Hargrove: Waiting to return to Indy Lights is paying off - MotorSportsTalk

Editor’s note: Scott Hargrove, the 2013 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda champion and current driver of the No. 3 Gap Guard Dallara IL-15 Mazda in the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires, will be one of two Mazda Road to Indy guest bloggers for NBCSports.com this month. Hargrove’s post-Grand Prix of Indianapolis, pre-Freedom 100 blog is filed below; another Mazda Road to Indy driver blog will follow later this month.

After sitting out last season due to a lack of sponsorship, Hargrove signed with Team Pelfrey in February. Not satisfied to simply drive the car, the young entrepreneur has set about redesigning the soon-to-be released Gap Guard website, the graphics and the product itself. The new graphics – which adorn the team pit cart he recently redesigned – can also be seen on Stefan Wilson’s No. 25 Driven2SaveLives-KVRT entry in the 100th Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil.

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After this past weekend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, it’ll be time to switch focus and driving styles from the road course to an oval. This is another area where the Mazda Road to Indy mirrors the guys in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

You’ll need to be a lot smoother behind the wheel. While I’ve done a few oval races, I’ve never done anything as high speed as this. In the Freedom 100, you just need to be calm and not make mistakes.

Hargrove. Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, LLC Photography

But before I do the pre-event test here Monday, I’ll race in a Porsche in the IMSA GT3 Canada series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It’s a chance to get away for a bit at a place where I’ve won before. Hopefully, I’ll get another win up there, clear my head a bit, and come back here with some momentum to hit the oval running!

To be honest, it’s been a pretty rough start to the year for us in Indy Lights. Our finish Saturday (ninth) was our second-best finish of the season after scoring a podium at St. Pete, but that’s just the kind of year it’s been. At the same time, it’s been great because I’m driving an Indy Lights car, after sitting out last season. To be back in the car is cool, and you can’t beat being at Indy.

It’s an interesting perspective. When you’ve won and contended for titles before, you’re used to that; but your mindset changes when you’re further back in the championship. From here, all I can focus on is improving and doing the best I can to win races in the Gap Guard car, and then go for the championship next year.

Reflecting on IMS, I look back to the race in Pro Mazda here in 2014, which was a real turning point for my season. I was on the podium in the first few races, knocking on the door, but Spencer (Pigot) was just super quick. I was so happy when I broke through for the win here, after some really crazy racing! I was able to pull away from my competitors and get both victories, which really solidified in my head that we were taking the fight to those guys, that I really did have a chance to win the championship.

After the road course event here, my teammate Neil Alberico and I were saying that had been the craziest weekend of racing we’d ever been a part of. So we were in a rain delay at Lucas Oil Raceway, looking at our on-board video, and I decided to do a video. I worked for about five or six hours and made a “Mario Kart” video. It went viral right away and people still ask me about it! It brought back some childhood memories, since that’s my racing started!

Things really fell my way the rest of the season, including the race at Houston where I had an incident with my teammate, got a drive-through penalty, dealt with the pouring rain, made a pit stop under yellow and came back from 10th to the lead. We endured one of the biggest ups and downs in one race! After that, it was back-and-forth between me and Spencer… and we know how that ended (Pigot edged Hargrove in a dramatic battle for the 2014 Pro Mazda title at Sonoma).

But I remember this time last year, watching the car I had started the season with (Sean Rayhall took over the seat with 8Star Motorsports after St. Pete) being raced around here. I watched the Freedom 100 from home and that pretty much sucked!

Still, it was a great learning experience for me. To come back here with Team Pelfrey this year makes the waiting worth it. My teammate Juan (Piedrahita) told me that I’m going to love race day. Even the laps that we’re going to take next Monday on the test days are going to be surreal.

The crowd is such a big part of it. In 2013, while I was leading the USF2000 championship, the Pro Mazda championship leader and I both got to pace the Freedom 100. It was great to be a part of that race – I led the pace laps, and thanks to the crazy four-wide photo finish, it ended up being the most exciting finish in Indy Lights history!

So this year, the current USF2000 and Pro Mazda leaders will pace us to the green flag.

I can’t believe this opportunity to race the IMS oval is finally happening for me. I’m super, super excited.

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INDIANAPOLIS – Few drivers in Indy 500 history have been as popular as Tony Kanaan.

Throughout his career at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that began with his first Indy 500 in 2002, the fans loved his aggressiveness on the track and his engaging personality with the fans.

The Brazilian always got the loudest cheers from the fans during driver introductions before the Indy 500.

Sunday’s 107^th Indianapolis 500 would be his last time to walk up the steps for driver introductions. Kanaan announced earlier this year that it would be his final race of his IndyCar career, but not the final race as a race driver.

He will continue to compete in stock cars in Brazil and in Tony Stewart’s summer series known as the “Superstar Racing Experience” – an IROC-type series that competes at legendary short tracks around the country beginning in June.

Kanaan was the extra driver at Arrow McLaren for this year’s Indy 500 joining NTT IndyCar Series regulars Pato O’Ward of Mexico, Felix Rosenqvist of Sweden, and Alexander Rossi of northern California.

He had a sporty ride, the No. 66 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet that paid homage to McLaren’s first Indianapolis 500 victory by the late Mark Donohue for Team Penske in 1972.

Because Kanaan has meant so much to the Indianapolis 500 and the NTT IndyCar Series, the 2013 Indy 500 winner was honored before the start of the race with a special video.

It featured Kanaan sitting in the Grandstand A seats writing a love letter to the fans of this great event. Kanaan narrated the video, reciting the words in the letter and it finished with the driver putting it in an envelope and leaving it at the Yard of Bricks.

*Lauren Kanaan with daughter Nina before the 107th Indy 500 (Bruce Martin Photo).*

Many in the huge crowd of 330,000 fans watched the video on the large screens around the speedway. On the starting grid, Kanaan’s wife, Lauren, who bears a striking resemblance to actress Kate Beckinsale, watched with their four children.

Kanaan’s wife is an Indiana girl who was a high school basketball star in Cambridge City, Indiana.

Kanaan proposed to Lauren in 2010, and after a three-year engagement, they were married in 2013 – the year he won his only Indianapolis 500.

She has been Kanaan’s rock, and this was a moment for the family to share.

After receiving an ovation and the accolades from the crowd, Kanaan walked to his car on the starting grid and exchanged hugs with people who were important in his career.

One of those was Takuma Sato’s engineer at Chip Ganassi Racing, Eric Cowdin.

*Tony Kanaan shares a moment with former engineer Eric Cowdin (Bruce Martin Photo).*

Kanaan and Cowdin shared a longtime relationship dating all the way back to the Andretti Green Racing days when Kanaan was a series champion in 2004. This combination stayed together when Kanaan moved to KV Racing in 2011, then Chip Ganassi Racing from 2014-2018 followed by two years at AJ Foyt Racing.

Kanaan returned to run the four oval races for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 in the No. 48 Honda that was shared with seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.

In 2022, Johnson ran the full IndyCar Series schedule, and Kanaan drove the No. 1 American Legion entry to a third-place finish in his only IndyCar race of the season.

Kanaan knew that 2023 would be his last Indy 500 and properly prepared himself mentally and emotionally for his long goodbye.

But one could sense the heartfelt love, gratitude, and most of all respect for this tenacious driver in the moments leading up to the start of the race.

*Tony Kanaan gets emotional during an interview after the Indy 500 (Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar/ USA TODAY Sports Images Network).*

“The emotions are just there,” Kanaan said. “I cried 400 times. This guy came to hug me, and I made Rocket (IndyCar Technical Director Kevin Blanch) cry. I mean, that is something.

“Yeah, it was emotional.”

Kanaan started ninth and finished 18^th in a race that was very clean for the first two thirds of the race before ending in disjointed fashion with three red flags to stop the race over the final 15 laps.

“Yellows breed yellows and when you are talking about the Indianapolis 500 and a field that is so tough to pass, that happens,” Kanaan said. “It’s the Indy 500. Come on. We’ve got to leave it out there.

“Every red flag, everybody goes, I’m going to pass everybody. It’s tough to pass. It’s the toughest field, the tightest field we ever had here. It was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen.

“I wouldn’t want it any different. We left it all out there. Everybody that was out left it out.”

At one point in the second half of the race, Kanaan passed Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin by driving through the grass on the backstretch.

“That was OK, right?” Kanaan said. “That is one thing I have not done in 22 years here. Even (team owner) Sam Schmidt came to me and said, ‘That was a good one.’

“That was a farewell move.”

‘@IMS gave @TonyKanaan a new job… pic.twitter.com/tRPZhzJcyH

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) May 31, 2023

On the final lap, it was Kanaan battling his boyhood friend from Brazil, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, for a mid-pack finish.

“Helio and I battling for 15th and 16th on the last lap like we’re going for the lead,” Kanaan said. “It was like, who’s playing pranks with us.

“We both went side by side on the backstretch after the checker and we saluted with each other, and I just told him actually I dropped a tear because of that, and he said, ‘I did, too.’

“We went side by side like twice. A lot of memories came to my mind, and I even said how ironic it is that we started it together and I get to battle him on the last lap of my last race.

*Tony Kanaan is embraced by his wife, Lauren, after finishing 16th in the 107th Indianapolis 500 ((Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar/ USA TODAY Sports Images Network).*

“It’s pretty neat. It’s a pretty cool story. He’s a great friend. My reference, a guy that I love and hate a lot throughout my career, and like he just told me — I was coming up here and he just said, who am I going to look on the time sheet when I come into the pits now, because we always said that it didn’t matter if I was — if I was 22nd and he was 23rd, my day was okay. And vice versa.

“It was a good day for me, man. What can I say? We cried on the grid.

“Not the result that we wanted. I went really aggressive on the downforce to start the race. It was wrong. Then I added downforce towards the end of the race, and it was wrong. It was just one of those days.”

After the race was over, Kanaan drove his No. 66 Honda back to the Arrow McLaren pit area and climbed out of the car to cheers of the fans that could see him. Others were focused on Josef Newgarden’s wild celebration after the Team Penske driver had won his first Indianapolis 500.

There were no tears, though, only smiles from Kanaan who closes an IndyCar career with 389 starts, 17 wins including the 2013 Indianapolis 500, 79 podiums, 13 poles, and 4,077 laps led in a 26-year career.

Kanaan came, he raced, and he raced hard.

“That’s what we did, we raced as hard as we could,” Kanaan told NBC Sports.com. “It wasn’t enough.

“The win was the only thing that mattered. If we were second or 16^th, we were going to celebrate regardless.

“In a way, being 16^th will stop people wondering if I’m going to come back.

“I’m ready to go. I’m ready to enjoy the time with my family, with my team and doing other things as well.”

Kanaan’s face will forever be part of the Borg-Warner Trophy as the winner of the Indianapolis 500.

“I won one and that is there, and it will always be there,” Kanaan said. “It was an awesome day.

“The way this crowd made me feel was unbelievable. I don’t regret a bit.”

*Tony Kanaan hugs his son Max before the Indy 500 (Grace Hollars/IndyStar/USA TODAY Sports Images Network).*

Kanaan actually announced the 2020 Indianapolis 500 would be TK’s last ride because he wanted to say goodbye to the fans.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit, the Indianapolis 500 was moved from Memorial Day Weekend to August 23 and because of COVID restrictions, fans were not allowed to attend the Indianapolis 500.

Three years later, Kanaan was finally able to say goodbye to this fans that were part of the largest crowd to see the Indianapolis 500 since the sold-out gathering for 350,000 that attended the 100^th running in 2016.

“That’s it, that’s what I wanted, and I got what I wanted,” Kanaan said. “This moment was so special; I don’t want to ever spoil it again.

*Tony Kanaan kisses his daughter Nina before the 107th Indy 500 (Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY Sports Images Network).*

“We’ve been building and growing this series as much as we can. I’m really glad and proud that I was able to be part of building something big and this year’s race was one of the biggest ones.”

Kanaan walked off pit lane and rejoined his family. He will always be part of the glorious history of the Indianapolis 500 and fans will be talking about Tony Kanaan years from now, not by what he did, but the way he did it.

“This is what it is all about,” Kanaan said on pit lane. “Having kids, be a good person. Even if you don’t win, it’s fine if you don’t, as long as you make a difference.

“Hopefully, I made a difference in this sport.

“I will always be an IndyCar driver. I will always be an Indy 500 winner and I will always make people aware of IndyCar in the way it deserves.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500