to strategy. We have a lot of engineers and some of our best people are the ones we just hired in recent years. The technology is out there. Sports car people are migrating from ALMS and Grand Am to IndyCar. They see the benefit to racing at the Indianapolis 500 and [with] the series.

SI.com: Part of what makes NASCAR so successful is the driver personalities; people know them and are familiar with them. Where do you see IndyCar right now in terms of personalities?

Penske: When you look at NASCAR we’ve got drivers that have been iconic drivers for 10 or 15 years. We’ve gone through a period with IndyCar where we had two series so we didn’t have continuity. We haven’t had the same schedule with the date equity that you want at these tracks with people coming back every year. … We have Marco Andretti, and Helio Castroneves has always been someone from a fan perspective that people love to see run because of Dancing with the Stars. Dario Franchitti is a superstar from what he has been able to do on the track. It’s more racing in these cities where we get the proper crowds and different demographics. … We have to build these stars around that. When NASCAR is running 43 cars with 38 races and twice in these markets you look at the top 15 people in NASCAR today [and] most of them have been around for five to 10 years, so there is a lot more continuity, so name recognition has been generated. The TV and overall publicity has been generated because of the continuity and that has made a big difference. That is something Randy Bernard needs to do.

I don’t think we have to have 20 races. If we have 15-16 events in the right markets, I think we are trying to decide that now moving into 2013. But we have to have some ovals.

SI.com: Talk about your NASCAR team.

Penske: We are really happy with the driver lineup we have. They are working well together. It’s early days. The cars have been good. We had a fuel problem at Las Vegas, but Brad Keselowski’s run at Bristol shows how good he really is. You don’t lap Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman because you don’t know what you are doing. I think Brad is really focused. A.J. Allmendinger is keen to perform. We’ll get him where he has the confidence. It took Brad a good part of last season to get where he wants. I think we have the equipment and the people to succeed. These guys are on it but it’s a long season. Getting a win early on makes a big difference. It’s so close. We see the same momentum on the Nationwide side with Sam Hornish Jr. He is getting some rhythm and Brad is very competitive.

SI.com: It was 15 years ago that you opened up the track in California. Do you have any interest in getting back into the race track business?

Penske: My son Greg said a number of times that we sold tracks at a time when there was overcrowding of dates, but we wish we had kept Michigan and California. If they were ever up for sale, we would be interested in it. But I’m not exploring it.

SI.com: What will it take to get Will Power over the hump in the championship?

Penske: We just can’t make the mistakes that we made last year. We had pit accidents, and he doesn’t have the experience on the ovals. We were anxious to compete at Las Vegas and then had that terrible accident with Dan Wheldon so everything stopped and we moved on. As a road racer he has shown how good he is and the number of road races on the schedule should play into our hands. He is going to be a factor, as will Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. These guys are really motivated.

SI.com: Isn’t one way to break up the pack in IndyCar to give the engine more horsepower with less downforce?

Penske: I think by taking downforce off you can run with the horsepower we have today. We need to test at Indy and not run in the packs. With these cars we have now it’s pretty easy to drive flat on the ovals. I think it is something the series will take a look at. Will Phillips [INDYCAR VP of Technology] has done a very good job. He is a good thinker and doesn’t move too fast or make mistakes. They will address some of that.

SI.com: Do you think high-banked ovals are still good for IndyCar?

Penske: I think open-wheel racing side-by-side on any oval is important. You get much higher speeds on the big tracks. At Indy you have to get off the throttle to go through the corners. You have to have some ovals to prepare for Indy. It is where we can run on our schedule; the promoter is important and where we think it will be a good show for the fans.

SI.com: Is it good for IndyCar to have international races?

Penske: We’ve talked a lot about the series going outside of the United States. NASCAR ran a couple of races in Japan and it didn’t work out for them. We [IndyCar] had a reason to go to Japan because Honda was such a supporter to the series. I haven’t seen anybody calling us up to write a big check because we are going to China. The way to make this series better is date equity of races in the United States and then to have a balance of permanent road courses with street races in Detroit, St. Pete, Long Beach and Toronto and places like that, and then have some ovals. If you can have 16 races with one-third on ovals, one-third on streets and one-third on permanent road courses, then you have a balance and have a pretty good schedule and find out who are the best drivers and teams.

SI.com: What markets do you want IndyCar to go to?

Penske: I like Houston because we will be running around Reliance Park so the infrastructure is there. It’s a location that has capital and the proper sponsor with Shell/Pennzoil. Baltimore was a great location — we just had problems with the promoters. I saw a lot of people there with kids and we need to get new people involved in the sport. Long Beach is good. We need to be in different locations.

SI.com: What about the commitment Chevrolet has made to the IndyCar engine program?

Penske: They made the commitment to invest in the brand and there is no question they have committed to IndyCar from an engine perspective but also made the commitment to be involved with the race in Detroit that will be run the week after Indy. The nice thing is from top to bottom within General Motors North America motor sports has support.

SI.com: Do you miss the good old days when you only had seven guys working in your garage?

Penske: We used to drive the truck ourselves with a two-wheel trailer and a station wagon going to the races. Something has changed.

[Source: SportsIllustrated.cnn.com]

Will Power saw off a late challenge from Scott Dixon to take a superb win in Sunday’s IndyCar race at Barber Motorsports Park.

The Penske driver started from ninth on the grid, but a combination of aggressive strategy and a bit of misfortune on Dixon’s part helped the Australian to take the lead through the final cycle of pitstops.

Dixon (Ganassi) launched a final attack on the restart, and the lead duo quickly dropped the rest of the pack. The Kiwi was able to keep Power close initially before the Australian finally managed to open a gap. The final margin was 3.3 seconds.

Until just before the final round of stops, Dixon had the advantage. But after losing time behind HVM’s Simona de Silvestro, he suffered a slow pitstop, which was compounded by having to then wait for EJ Viso’s KV car to get out of the way before he could be released back into the pitlane. The time lost was enough for Power to take the lead, and after Dixon’s pursuit was halted by fading tyres, the result was sealed.

St Petersburg winner Helio Castroneves was third for Penske, although he had to see off a determined charge from Ganassi’s Graham Rahal to secure the place.

Despite Barber’s processional reputation, the race was peppered with overtaking from the beginning. The combination of passing and differing strategies made for constant position changes, with one of the main beneficiaries being Dario Franchitti (Ganassi), who managed to cross the line in 10th place after starting 18th.

The reigning champion spent the final phase of the race in combat with Dragon Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais, who delivered the Lotus engine’s first top 10 finish when he crossed the line in ninth, and Marco Andretti (Andretti Autosport), who was classified 11th after spending more or less the entire afternoon either attacking or defending.

Rubens Barrichello (KV) took a step forward in his adaptation to IndyCar by finishing eighth, capping his afternoon with a passing move on Andretti in the final laps.

[Source: AutoSport.com]

 

Roger Penske had a choice to make.

It was February 1965 and the then general manager of a Philadelphia Chevrolet dealership had been offered the opportunity to become the store’s owner. 
But in order for that to happen, Penske would have to give up what drew him to Chevy in the first place: racing.

His decision back then — to end his race-car driving days and put on his dealer hat — has ended up turning into what has been a decades-long career with Chevrolet, one where Penske has not only become a dealership mogul, but a titan in the racing business, as well.

Penske talked about this decision and more in the latest Faces of GM blog entry.

“I had to go Detroit, and Bunky Knudsen at that point was general manager of Chevrolet. He said, ’Roger, we’re not going to have race drivers as dealers, so you have to make a decision,” Penske explained of his 1965 experience.

“Are you going to be a race driver or a businessman?’ That’s probably the best advice I’ve ever had, because I decided no more racing – let’s become a dealer. That’s when I really started my career with Chevrolet, and I never turned back,” he continued.

Of course, Penske’s passion for Chevy had been ignited eight years before getting the store ownership offer when he bought his first Corvette, a 1957 competition model. Penske began racing and picking up wins.

In 1963, Penske met George McKean, a Philly Chevy dealer, and took him up on his offer to be the store’s general manager.

And then, Penske’s career as a racecar driver hit a crossroads two years later when McKean asked if he wanted to take over as owner.

Penske may have given up driving cars in races, but he didn’t drop the sport entirely.

He built a TransAm race team back in the 1960s, and racing legend Mark Donohue was his driver. By the end of the 1980s, Penske was part of an Indianapolis 500 championship.

GM president Lloyd Reuss had approached Penske about crafting an engine to compete in the famous race, and in 1988, they got their chance with driver Rick Mears steering the way to victory.

“The best moment I had with Chevrolet was winning that first one, the first Indy 500 with the Chevy motor with Rick Mears in 1988,” Penske said.

The Penske-Chevy combo won that day and captured other Indy 500 crowns, all part of 15 races it won during its IndyCar series tenure that eventually came to an end.

But things appear to be getting revved back up for Penske and IndyCar. His company and Chevy teamed up with Ilmor Engineering to build a new engine, which is currently undergoing testing. It will run in next year’s IZOD IndyCar series.

It’s just the latest in what been a decades-long relationship with Chevy that touches both the dealership and racing industries. In fact, he has had ties with Chevy for more than half of the brand’s existence.

“The brand is on the rise. I can see it with the cars that are available for us to sell in the showrooms. It’s never been better,” Penske said.

Looking forward, he added: “I can tell you my goal is to put that Chevy back in the winner’s circle.”

 

Source: Faces of GM

Honda Performance Development (HPD) is Honda’s racing design and development company, responsible for supplying engines to the IndyCar series, American Le Mans Series and European Lea Mans series. They specialize in designing engines, parts, and chassis for racing vehicles of all types, from race cars to go-karts. The company is now also offering parts to grassroots racing programs. According to Lee Niffenegger, Senior Engineer at HPD, “anything that Honda builds, we try to race.”

Members of HPD’s Honda Racing Line program can get technical support from engineers at HPD and can buy OE parts and HPD parts developed specifically for racing. Honda Racing Line members can be entry level or professional racers.

A key component to HPD is their ethos. HPD strives for constant innovation and reflects Soichiro Honda’s belief that competition is essential for fueling innovation and improvement. According to the HPD website, “While second place can be painful, reflection on such failure can lead to the next success.” Such forward thinking can thus take a failure and turn it into a success by highlighting what went wrong and how to fix it.

Since 1993, such an ethos has helped HPD earn wins at manufacturer and driver championships. With Honda engines, many drivers have won over the years, but have seen particular success within the past ten years. In 2004, Honda’s aspirated V-8 engine was the dominant motor in the IndyCar series and helped Honda drivers win 14 out of 16 races, including the Indianapolis 500. Last year, HPD won its 100th IndyCar race when Dario Franchitti won the Indianapolis 500.

HPD was established in 1993 and has helped support the IndyCar program with their engines since. The company is based in Santa Clarita, California. HPD recently announced that in 2012, it will be supplying engines to the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.

Ryan Briscoe has re-signed for the 2012 season with Penske Racing, meaning that the team will once again field a three-car challenge to Ganassi Racing.

Penske Racing has confirmed that it has re-signed Australian racing driver Ryan Briscoe for 2012, making it a third consecutive full season for the team’s line-up of Briscoe, Will Power and Helio Castroneves.

“We are excited to return with a three-car team in 2012,” said Tim Cindric, the president of Penske Racing. “The combination of Helio, Ryan and Will has been a formidable one on the track and they work very well together as teammates.”

The announcement confirms that the team have managed to find the additional resources to keep their three-car line-up running, and Cindric said that “Our goal all along has been to continue running three cars and thanks to our terrific partners, we have been able to make everything work from the business side.”

No announcement was made of the new sponsorship arrangements, and Cindic simply concluded by adding: “Now, all of our focus will be on developing the new Chevrolet IndyCar and getting ready for a strong return to the track in 2012.”

Since 2009 the line-up had delivered Team Penske 21 victories and 26 pole positions, with Power finishing runner-up in two consecutive championships by the narrowest of margins. The highlight for the team came this season at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, there the trio locked out the top three positions from the end of qualifying through the entire race to the chequered flag in a matchless display of team and driver capability to thwart their arch rivals at Ganassi.

Following the formal announcement, Briscoe himself quipped on Twitter that: “It’s official! I don’t have to host Wheel of Fortune next year. Excited to return.”

The SKF brand will be a major associate sponsor of Brad Keselowski and teammate Kurt Busch in 2012…

SKF USA Inc. announced Wednesday it will be a major associate sponsor of the Penske Racing teams beginning with the 2012 racing season. The SKF brand will be featured in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well as the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the IZOD IndyCar Series next season.

Entering its 15th year as a major associate sponsor of auto racing in North America, the SKF brand will be featured in 2012 on the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge driven by Brad Keselowski and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driven by Kurt Busch in the Sprint Cup Series; the No. 12 Alliance Truck Parts Dodge driven by Sam Hornish Jr. in the Nationwide Series and the No. 3 Team Penske IndyCar driven by three-time Indianapolis 500 Champion Helio Castroneves.

”We are excited to be associated with Penske Racing,” said Poul Jeppesen, president of SKF North America. “Their reputation for quality, preparation and consistency are a perfect match to the products SKF manufactures and the services we sell.”

“We are excited to welcome SKF to the Penske Racing team,” said team owner Roger Penske. “The addition of SKF’s technical knowledge and specialized mechanical expertise will be a significant benefit to our teams’ ability to win across all of our racing categories.”

SKF’s racing involvement stretches around the globe. Since 1947, SKF has joined forces with Formula One’s Scuderia Ferrari, creating the longest technical supplier relationship in the sport. The Scuderia Ferrari F1 machines contain over 150 SKF components, designed and manufactured exclusively by SKF. SKF also maintains a close racing partnership with Ducati.

SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has 15,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2010 were SEK 61,029 million and the number of employees was 44,742.

 

Source: Nascar Speed TV Article

 

Editor’s note: This is the first installment by three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who’ll be writing periodically for ESPN.com throughout the 2011 Izod IndyCar Series season (as told to ESPN.com motorsports writer John Oreovicz).

Hello, everyone, and thanks for stopping by to read my first column for ESPN.com. I’m excited to share my thoughts about the 2011 Izod IndyCar Series, and everyone at Team Penske is very optimistic about what we can accomplish this year.

Hopefully there will be a lot of victories and other good stuff to talk about! It’s been a long offseason — it’s been basically five months since I was in an Indy car.

That’s one of the toughest things for us, but it is what it is. That’s the nature of our sport at the moment as IndyCar tries to control costs by restricting testing. But I believe that will change for 2012, when the series introduces a new chassis and engine package.

The good news is that we’ve had basically the same car since 2003, so it wasn’t too difficult to get comfortable behind the wheel again after the long break. It’s just a matter of adapting to the weather and getting your timing back. For example, imagine if you played tennis for a hobby and you went six months without playing. When you first come back, you feel the ball is coming at you a bit too fast, and you lose a bit of your timing to hit the ball.

But after a bit of practice, you end up getting back your rhythm. That’s very similar to driving a race car. Initially, approaching the corners can be a bit tough, but after half a day, you’re back in the groove again. Your muscles are a bit sore, especially in the neck and the shoulders, because even if you do a lot of exercise and training, you’re still using different muscles when you drive the race car. That’s something most people don’t realize.

But the long offseason has been cool for me because I spent a lot of time with my family. My little girl is 14 months old now, and it’s awesome to see her grow. Those things are priceless, and I’m very glad to have those memories. It’s wonderful the way children teach us to have patience about things that maybe we weren’t patient about before. Being a parent changes your priorities — the kids come first, and you become the second option!

At Team Penske, we have a lot of good news to share entering the 2011 season. The team had sponsorship from Philip Morris for more than 20 years, and I was so honored to be a part of that family. I am very fortunate to say that I drove with the red and white colors. Unfortunately, there is an end to everything, and that era of one of the sport’s most iconic sponsorships is over.

But with that comes new opportunities for new companies to become a part of Team Penske and be associated with Roger Penske’s great history in racing. Now we have several new partners: Shell/Pennzoil, GuidePoint Systems, AAA/Auto Club of Southern California, Izod and PPG will all be primary sponsors on the Team Penske cars this season, to go along with Verizon, and we also have new associate sponsors like Meijer stores and Coca-Cola. We have so many new partners that I have to practice remembering them all, and I’ve been doing a lot of training to understand their products, which has been quite an amazing experience.

I’m very fortunate to be entering my 12th year with Team Penske, because not every driver is able to maintain such a long and productive partnership. It’s tough for several reasons when you see drivers like Tony Kanaan and Dan Wheldon struggling to find a ride. First, Tony, especially, is a good friend. Second, you never want to see anybody in that position, including yourself. Third, they are very talented drivers who should be able to find good rides and continue in the series. It just shows that we are still feeling the effects of the tough economic climate, but we still have one of the most talented fields we’ve ever had in the IndyCar Series.

I believe that the teams and the league need to continue working together to build up the IndyCar brand. We’ve definitely seen some growth, but the TV ratings still need to improve. We have a good television package, but compared to other series — especially NASCAR — there is a lot of work to be done to improve the ratings. IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard has been doing some terrific things to increase exposure, like the $5 million bonus if a driver from outside IndyCar wins the season finale at Las Vegas. They have adjusted the rules to make the racing more exciting for the fans, and we’re doing everything in our power to increase the interest.

Overall, I’m really excited to start another season with Team Penske. I’m pumped, because I think our three-car Team with Ryan Briscoe and Will Power as my teammates is going to be stronger than ever. Will has brought a lot to the team, and that has been very good for me. It made me change my style of racing a little bit; he taught me to be more aggressive and try some different lines through corners that I maybe wouldn’t have thought of or didn’t expect would work. I thought we had a very positive atmosphere last year, and we want to have all three Team Penske drivers fighting for race wins and the championship again.

Certainly the goal this year is for the team to win as many races as possible, naturally including the Indianapolis 500. If we can do that — especially on the 100th anniversary of the first Indy 500 — that would be a dream come true. They say records are made to be broken, and I really hope to emulate my hero, Rick Mears, with a fourth Indianapolis 500 win. If it happens, we can celebrate on the radio, because Rick is my spotter, and I know he will be cheering for me. I remember when I won my first Indy car race in 2000, Bobby Rahal told me, “Welcome to the club.” So hopefully Rick will have the chance to welcome me to the four-time Indy winners club.

[Source: ESPN]