Thank You Tony Kanaan For All The Racing Memories
Your impact on the sport of racing will be felt for years to come.
TK,
I know you have a few races left (or correct me if I’m wrong). But thank you for all the racing memories! For me, I’ve always seen you race at the Indy 500.
When we took this picture, I was cold and not caring about how many layers I had on. I’m a skinny shit and get cold easily haha.
Top Drivers For 500: I’m a fan of yours, Will Power (we did a drum session, he’s a great drummer), Helio Castroneves and the late Dan Wheldon.
My 2nd group. I’m really starting to warm up to Josef Newgarden (Congrats dude on winning the 2023 Indy 500!), Takuma Sato, & Sting Ray Robb. (I like Sting Ray the animals so I’m like a Sting Ray in real life, cool!). I also love the women drivers.
I’m not gonna list every driver on the planet here, that’s for another article for another day.
TK,
Thanks for representing the underdogs.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I saw in TV interviews, that you’re from Brazil and people wasn’t sure if you would make it in racing.
Guess what Tony! You made it. You are living proof of what success looks like! You won the 2013 Indy 500 and made it on the Borg Warner trophy! (Btw folks expect typos and errors, if I say something that’s ridiculously wrong help a gal out and let me know lol).
Thank you for sticking with your dreams and showing people what’s possible. So many people let people talk them out of their dreams. I somehow believe that the next superstar singer is working in Amazon somewhere.
I somehow believe the next big Oprah, Roger Penske (my bad if I spelled your last name wrong), and Tyler Perry is amongst us. Maybe working next to someone at an office job. Maybe they were told their dreams were unrealistic and was talked out of it by well meaning friends and family. And they are sitting in their cubicle watching their life go by.
And I know there’s people out there with business ideas who are afraid to take the leap, for whatever reason.
Maybe they are not sure how to connect the dots or don’t have the support. Or some didn’t get the same opportunities.
I have to be honest, when going for music, entrepreneurship and acting, many of my loved ones went silent. The only reason why some of them are taking it seriously is I’m gaining traction on my Youtubes. And I have speeches booked years into the future. Day one folks are hard to find. Fans that really stick with you when you finish 33rd or whatever place is hard too. There’s no need for fairweather fans. Just like true blue friends, the supporters that stick with you through the good, the bad and the ugly are the best. I’m also hated amongst many of my school circles and that’s fine by me. Tony, thank you for living your life as a racer, and not letting people beat you out of your racing goals. When an old school friend pops a jealous attitude about my non traditional choices. I think what would Tony do? What would Roger Penske do? Yes, they just race their race. Let the chips fall where they may and rise again in the morning. Prepare for the next race. Win races and silence the critics. Let people talk their shit. Embrace their supporters. Roger that.
I can’t be for certain about this, maybe there was a point in your early racing days where you wasn’t sure this racing thing was gonna pan out. You had people pressuring you to be “normal”, go get a regular gig, stop racing. And I think I saw in an interview that if you didn’t make it, Helio was gonna hire you. And if you made it and Helio didn’t, you was gonna hire him because your friendship goes back for years, and one guy was gonna look out for the other guy.
Thank goodness both of you stuck with it and both of you are excellent race car drivers!
Thank you for racing for all these years, showing up day in and day out, even when the race didn’t turn out the way you wanted. There’s more to life than winning, sports and competition. I can tell when you get behind the wheel you always give it your all. (And because you are still racing at the time of this writing, imma go between past and present tense a lot, my bad).
Thanks for showing that no matter where you come from, how many haters you got, or your circumstances, you can still be successful.
And yup, you are still in your prime, and have many years of racing still in you. Yet you are choosing to retire on top. Another great lesson that you are showing in your retirement. You don’t have to be injured, or doing badly to retire. Maybe someone decides to hang it up just to hang it up. Maybe you just want to do something different and you feel fulfilled. Maybe you did everything or mostly everything you want to do and decide to do something else.
It’s interesting because I recently got into solo sports. Racing is one of the few team sports that I’m still into. You have the owner, the pit crew and of course the racer.
P.S. Unretiring is a trend. If you did a Tom Brady and decide to come back for one more 500 race. Us TKers would do an up and down happy dance. I can’t wait to see what you do next. I hope to see you watching the race. I won’t lie, when you won the 2013 Indy 500, I was hanging out with my snake pit peeps.
It’s 2023!🔥🙌
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