His fingers were dyed orange-red and his tongue burned.
Three hours after passing the checkered flag in Monterey, California, on Sunday, the newly crowned IndyCar champion Spiritempty stomach. Thanks to quick assistance from IndyCar photographer Chris Owens, who volunteered as his favorite snack, the Aussie was so pleased, hastily munched on a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at the transmission center. informed before our interview. After a while, he frantically grabbed a water bottle to put out the fire in his mouth.
The comedy scene is the perfect combination of IndyCar’s most engaging personality.
Gotta loves the new and hungry champion,@ 12WillPowerwho was lined up with blazing hot Cheetos by ace #IndyCar gunner@ChrisOwens500before our interview. pic.twitter.com/MM6ah8sz4u
– Marshall Pruett (@marshallpruett) September 12, 2022
Outwardly the car is utterly silly and often overtaken with intense intensity inside, the Power has become one of the sport’s most enduring gifts. While most major racing teams go to great lengths to tame the public personalities of their riders, his Team Penske driver has surrendered, raising the white flag for that point of view much. previous.
Spend 15 minutes with IndyCar’s 2022 champion and you can get everything from jokes that can never be repeated, existential discussions about alien life, unwavering honesty – sometimes at the team’s expense – discover the inner workings of his mind, YouTube reviews of documentaries he recently discovered, and debates about the world’s greatest drummers .
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Power’s eccentricities are where the magic is found. His cleverness also comes from that; His boundless curiosity and extroversion allows Power to stay fresh, continuing to find new limits to overcome with the gas pedal and steering wheel.
At the age of 41, Power has not weakened. He’s happy to please his young teammates and the rest of the 24 full-time riders, who have spent 8 months and 17 races trying and can’t stop him from winning the title. its second IndyCar brand.
Made eight years after his first championship, Power’s latest championship is a celebration of his hunger and staying power. It’s also a reminder of how far he’s come since leaving his hometown of Toowoomba nearly 20 years ago in pursuit of glory on open wheels. For every racing prodigy such as Lewis Hamilton or one Jimmie Johnsonhad a Willpower, a guy who was never expected to reach the top of the sport.
As efforts to go up Formula one stalled in Europe, an opportunity in the US emerged in late 2005: Power would represent a group of home entertainment sponsors through Team Australia in the previous Champ Car series. Bright lights can be seen in two wins and several milestones, but nothing suggests he’s ready to become the fastest racer in the series’ history.
Inactive after a not-so-popular debut in the IndyCar Series in 2008, Power entered a flop with its career at a turning point. Thanks to the Internal Revenue Service, his life will forever be changed.
Brought in by Roger Penske as a short-term substitute while his dual Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves to be being prosecuted for tax evasion, Power had a steering wheel to win IndyCar’s best prize. From six races, Power was on the podium three times and took The Captain’s win in Canada.
Taking the series by storm, Power has made a surprise audition his home for 13 years and is continuing to grow.
“He just showed us what he had, blown up, right away,” Penske told ESPN. But it is the next phase in Power’s career that is most relevant to the season that just ended at the legendary Laguna Seca.
Becoming a full-time driver for Penske in 2010, Power tore the streak for the next three seasons, amassing 14 wins and 21 championships – more than any other driver in that period. He also makes more mistakes and collisions than the rest of the championship contenders combined. Three consecutive runner-ups in the drivers’ standings speak volumes about his approach to racing.
Power lost to Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti in 2010 and 2011 as the Scots used a carefully consistent strategy to leave Power incapacitated at the end of each season. Franchitti won when he could, lost when he didn’t, and watched his score ahead of Power become insurmountable. Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay applied the same formula back in 2012 and was well-deservedly crowned.
Intentionally or not, there’s too much Ricky Bobby in Power. If he’s not the first, he often tries a risky move or pushes the cart too hard and ends up somewhere near the end – as the “Talladega Nights” character says, “If you’re not the first , you Finally.”
The flaw in Power’s approach was reinforced when Castroneves replaced him as Penske’s best driver in 2013. Power reached the winning line three times while Castroneves had just one win for the company. but it’s the Brazilian’s performance in other rounds – like Franchitti and Hunter-Reay before – that matters. Coming in fourth in the championship, two places behind Castroneves, was the long-awaited wake-up call for Strength Needed.
Capturing the first scoring formula that was used against him to such great effect, Power returned with a different look in 2014. He took three wins and four poles, but that’s not the important part: Power makes peace with finishing second or third or fourth and running to claim his first title by a margin against Castroneves.
The code has finally been cracked and it seems certain that the Power will be unstoppable, progressing to two or three championships in a row. That didn’t happen.
His fleeting grasp of the formula gave way to untimely errors, crashes, machine failures, and general misfortunes between 2015 and 2020. Even worse, fellow co-workers. new team Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden won three championships for Penske in that span as Power fluctuated from second to fifth in the rankings.
The misery peaked in 2021 when Power earned a win and pole and finished ninth in the championship – the worst season in Penske’s 12-year career. Watch a 24 year old IndyCar sophomore from Spain named Alex Palou winning the title reminds Power of what needs to be done if he wants to avoid spending the rest of his days as a champion once and for all.
“Sounds weird.”
Listen to radio communications from @Team_Penske like @ 12WillPower guaranteed championship at @WeatherTechRcwy.#INDYCAR // #FirestoneGP pic.twitter.com/mOsvwo37UW
– NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 13, 2022
“In ’21, I just thought watching Palou win that championship, ‘You have to accept that you’re not going to win every race, you’re not going to win all the columns, and not focus on that. it,'” Power said. “And that’s been a significant change for me. It really makes me a happier person.”
His dedication to consistently scoring has worked wonders for Power in 2014, and for whatever reason, Palou has triggered a return to the mindset that Power has lost over the years. A glimpse at his work agency in 2022 is like an homage to Castroneves – now a four-time Indy 500 winner – with one win and nine notable title wins.
“This year is actually more stable than year 14,” Power said proudly.
He also took five pole positions, with fifth coming in Monterey, where he broke ties with GOAT, Mario Andretti, and move up to first place on IndyCar’s all-time extreme record with 68. Quick as always, with his intelligence and championship title proving it, an old competitor stopped by to give his Power flowers after Sunday’s race.
“Dario [Franchitti] told me, “You’re doing to the young people what I’ve done to you.” “Power continues.” The good thing is that I still have the speed, can still walk the column, can still be extremely fast. We added consistency to it, it’s a great combination.
“I still have to dig deep these days. It’s something you lose. You get older, you lose a little bit of the fire in your stomach. It’s something that can slow you down. It’s something you have to dig deep to get to. keep it. But maybe just getting older makes me lose a little bit.”
The final note from Power could be the key to everything he’s just achieved.
Spending all those years trying to recapture the winning mindset from 2014 led to a frustrated and fruitless pursuit. Instead of continuing his battle to find what he was, Power, now one of IndyCar’s most senior racers, has accepted who he is – and that’s good enough to be home. champion twice.
“It’s just something that develops over a long period of time,” he said. “And that’s exactly where I stand now through all those experiences. If you don’t learn from them, you’ll never get better. You’ll never get better. mind , they never learn not to.
“They never thought about the problem, ‘Where’s the area in my mind that I can’t go back to?’ And that’s something that’s going to happen. Sometimes you feel it in yourself. Like, ‘Why would I do this?’ You have to reflect and then come back [right] Thinking. I’ve had enough of those situations. “
Desperate to enjoy celebrating beers with his Team Penske racing team, Power completed the Cheetos bag and established his new status as an older and wiser champion, which should make the music Dr. Dave Grohl is proud.
“It was extremely satisfying,” he said. “Definitely not the relief I would say in ’14 where I haven’t won a single one, but it’s funny. You get older and you just enjoy the journey more. You just enjoy the ride. the whole process of what you’ve done, enjoy the race, and that’s part of the fun. And what comes out of it is the championship. I’m not sitting here excited.
“I’m just super content, working hard on something and getting the most out of it and leaving nothing on the table all year. It’s just craft. Craftsmanship is something I love.”
