Castroneves loved racing from the start

Harry Atkins

Thursday, June 22, 2000 | 8:50 a.m.

When he was 5, Helio Castroneves would go to the race track hidden in the trunk of his father's car.

That's where it all began.

Where it will end is anybody's guess. But the future is promising for the Brazilian, forming with Gil de Ferran the new tandem of drivers for Roger Penske's rejuvenated CART team.

"I see a lot in him," said three-time series champion Rick Mears, the driving coach for Team Penske. "He kind of proved himself last year. I knew he had the ability, and I knew it was a matter of time before he got his first win."

Castroneves, a winner at every level of racing, got his first CART victory Sunday in Detroit.

"Now they know who Helio Castroneves is," he said.

But it didn't take a victory by Castroneves in the Tenneco Automotive Grand Prix of Detroit to make Indianapolis 500 champion Juan Montoya realize the talents of the 25-year-old Brazilian.

"Helio runs hard," said Montoya, the Colombian sensation who won the title last year as a rookie. "I never like to see him behind me."

Castroneves learned racing from his father - also named Helio - who owned a small stock car team.

"I was not allowed in the pits because you had to be 18 or 21 years old," Castroneves recalled. "He couldn't leave me in the stands because I was 5.

"So he put me in the trunk of the car and we'd pass through security and then I was there in the pits. The engine noise, the smell of oil and just the excitement. I was liking it."

Like many little boys, he wanted to be a grown-up. In his case, Castroneves wanted to be a driver.

"So I asked my father for a go-kart," Castroneves said.

By the time he was 12, Castroneves was a contender on the Brazilian go-cart circuit. He won the national championship two years later. In 1991, when he was 16, he was racing on the World Cup go-kart circuit in Europe.

His career has been on a steady rise since. He drove F3 cars in Brazil and Britain, then landed in America, beginning in 1996 a two-year run on the Indy Lights circuit. Four wins earned him a ride in CART's top division.

At last, a chance to emulate his Brazilian hero.

"Ayrton Senna was a big influence on all the young drivers my age," Castroneves said of the late Formula One great. "It was like a mirror we were looking into. We wanted to be like that guy. He was an aggressive driver. But he was also patient."

In 1998, Castroneves finished second at The Milwaukee Mile, the best showing by a CART rookie that season. He finished second to Tony Kanaan in the rookie standings and 17th overall.

Last year, he got his first pole while driving for the Hogan Racing team. There was another second-place finish, and he moved up to 15th in the standings.

Then fate stepped in.

Penske had planned to make hard-charging Greg Moore one of his drivers for this season. Moore, at 24, was a proven winner on the edge of stardom.

But before Moore turned a lap for Penske, the Canadian was killed in his final 1999 ride for Gerald Forsythe, in the season-ending Marlboro 500 on Oct. 31 at California Speedway.

Penske turned to Castroneves, available after the Hogan team folded.

"I was excited," Castroneves said. "But I also realized that it meant that I was going to have to work a lot harder. This is a first-class team."

Both he and the team - winless from 1997 until de Ferran prevailed last month in Nazareth, Pa. - are coming along well.

The changing fortunes at Penske coincided with a personal change for Castroneves - the spelling of his name. Until this year, it was Castro-Neves.

"Well, people would call me either Castro or Neves," he said. "I wanted them to say my whole name."

So, he decided to drop the hyphen.

Whatever the spelling, Castroneves just hopes his name is remembered in Brazil, where auto racing is practically a rite of boyhood.

"I started at 12," he said. "Now, they are starting at 8.

"The first thing is soccer, but the passion we have for racing is we wake up in the morning and watch the race."

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