Helio Wins!!!

[bobdrummond]

Last years final race has become infamous because of Greg's death. For me, another emotional event earlier in the race was Helio Castro-Neves' retirement. Or, more specifically, the manner of his retirement. Carl hogan had just announced that he was closing the doors and Helio and the team were unemployed. As he stepped from the car, Helio simply bowed before the crew in an "I'm not worthy" manner. He had every right to be self absorbed at another race retirement and his uncertain future but instead he was giving his crew their dues. It was one of the most gracious things I've ever seen from a driver and made one hope for the best for Helio.
Unfortunately, subsequent events at that race resulted in him being a Penske driver for Y2K and now he's finally won a race. Thanks to Eurosports apathy for Champ Cars at the moment, I didn't see the race. I dearly wish i had for I expect the scenes at the end were of unbridled happiness.

Well done Helio & Penske. Hope you'll have many more.

Next time, Moreno's chance?

[bella]

I AM SO HAPPY!
definitely put me in a good mood for my exam tomorrow.
knew you could do it, sweetie
the video recorder is set already for channel 5 highlights.

[fatbloke]

Good old boy!

Does this mean Penske are back on song (finally) ? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i'm one of those suffering at the hands of Eurosprout

[Sharky]

Yeah. It was great. I was quite upset to see Juan retire after such a fantastic race but that anger soon turned to joy as I found out that the leader was Helio. Good for him. He deserves that win. Not so much for what he did this weekend but because of what he has done in the last couple of seasons. If anything he should have won sooner. And he was so emotional (as many expected). I feel very happy for him....he really deserved it.

[KC]

Juan definitely dominated the event but too much wheelspin on the bumops eventually cost him a halfshaft. The circuit at Belle Isle is very bumpy, especially in the braking and acceleration areas. Its very hard ont he half shafts and drivers must be easy on sudden inputs that put too much torque on them. HCN was definitely one of the most smooth and effortless drives on the track. He was gliding over the bumps and not sliding around the turns. Very smooth and very fast. His emotional outpouring, ala Papis, after the win was refreshing as well. His sister came runnign up just after he exitted the car and handed him a cell phone and he spoke to his family back in Brazil, that too was a nice touch.

BTW, it does appear that Penske are back. Other than deFerran's contact with Fittipaldi, both were doing well.

[Liz]

Memo to My Gil: Get your glasses changed. If you don't stop hitting people, soon people will think that you are Andretti.

[bella]

i have no grudge against gil. no-one's perfect
seriously, it was a racing incident. although it looked to me like he didn't see that there wasn't going to be room fast enough...he had nowhere to go.
good job christian had a yell at someone at this stage in the season. if he'd have left it any later, i think there might have been a court cae attached. 7g's full of remarks about the andretti disease spreading.
can't wait to thee the race and the celebrations.

how was le mans btw? some friends of mine were there too - sounded like a ball.

[Jay]

Although I didn't see any of it. Nice one Helio! A lot of people, myself included have wanted to see him on the podium for quite some time now. Glad finally do it, and the way he celebrated by jumping against the fence just adds to it. I am sure that this will not be his last win.

[Sharky]

Mhhh....i don't know but I think the accident was Christian's fault. I mean....from the in car cammera it looked as if he closed the door on Blundel too soon and his car started to slide and therefore loose speed while Gil was at the back perhaps hoping to get him at the corner exit. I think he would have ended against the wall if even if Gil didn't push him as his car was already out of control in a part where he's supposed to be braking hard. But that's just what I think it happened from my point of view.

And about Juan. Well it seems that the never managed to get the setup quite right and the car was very loose. That qualifying lap seemed like a Rally race with the car sliding everywhere....anyway....bad luck but at least he managed to get 2 points closer to Tracy.

And you can bet that it's not going to be Helio's last win. He just needs to scare off his bad luck and cut down the number of DNF's (mostly due to mechanical failture) and he'll be visiting the winners circle very often.
[Edited by Sharky on 19th June 2000]

[bella]

sharky - i am in awe of your intellegence in tackling the subject of 'the' crash. 7g people just get all angry. whatever, i don't think gil should have been there anyway. it may have been christian's fault, but should gil have been there anyway?

but hey - i'm just defending the guilty party.

[Sharky]

Well from my point of view what Gil was trying to do is to put the situation to his advantage as Christion would have to go off the racing line and therefore take the corner slower while Gil could have taken the correct line and catch him at the corner exit but he didn't count on christian touching Blundel. That's just my opionion from what I saw....maybe I'd have to see the replay once again. Anyway....it's just a racing accident. Nobody had any bad intentions.

[bella]

i agree with you.
i really don't understand why people think gil's the innocent party here. christian was deeply crossed up, and was at least going to have a conference with the run off area. gil shouldn't have gone into the move so early - mark would have moved out of the way anyway.
having watched it on cart.com yesterday, i saw it on tv today, and couldn't quite work out where all the pro-gil stuff was coming from. i understand why christian was cross - he could have saved the situation had gil left it until after the corner. as it was, gil shoved him off the road (albeit accidentally), and ended any real chances for them both.

[Sharky]

Like I said. Maybe I need to see the replay. I just watched it 2 times during the race and if I'm not mistaken by that time I was cursing because Juan left the race so maybe I didn't look at it closely. Maybe Christian's right. I would just have to see the replay.

Perhaps im mistaken but......"errare humanum est" (latin for "making mistakes is human nature").

[Neil C]

Originally posted by Liz
Memo to My Gil: Get your glasses changed. If you don't stop hitting people, soon people will think that you are Andretti.

...or, Paul Tracy?

[jb]

how did this topic about helio get to an argument about fittipaldi/gil?

anyway, helio was wonderful! and i think we could all thank cart for buying(?) that extra half hour so we could see more than the usual 30 seconds postrace.

go helio!