'Ball is Rolling' for Helio Castroneves to Try Daytona 500, NASCAR

• Castroneves, who won, was not even scheduled to compete in last Saturday’s kickoff to the six-race SRX sophomore season in Pensacola, Florida.

• SRX CEO Don Hawk promised Castroneves a ride in the Daytona 500 if he won any of the three SRX races he was scheduled for this season.

• Castroneves has had a rough go of it in IndyCar in 2022, with zero podiums and a top finish thus far of just seventh place (Indianapolis 500).

Any press conference featuring Helio Castroneves can be a wide-open affair, and Thursday’s Superstar Racing Experience media Zoom call was no exception.

The four-time Indianapolis 500 winner was in his usual fine and friendly form, still reveling in how he won this past Saturday’s SRX season opener, even though he originally wasn’t scheduled to compete.

The Brazilian native also talked about his hopes of potentially racing in next year’s Daytona 500 (and he may run a warm-up event before that to get used to stock cars), as well as the challenging season he’s had thus far in the NTT IndyCar Series.

First, the SRX Story

Castroneves was not scheduled to compete in last Saturday’s kickoff to the six-race SRX sophomore season in Pensacola, Florida. But due to a scheduling mix-up, Castroneves showed up ready to race, but SRX officials didn’t expect him to be there.

Because the series had four spare cars on hand, it was no problem to fit Castroneves in a car. And wouldn’t you guess, he wound up winning the event.

“How cool was that?” Castroneves said. “Oh, my goodness. Getting my first win in SRX was so cool. It was exciting, it was difficult, it was different, it was hot, oh boy. There was a lot going on and I’m super excited to be able to climb the fence at the Five Flags racetrack, which I never thought I’d do something like that. I'm glad I gave everyone an experience of that.

“Rubbing is racing like NASCAR, right? And so that’s exactly what happened. And having (and racing against in SRX) great colleagues and friends like Tony Kanaan, Paul Tracy, Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Bobby Labonte, Bill Elliott and obviously Tony Stewart. When you have those guys, you understand their world.

“That's why SRX is so incredible, because we're going to places that they raced their butts off so many years ago. It kind of brings a little bit more fairness, let's put this way and last year, I was able to understand a little bit more to use my bumper when I need to. But it certainly the idea of SRX united not only champions and legends and friends, but to compete and that's why I was able to do what I did.”

Added SRX CEO Don Hawk, “It shows you that the 16 cars we prepared are really what we say they are, they're equal cars. That car was not even going to be raced and it won. He started scratch on the field and he won. There's so many things that went in the right direction. We had four spare cars, any one of them you could just put your seat insert in and we’re good to go.”