'This place doesn't owe you s**t' – the Indy 500's close calls

This feature originally appears in RACER's July 2017 issue (No.285) under the title "Close, but..."

"You cannot let this place get into your head," mused Tony Kanaan on a chilly morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year. "If you do, it will ruin you."

Kanaan knew of which he spoke: he had led the race for eight years in a row, headed the field for a combined total of more than 200 laps, started from pole (2005), and finished second, third (twice), fourth and fifth before finally earning a portrait on the Borg-Warner Trophy at his 12th try in a 2013 thriller.

The Brazilian ultimately squared his ledger with the Brickyard, but others who experienced similar disappointments are still waiting for broken hearts to fully heal. Or are they? Marco Andretti came within yards of winning at Indy as a rookie in 2006, and was instead left crossing the line choking on Sam Hornish Jr.'s exhaust fumes (ABOVE). Even for someone not carrying the most famous surname in racing, that sounds like the recipe for a tiny streak of entitlement.

"I look at the flipside of that coin," says Andretti. "I look at how fortunate I am to be unscathed. I look at four or five podiums there. I look at stuff like that.

"And I also look at the fact that, in a perfect world, I've got another 10 shots at winning there. So I'm not panicking. Year in, year out, no matter what team I'm driving for, I know we can make some amazing stuff happen there. And once we win there...Indianapolis is already a big place for me, but that will be huge."

JR Hildebrand can relate. Driving for the small Panther Racing team as a rookie in 2011, the Californian flew beneath the white flags waving from the Speedway's flag stand with a comfortable lead over Dan Wheldon. As he crossed the north chute and entered the final turn, he came across the slower car of Charlie Kimball running on the inside line.

Hildebrand moved to the outside as he came onto the final stretch, wandered onto the marbles, and pancaked the wall. Wheldon shot past for the win; Hildebrand – right-side flattened, and with sparks flying from the car's underside – skidded across the bricks in second place (RIGHT).

"I've had so many people tell me that Indy owes me something that it's really made me realize that, actually, it doesn't owe you s**t," he says. "When you think about it on your own, you can convince yourself that 'I'm going to go back there and everything is going to go my way because that's how things balance out,' but you listen to other people say that to you enough times and it really starts to sound crazy..."

Hildebrand alludes to another aspect to life as a member of the Indy 500's "almost" club. Coming to terms with the personal disappointment associated with a near-miss is one thing, but through the eyes of some on the outside, a crash like the one Hildebrand experienced in 2011 can define him for years. Instead of "JR Hildebrand, IndyCar Series driver", he becomes "JR Hildebrand, last-lap crash guy." Six years after the fact, fans continue to ask him about it.

"The way everything happened in 2011, I had to deal with it all immediately," he says. "There was no hiding from it. I was asked about it a million times, and I had to be at peace with it, just to not go bananas. I still have people walking up and asking if I go to sleep at night thinking about Turn 4. And to me that seems like such a crazy thing to ask.

"For one, I'd be going insane if I was going to sleep every night thinking about that. But I really don't. It just doesn't bother me. It's something that I have very much moved on from.

"I'm in a different place. The series is in a different place. The things that are required to win the race are different now. I've been very head-down over the last few years working on figuring that stuff out so I could get into the best possible position to get back out there and execute. And that, to me, is only what it's about at this point."

Realistically, is there any other way that Hildebrand, or Andretti – or even someone like Carlos Munoz, who was literally in tears after falling just short of reeling Alexander Rossi in last year – can keep their relationship with the "500" in perspective? It's often said that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway chooses the winner, and on that basis, the most any driver can do to control their fate is do whatever they can to put themselves in a position where they're not relying on a stroke of luck to get the job done.

Do that often enough, and maybe – maybe – the Brickyard will answer the call, just as it did for Kanaan in 2013.

"I always prepared myself for maybe not ever winning there," he said. "I trained myself not to feel too beaten up about whatever happened the next day. I always loved this place, regardless of what my result was. I was humble and just grateful to be part of the Indy 500.

"I call the Speedway a 'she,' because to me, it's a girl. And in 2013, she gave me back the respect I'd given her."