The Amelia Celebrates the Career of Hélio Castroneves, on and off the Race Track

It sounds like something out of a movie, but IndyCar and IMSA champion Hélio Castroneves swears it really happened. His father, Hélio, Sr., owned a small stock-car racing team in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, and wanted to share his love of motorsports with six-year-old Hélio.

But the track had a minimum age for admission into the pit area, and it wasn’t six. So, Hélio’s father bought a small helmet and commissioned a kid-size fireproof suit. Then on race nights, Hélio would climb into the trunk of the family car, his dad would drive past security, and Hélio would sneak into the pits.

For the rest of the evening, young Hélio dodged the security guards by hiding behind a stack of tires, or between two large crewmen. “It really happened,” Castroneves recalled. “You’re not allowed to have a kid in the pits or in the garage, but my dad couldn’t leave me at home. For me, it was like playing hide and seek, and it made me enjoy the races even more.”

Love for racing frequently runs in a family, and that is certainly true when the family’s last name is “Castroneves.” In recognition of his racing passion and success, Hélio Castroneves is the 2025 honoree for The Amelia Concours d’Elegance, celebrating its 30th anniversary from March 6-9.

In the history of racing, only four drivers have won the legendary Indianapolis 500 four times each—A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears, Al Unser, Sr., and Hélio Castroneves. This May, he’ll try to make that a record five wins.

Hélio’s amazing career began in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, a city located a couple of hundred miles north of São Paulo. Hélio’s father had moved the family to Ribeirão Preto where he could find work in the city’s burgeoning ethanol business. It was 1977. Hélio was two.

Racing has always been massively popular in Brazil, and the country has produced a long list of professional drivers, including Formula 1 champion Ayrton Senna, who was Castroneves’s role model. Other Brazilian drivers include Nelson Piquet, Tony Kanaan, Gil de Ferran, and Rubens Barrichello—to name just a few—as well as two-time Formula 1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi, who once served as Castroneves’s manager.

Of course, for a country to produce so much racing talent, there needs to be an infrastructure to encourage and support young talent, a ladder for drivers to ascend as they sharpen their skills. Karting was, at that time—much as it is today—the first rung on that ladder. Castroneves began his rise racing karts locally at age 10. At age 11, he joined a national series, where he was named the rookie of the year.

That was about the time Castroneves knew he wanted to be a race car driver. “As soon as I won my first trophy, it was love at first sight. I couldn’t live without racing. And racing became my passion.”

This pronouncement did not go over well with his mother, Sandra. As a former schoolteacher, she tried to steer young Hélio toward academic activities and less risky sports such as tennis or swimming. It didn’t work. In the end, Sandra became one of Hélio’s biggest supporters.

In 1995, Castroneves moved to England to drive in Formula 3 for the established Paul Stewart Racing team. To finance the ride, Hélio, Sr., sold everything he could to raise money, including the São Paulo apartment where Hélio’s older sister, Kati, lived while she was attending college. Today, Kati is Hélio’s business manager.

Castroneves did well, winning a race and finishing third in the championship, but there was no money left to support another year in F3. When he was offered a test in Indy Lights—the developmental feeder series for IndyCar—Hélio flew to Phoenix and drove well enough to get a ride with Tasman Motorsports for the 1996 season.

Though he won a race, it was mostly a disappointing year, and Castroneves was ready to quit and go home. At the last minute, he sought advice from a sports psychologist who gave Castroneves a rubber band to wear on his wrist. The psychologist instructed Castroneves to snap the rubber band, hard, every time he had a negative thought. It worked, and his racing started to improve.

“As soon as I won my first trophy, it was love at first sight. I couldn’t live without racing. And racing became my passion.”

After a solid season in Indy Lights in 1997, Castroneves went racing the next year in IndyCar with Bettenhausen Racing. There were no wins but there were some bright moments, and he finished second to Tony Kanaan in rookie of the year standings. Hélio moved to Hogan Racing for 1999, but it was more of the same: Bright moments, punctuated by multiple disappointments. He was snapping the rubber band a lot.

Castroneves wasn’t sure what he was going to do for the 2000 season when a tragedy unexpectedly opened a door for him. Canadian racer Greg Moore had announced that after the 1999 season finale at the California Speedway, he would move to the powerhouse Team Penske. Ten laps into that last race, Moore lost control of his car, which went airborne at 220 mph and then barrel-rolled into a concrete barrier. Moore was killed. He was 24.

Penske had five days to find a replacement for Moore. The team reached out to Castroneves, and the next day his agent literally scratched out Greg Moore’s name on the contract and hand-wrote in Hélio’s name. Suddenly he went from not driving for the 2000 season to having a seat with the best team in the IndyCar series.

Castroneves was finally with a team he could depend on. “Not only Roger, but his entire family,” he said. “Roger has been a crucial part of my career. He kind of adopted me, raised me, and when the time was right, he set me free, and I continued my journey. He’s the most dynamic person I know, but also the humblest. He’s a person that I idolize.”

For the 2000 season, Penske changed to a new car, a Reynard, and swapped Mercedes-Benz engines for Honda. Castroneves won his first IndyCar race, the Grand Prix of Detroit. After taking the checkered flag, Castroneves jumped from his car, ran to the fence surrounding the track and climbed it. Thus was born what became his trademark move and earned him the nickname “Spiderman.” The fans love it.

Castroneves won his second race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and his third at the Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca. With a year at Team Penske under his belt, Castroneves was eager to get the 2001 season going. He won the second race of the season, at Long Beach, and repeated at Detroit and Mid-Ohio.

But the big news came at that year’s Indianapolis 500. Open-wheel racing in America had splintered in 1996, when Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George started his own series, the Indy Racing League (IRL), in direct opposition to the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series in which Team Penske raced. Most of the CART teams boycotted the Indianapolis 500 in 1996, and Penske stayed out for the next five years. Team Penske returned in 2001 after tensions between CART and the IRL cooled.

At the 2001 Indy 500, Castroneves qualified 11th and steadily made his way to the front. He was leading on lap 155 (of 200) when rain began falling, causing a 17-minute delay. When the race restarted, Castroneves jumped into the lead and stayed there for the final 52 laps. He won the 2001 Indianapolis 500 in his first start at the track. Teammate Gil de Ferran was right behind him, less than two seconds back. It gave Roger Penske a 1-2 finish, and his 11th overall win in the Indy 500.

“When I got the checkered flag, it seemed like a movie passing by in my head. One of my dreams was suddenly coming true.”

Castroneves stopped his car at the finish line, and as had become his custom, dashed to the safety fence and climbed to the top, this time joined by some of his crew. Winning his first Indianapolis 500, in front of 400,000 fans, became a blur. “As soon as I got the checkered flag, it seemed like a movie passing by in my head—one of my dreams was suddenly coming true. It was a special and fantastic moment.”

Such a moment occurred again in 2002, after Penske moved from CART to the IRL for the full season. Castroneves became the first driver since 1971 to win back-to-back Indy 500s. This time, when Spiderman climbed the fence, he was joined by his team owner, Roger Penske.

Castroneves’s second win at the Indy 500 raised his already-tall profile, especially in the world of pop culture. Cosmopolitan magazine named him the “Hunk of the Month.” People magazine proclaimed him to be the “Sexiest Race Car Driver.” And ESPN named him one of the world’s “20 Sexiest Athletes.”

But that was nothing compared with what came next.

Beginning in September 2007, Hélio developed a whole new fan base when he teamed up with professional dancer Julianne Hough for season five of the ABC series Dancing with the Stars. Two months and 21 episodes later, Castroneves and Hough were crowned the champions.

Did Hélio think he might win? “No, I did not,” he admitted. “My goal was to not be the first one to be eliminated. I did not want to be remembered as the dancing driver who sucked at the dancing part. I just wanted to survive the first week, and who thought I’d be surviving right up to the end?”

His win led to an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he worked as a dance analyst on Entertainment Tonight, he scored a story in TV Guide, and he was a judge for the Miss Universe pageant, opportunities race car drivers just don’t get. Though his win happened in 2007, “I still get recognized. It’s the only thing I’ve retired from—I put my dancing shoes on the shelf, that’s it. No more!”

Despite the success on the dance floor, racing remained the priority. At the 2009 Indianapolis 500, Castroneves qualified on the pole and ran near the front all day. He led for 66 laps and cruised to his third win at Indy. Hélio and his crew performed the obligatory fence climbing on the front stretch. He became the sixth driver to win three times at the track.

Castroneves remained with Team Penske’s IndyCar program though 2017; that year, he won at Iowa and climbed from 19th to a second-place finish at the Indianapolis 500. At the end of the season, Penske told Castroneves that he was needed on the new sports car program for IMSA. With mixed feelings but with the assurance that he’d have a place in the team’s lineup for the Indianapolis 500, Castroneves agreed to move from IndyCar to the Acura-backed Daytona Prototype car for the 2018 season, pairing up with co-driver Ricky Taylor.

Was it a difficult decision to race full-time in IMSA? “I’ll be honest, it was. But it was the right decision. Roger basically sold me on the series, and I fell in love with it. It’s a challenging series filled with some great drivers.”

The team improved as the year went on, highlighted by a win at Mid-Ohio and multiple podium finishes in 2019. Then in 2020, everything jelled: Castroneves and Taylor won at Road America, Road Atlanta, and Mid-Ohio, and then again at Laguna Seca. Though Castroneves came up a little short in his quest to win an IndyCar title—he took second overall four times—he was now a champion in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series.

At the end of the 2020 season, Hélio was approached by team owner Michael Shank, for whom Castroneves had raced in his first Rolex 24 at Daytona back in 2007. Shank’s team was now called Meyer Shank Racing after Shank took on a partner, Jim Meyer, in 2017. Meyer, a lifelong racing fan, was at that time the CEO of SiriusXM Broadcasting.

While maintaining its strong presence in IMSA, the Meyer Shank team began racing in IndyCar in 2017. “We were building our IndyCar team for 2021, and we were looking for a driver, with the priority being the Indianapolis 500,” Shank said. “Hélio was coming off his deal with Roger Penske. At the time he was 45 years old, but he still seemed like he had a lot of gas left in the tank. We signed him for six races that year. Little did we know that we would change racing history—and our lives—forever.”

He’s referring to the 2021 Indianapolis 500, the first IndyCar race of the six in which Castroneves would participate that season. It was a strange atmosphere at the Speedway that year: Due to COVID, attendance was limited to 135,000—still an enormous crowd, but just 40 percent of what the track could hold. Castroneves qualified eighth.

When the green flag flew, Castroneves settled into a top-10 position, and as the race progressed, he began to move up. With 10 laps to go, it appeared that the finish would come down to a battle between Alex Palou, who was in his first season with Chip Ganassi Racing, and Castroneves. With just two laps left, Castroneves made a daring pass on Palou and held off the young driver to take the checkered flag.

Simon Pagenaud, Castroneves’s former Penske teammate, perhaps said it best: “It was basically a four-time legend showing a rookie how to win the race, and that was amazing.” Castroneves won by less than a half-second, joining Foyt, Mears, and Unser in the very exclusive four-wins club at the Indy 500.

As if that weren’t enough for 2021, Castroneves won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura and won it again in 2022 driving Meyer Shank’s Acura Daytona Prototype. In 2023, he made it three straight wins at Daytona, again in the Meyer Shank Acura. Castroneves and the team also won the season-ending Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta.

Castroneves had a comparatively quiet season for 2024. After returning full-time to IndyCar in 2022 and 2023, he dialed back to just three races in 2024, but it was announced that he had become a part-owner of Meyer Shank Racing. If it’s up to Michael Shank, Hélio will be a big part of the team long after he decides to hang up his helmet, possibly next to those Dancing with the Stars shoes. Hélio admits he enjoys having a bit more downtime to spend with long-time partner Adriana and their daughter, Mikaella, and he’s able to make more frequent trips back home to Brazil. Just don’t call him “retired.” In fact, Castroneves will be racing in this year’s Daytona 500—the kickoff race for the 2025 NASCAR Cup series—thanks to Trackhouse Racing’s Project91, which is an initiative that makes a car available in the Daytona 500 for an internationally known driver with impeccable racing credentials.

At 49, Castroneves isn’t ready to give up on a fifth Indy 500 victory, and neither is Shank. “We’ve been behind a little bit compared with our win in ’21, and our goal this year is to give Hélio a car that can run in the top five or six. If we can be there, say, with 25 laps to go, we have a real opportunity to get him that fifth win. We all want to be a part of that.” The team now has a technical alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing, and both Shank and Castroneves are convinced that will help.

As for being the 2025 honoree for The Amelia: “What an honor,” Castroneves said. He had initially been under the mistaken impression that The Amelia’s honoree had to be retired from active duty. “When Ray Evernham called me about it, I told him, ‘I still race! I’m still doing stuff!’ I’m thrilled to join so many incredible honorees—one of them being Mr. Penske. I can’t wait for the weekend.”

Hélio has come so far since those days when he was six, sneaking into races in the trunk of his father’s car. He never forgets what his father sacrificed to make Hélio’s dreams come true.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Hélio’s dad said it’s just what a father does for his son. “I couldn’t realize my dream of racing,” he said. “But seeing my son succeed was even better.”

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If you’re interested in attending this year’s Amelia, tickets and event details can be found here.

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