Earlier this year at the Carb Night Burger Bash your humble host had the good fortune of meeting a fine couple who had been united by Helio Castroneves. Literally.
This was news a few years ago although for the life of me I can't find a link, but the story goes that a big Penske fan went up to Helio and convinced him to help him propose to the fan's would-be wife. Long story short: Helio played the part, magically produced the ring, she said "yes", and the two are blissfully married, spending The Month of May together decked out in Team Penske gear and and chatting with IndyCar blog-types. Oh, l'amour.
And since there's such a storied rivalry between Helio and his clean-shaven countryman, well, anything Helio can do Tony Kanaan can do as well, right?
"That was my one worry, that she would think the ring was from Tony and say yes to him".
Long Beach Preview
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Is it just me, or does it seem like we have gone months without an IndyCar
race? If you want to get technical, we have. The last points-paying race
was run...
1 day ago
You think a Napcar driver would ever do that?
Mutt: They do it all the time. They also play best man occassionally when they do on-track weddings.
Doh! Screwed up the link.
Sometimes they even use their paint schemes to help
Thanks for the link, Carrie. I could point out that in true N-Word fashion THAT proposal was driven by a product promotion, but that could be perceived as cynical and heartless on my part.
Jeff: My bad in linking that article. I hadn't realized it was a contest. That said, don't think it hasn't happened with NASCAR and not been related to a promotion or sponsor deal. At least three times a year, you'll hear about a driver doing things like TK did.
That said, please don't act like the IRL and their drivers onlty paint their cars and wear firesuits with logos of the sponsors out of the goodness of their hearts.
The only difference between them right now is more sponsors wanna be on NASCAR cars/drivers than Indy drivers.
Relax, Carrie. I genuinely welcome the link.
I was simply noting the France Racing League seems to foster corporate sponsorship of anything, and that apparently includes marriage proposals. The Kanaan story appeared to be just a guy asking his favorite driver for a little help.
Besides, everyone knows if pressdog wasn't already married he would have unabashedly had "Will you marry me?" somewhere on Sarah Fisher's car.
Sorry, Jeff.
I just get annoyed when I see something that insinuates that one series isn't as much as a prostitute for sponsors as another series is. Like I said, the only difference between NASCAR & the IRL is not as many businesses want what the IRL is selling right now.
Also not too keen on the idea that a NASCAR driver would never do anything like that and do it just because a fan asked.
I will however fully admit to NASCAR having the biggest driver shill in history. It'd take a "special" type of person to beat Michael Waltrip out for that "honor".
I wasn't meaning to insinuate anything. I've just read that Nascar drivers are harder to get any time with from a fans perspective. Thanks for answering the question.
Mutt: Depends on the driver. Some of the more popular guys, you can't get near unless you stalk them on pit road or in the garages. Even then, they have handlers doing the stiff-arm. I'm sure you can guess who I mean.
Then there are guys that will spend half an hour walking a fence shooting the breeze and making sure everyone that wants an autograph gets one.
Proud to say my driver is one of those guys and he's won a lot of people over just by going out of his way like that.