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Helio Castroneves wonders about stock cars

Two-time Indy winner’s focused on IndyCar, but admits thoughts of future NASCAR move

Last month, we found out that Danica Patrick had been chatting with NASCAR team owner Jack Roush. Now it appears Helio Castroneves is also thinking about a future in stock car racing.

Jim Peltz of the Los Angeles Times writes that the two-time Indianapolis 500 champion will chat with team owner Roger Penske about the matter following this Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He told Peltz:

“I won’t deny that I’m thinking about it. It would be great to one day try the [stock] cars. But at this point I’m focusing on Indy cars and winning the Indianapolis 500 again.”

Obviously, it would tremendously hurt the IndyCar Series’ attempt to boost its profile if the Brazilian racer goes South. If he did go, he’d probably have a better chance of getting over with the fans than other open wheel-turned-stock car drivers such as Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya did at the start of their new careers. His “Dancing With The Stars” exploits would see to that. We also can’t erase the fact that there’s big money in NASCAR these days.

I have to wonder if Franchitti finally winning the Indy 500 and a major open-wheel title last year has anything to do with Castroneves’ thoughts about life in a stock car. In a way, he’s where Franchitti was before 2007; he may have the two Indy victories, but he’s missing that major championship. If he happens to win the 2008 title, could he see that as his chance to split?

If I were the IRL, I’d grab him and have a heart-to-heart on a couple of topics; one, what can the series do to keep him and two, why would you mention this on the week of your sport’s biggest race?

Helio’s a very important piece to the puzzle that the IRL must solve in order to regain traction against the NASCAR juggernaut. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do the league any favors with this revelation — especially with the people that believe that Indy racing is inferior to NASCAR. Whether he knows it or not, he just threw another log in that theory’s fire.

The IRL may have a plan on rebuilding the sport, but with Castroneves’ mind wandering to stock cars, it’s probably time to accelerate that plan.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.