HONDA INDY 200

Honda Indy 200: Castroneves burning up at the track

Rob McCurdy
Reporter
  • Helio Castroneves is wearing a Fitbit on his wrist to measure the calories he burns.
  • Graham Rahal won the second race of his career, seven years after his first.
  • Simon Pagenaud has been quick in qualifying, but race results are lagging.

LEXINGTON – Helio Castroneves is a workout fiend.

Swimming, biking, weight training — even dancing for a while — it’s all to keep the 40-year-old’s 152-pound frame in shape for the Verizon IndyCar Series season.

This year he started wearing a Fitbit on his wrist to monitor just how many calories he was burning.

“It’s unbelievable how much we burn,” he said between practices at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. “I’ve seen this in the race and 2,300 (calories) is actually an average. A workout for me in a day is about 1,500 (calories). That’s actually good data because I never knew it.”

A typical day of practice and qualifying is another 1,500 calorie day for the one-time champion of “Dancing with the Stars” and three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. To put it in perspective, a swimmer burns about 400 calories an hour and a brisk walk for 10 minutes will burn 44 calories, according to studies.

A year ago, ESPN’s “Sports Science” put a heart monitor on Castroneves for a practice session at the short oval in Iowa. They found his heart beats at about 130 per minute behind the wheel or roughly the same as a long distance runner.

“Technology is helping to keep yourself understanding what to do,” he said. “It’s tuning what I did over the years.”

Already a healthy eater, Castroneves is tweaking what he does especially on race days by being regimented when he eats, which is now 90 minutes to two hours before the race. He’s also making sure he drinks more water in the cockpit during the race.

“Normally I didn’t touch any sip of water, so I have to remind myself because I’m so focused” he said.

Win No. 2

Graham Rahal won in his IndyCar debut in 2008, becoming the youngest winner in series history. Seven years later, win No. 2 came his way.

“After my first one I think it was (IndyCar veteran Tony) Kanaan who said my second one would be a lot harder, and it sure was,” Rahal said after winning the MAVTV 500 in California earlier this summer.

Rahal isn’t sure he fully appreciated what he accomplished in his rookie season at the time. Now he does.

“This one means a lot more to me for sure because of the ups and downs and everything else,” Rahal said. “I never expected racing to be easy. I’ve known from the start from go-karting and everything else that this is going to be hard. A lot of people who are critical of me saying he’s only won one race and now two, there’s a lot of people in IndyCar who have never won a race. It’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do.”

Fast car, slow results

In his first season with Team Penske, Simon Pagenaud has shown plenty of speed in his qualifying efforts, winning a pole and starting on the front row of five races. But he’s got just one podium finish coming into Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

“It’s not because you have the fastest car that you are going to win the race,” he said. “I think it makes it very interesting for the fans and for the teams and the drivers. It’s tough because we have the best car.”

Pagenaud isn’t ready to call his shot for a specific race, but he warns that better results are coming.

“Trust me it will come,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s going to come soon, but I know the whole team is better than it was at the last race and in time we have to go forward. I’m very confident.”

Hot laps

Michael Cooper won the first race of the GTS class for the Pirelli World Challenge on Friday, but on Saturday Kris Wilson held off Jack Baldwin, who first won at Mid-Ohio in 1973 … Nico Jamin won from the pole and led all 20 laps in both races for the Cooper Tires USF2000 Powered by Mazda … Santiago Urrutia led 18 of 23 laps to win the first Pro Mazda race by 0.42 seconds over Neil Alberico … RC Enerson beat Max Chilton by 2.4 seconds to win the first Indy Lights race.

rmccurdy@gannett.com

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Twitter: @McMotorsport