Castroneves wins the 500

[Dude! Sweet!]

Hey Chuck, I watched the 500 a couple years ago with a bunch of AAR guys. One of them (maybe two of them, now that I think about it) ran that car with you. One was a Japanese guy (ok, guessing, but certainly asian) named Darren or Derek maybe? That ring a bell?

Hmmm, photos of our Indy cars? Shoot, I think the pictures of my buddy's '70 Eagle are on a disk in my office. Might as well be my car, since I'm the one who talked him into buying it, stored it in my garage for a couple years and since I'm the only one that's worked on it in over 20 years...

 

[C_Spray]

Hey Chuck, I watched the 500 a couple years ago with a bunch of AAR guys. One of them (maybe two of them, now that I think about it) ran that car with you. One was a Japanese guy (ok, guessing, but certainly asian) named Darren or Derek maybe? That ring a bell?...

Derek Ige. Good guy. We hired him on Chip Hanuaer's recommendation; he'd worked on Chip's Unlimited hydro. Derek only worked for one season before returning to LA. I don't think the Pennsylvania lifestyle suited him. At least he picked the right season to work with us. In 1994, we won 12 out of 16 races, including the Indy 500 with a one-off Mercedes pushrod engine, swept the podium at five races and finished 1-2-3 in the CART championship. Sports Illustrated recently listed that season as the thrid most dominating performance in the history of racing.

Dean Loucks has an Indy Car as well. His is a 2000 IRL Dallara, fully-assembled and street legal...

 

[RedDog382]

All the good paper routes were taken, so I had to do something....


1976: Graduated from Purdue with a Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering. Worked almost 2 years in general industry (Babcock & Wilcox). Go-kart race at Purdue ("Purdue Grand Prix") was great training.
1977-1978: Worked part-time and then full-time for a Can-Am team, George Follmer driving.
1978: George got me an interview at the International Race of Champions, where he worked as a test/development driver. IROC was co-owned by Roger Penske.
1980: Transferred from IROC to Penske Racing as Truck Driver/Utility Mechanic on the spare car. That year the spare car was driven at Indy by Mario Andretti. (Cool - Working on Mario's car in my first year...)
1981/1982: Mechanic on Rick Mears' car. CART National Champion both years.
1983/1984: Mechanic on Al Unser's (Sr.) car.
1985-1988: Chief Mechanic on Danny Sullivan's car. 12 wins, including 1985 Indy 500 and 1988 CART National Championship.
1989-1998: Team Manager and General Manager, Penske Racing.
1999-present: VP/GM of Racing Experience, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Penske Racing, conducting race track experiences for invited consumers of PMUSA, and training mechanics for the various Penske teams. Go to ZERO IRL events, but I'm still proud of what the team accomplishes. Lots of the staff are guys I hired many years ago...

Hey C Spray,

I think we may have met up at Michigan Speedway one time. Do/did you have a bat-wing boat about ten years ago? I work with the medical staff at MIS and was there alot on test days back when IROC was active. Met Al Jr., Gil Deferran, Michael Andretti, Rick Mears, lots of NASCAR drivers.

 

[C_Spray]

Hey C Spray,

I think we may have met up at Michigan Speedway one time. Do/did you have a bat-wing boat about ten years ago? I work with the medical staff at MIS and was there alot on test days back when IROC was active. Met Al Jr., Gil Deferran, Michael Andretti, Rick Mears, lots of NASCAR drivers.

That's me:

 

[RedDog382]

That's me:

How is Jay Signore doing? Always liked talking with him ...

Still have the boat?