May 25, 2009 -
Climbing To The Top
Spiderman does it again! After evading the tax evasion charges (on which the government has something like a 95% conviction rate), Helio Castroneves wins his third Indy 500 and seems a pretty likely candidate to surpass the record 4 wins of AJ Foyt, Al Unser, and Rick Mears.
That's some pretty heady company, and I don't think he's doing it by simply having an owner that can outspend everyone and give him the best car.
Certainly it takes some luck to push a car to its limit for 500 miles and not have some routine part break down on you and take you out of the race, but that affects everyone and you have to start to attribute this to the skill of the driver.
The Andretti clan, on the other hand, seems to find a way to always use up their cars and not finish the race... and it's almost always someone else's fault according to them. This time, 22 year old grizzled veteran Marco Andretti is out on the first lap and blames the other guy. ""The kid doesn't get it," Andretti said. "He never will. He was clueless out there. I was worried about that at the start."
If you ask me, it's the Andrettis that don't get that it's a 500 mile race and you only need to be the last one to be first.
