NOTES

Castroneves not only won the Indianapolis 500, he became the eighth driver to win the race and be named rookie of the year.

Juan Montoya was a rookie winner last year, making this the second time the race has had back-to-back rookie winners. It happened in 1926 and 1927 when Frank Lockhart and George Souders won those respective years.

Other rookie winners were Ray Harroun, 1911, when every driver was a rookie; Jules Goux, 1913; Rene Thomas, 1914; and Graham Hill, 1966. Louie Meyer won in his first start in 1928 but was not considered a rookie because he drove in relief of Wilbur Shaw in 1927.

A rookie at Indy is anyone who has not driven in the 500. When Hill won as a rookie, he was the reigning Formula One champion.

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In Victory Lane, ABC-TV reporter Jack Arute reminded Castroneves that earlier in the month after he had tagged the wall a couple of times, he said he didn’t want to kiss any more walls, just girls.

“I’m waiting, girls. I’m the winner now,” said Castroneves.

Brazilian rookie Junqueira, who wasn’t supposed to be in the race until Ganassi decided to give him a chance after Stewart and Vasser qualified the team’s primary cars, was elated at finishing fifth.

“Normally I’m only happy if I win, but today I’m really happy with a fifth-place finish.” he said. “This is only my second oval race and first 500 miler. I have never experienced a race like this before. The first half of the race I was just learning, and I learned a lot.”

Junqueira was the European Formula 2000 champion last year and had only road racing experience when Ganassi picked up for his team. After CART races in Brazil and Texas were canceled, Ganassi decided the youngster did not have enough oval experience, so he hired Stewart and Vasser for the 500 only.

“I only entered Bruno and Nicolas [Minassian] because I thought it would be good experience for them to go through the qualifying experience. They both surprised me by getting easily into the race. I can’t say enough for Bruno’s race today.”

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When the 500 was stopped for 16 minutes because of rain, it was the second time in history a race had been halted and then restarted the same day. In 1926, the race was stopped on Lap 71 and restarted, but rain returned at lap 160 and Lockhart was declared the winner.

While the race was red flagged, no work could be done on any car except to unplug the battery. Robby Gordon was given a stop-and-go penalty when his crew worked on his car.

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The last time teammates finished first and second was 1997 when Arie Luyendyk led Treadway Racing teammate Scott Goodyear across the finish line.

In 1988, Penske did one better when Rick Mears, Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser were the first three finishers.

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There were 23 cars running at the finish, the fourth-highest total in race history.

The record is 27 in 1976, a rain-shortened race.