Last Wednesday, a handful of days before the Peak Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County at Infineon Raceway, Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves had learned that the semi-truck transporting his racecar had caught on fire in the middle of Wyoming and burned to the ground. Not exactly the way a driver wants to head into a race weekend. Nonetheless, Castroneves did receive his backup car in time to win the pole on Saturday for Sunday’s IndyCar Series championship. 24 hours later, Castroneves went out and won the race. Talk about turning a negative into a positive!

“It was a great and special week for us,” Castroneves said of his brilliant race weekend. “It’s just a reward. It’s like all the unexpected hard work paid off. This just proves that the guys keep these cars in fantastic shape. As drivers, we didn’t know the difference between the cars.”

And as if written in the stars, Castroneves’ win not only ended a 29-race “no win” streak, it also put him back in contention for the IndyCar championship, now just 43 point behind leader Scott Dixon with only the Detroit and Chicago rounds left to be run.

“I just found a new one,” Castroneves smiled after the win, referring to his “new” favorite racecar. “What a guy. I fall in love easy, and I just found another one. The guys did a great job to not make me feel any difference.”

Second and 5.3 seconds behind his teammate at the finish was Ryan Briscoe. Certainly an amazing 48 hours for two drivers who, as of Thursday morning, were without race machinery!

“This shows the determination of the group we have and the depth of the team,” said Tim Cindric of Penske Racing. “For those guys to do such a good job that we qualify first and second and finish first and second is amazing. It wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be, but it worked out in the end.”

It certainly had. In fact, Castroneves was so confident before the start of the race, when asked by ABC/ESPN cameraman asked Castroneves would celebrate should he win, he answered: “I was like, ‘right there,” he said pointing to camera guy, pointing to a small fence. “Make sure you wait for me there.’”

The cameraman did, and as Castroneves climbed the fence to celebrate victory, he certainly did get the shot!