Miami Beach to Eastern Airlines to Helio: South Florida links to the Indianapolis 500

What, you’re surprised that a Brazilian native-Fort Lauderdale resident that had 135,000 (or 200,000) fans around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway high four-ing Sunday as the most popular Indianapolis 500 winner since, well, a Brazilian native who was living in Miami (and now lives Indianapolis?).

You don’t know your local history. The connections between South Florida and The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, of which Helio Castroneves became the fourth four-time winner on Sunday, go back to when Miami Beach was mud and IMS truly was “The Brickyard.”

So pull out a pastelito or a pork tenderloin and let’s talk about...

Carl Fisher

It’s not overstatement to say Fisher created Miami Beach. Fisher’s money built bridges, his money and machines built the land and his money, machines and vision of a high end tourist destination built the hotels. He also built Dixie Highway.

And, from the Carl Fisher U.S. Post Office Branch on Miami Beach’s West Avenue, you can mail a postcard to Fisher’s previous big project, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Along with James Allison, Arthur Newby and Frank Wheeler, Fisher built the track in 1909. In 1911, after paving the surface with bricks, the owners held the first Indianapolis 500.

More auto industry people than auto racing people, Fisher lost interest in the track and the event while building Miami Beach. When bad investments forced him to sell the Speedway, he found a willing buyer in former Indy 500 driver and World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

Eddie Rickenbacker

Yeah, the guy the causeway to Key Biscayne is named after. Rickenbacker bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for $700,000 in 1927, shepherded the Indianapolis 500 through the Great Depression and owned the track until the end of World War II. He dumped it onto Indiana businessman Tony Hulman and three-time Indy 500 winner Wilbur Shaw in November 1945.

Even in Indianapolis, people judged Rickenbacker incredibly smart for getting those Hoosier rubes to pay $750,000 for a dilapidated track with high weeds, rickety structures that hadn’t been touched since 1941. Surely, it would be torn down for post-war housing.

While Hulman revived the Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 into the grand spectacle it is today, Rickenbacker turned Eastern Airlines into one of the nation’s most profitable and glamorous airlines. Fisher built Miami Beach, but nobody brought the people to Miami Beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale like Rickenbacker.

Spider-Man, Captain America, TK and 21st Century winners

1989 Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi called Key Biscayne home and threw a party in South Beach when he won his second Indianapolis 500 in 1993. But it’s after the turn of the millennium that drivers who laid their hats in South Florida started to put their heads on the Borg Warner Trophy.

Of the 22 Indianapolis 500s this century, nine have been won by drivers who did or would soon make their main home in South Florida.

During his Coral Gables years, Castroneves, nicknamed “Spider-Man” after he created the fence-climbing celebration for race wins, won as an Indy 500 rookie in 2001. In 2002, he became the first winner to repeat since another four-time-winner-to-be Al Unser Sr. won his second Indianapolis 500 29 years before.

But for a bit of late race misfortune 2003, Castroneves would’ve scored Indy’s first natural hat trick of three straight wins. Instead, he finished second to Penske Racing teammate Gil de Ferran (of Fort Lauderdale).

Castroneves’ win Sunday, 20 years after his first, breaks Unser Sr.’s record for longest time between first and last Indy 500 wins. The record for biggest gap between first and second Indy 500 wins, 15 years, belongs to Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya crushed the 2000 Indianapolis 500 field as a rookie, moved to a downtown Miami condo in 2002, and returned to Victory Lane in 2015.

With only two yellows, building drama and a late, lead-swapping duel that brought howls from giddy fans, Sunday’s race felt similar to 2014, arguably the best Indianapolis 500 of this generation.

Fort Lauderdale native and resident Ryan Hunter-Reay, dubbed “Captain America” when he was the IndyCar series best U.S.-born driver, outraced Castroneves by 0.060 of a second after they passed each other multiple times in the last three laps.

The year before, in 2013, Hunter-Reay led coming out of a late caution, but Miami resident and restart ace Tony Kanaan got Hunter-Reay when the green flag flew for the last time. Hunter-Reay lost second place to another Miami resident Carlos Munoz, giving South Florida the top three positions.

If Sunday’s result doused exultant fans at the track in Feelgood, Castroneves’ widely popular old friend finally winning on his 12th try left the crowd warmly relieved. Kanaan now lives in Indianapolis with his family.

By that point, Castroneves had moved to Fort Lauderdale and, in 2009, become a three-time winner. He swept the pole, as fastest qualifier; his team won the pit stop contest; and the race.

That it all happened a month after being acquitted on income tax evasion charges made it a very South Florida month of May in Indianapolis.

This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 9:14 AM.