Wheels Blog: Franchitti and Castroneves Pause in New York Before Indianapolis 500

Richard Drew/Associated Press Scotland’s Dario Franchitti, left, and Brazil’s Helio Castroneves were interviewed in New York on Monday.

On Monday, IndyCar sent the drivers for this Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 on a press tour to cities around North America. New York can rest easy in its title as the media capital of the world: it got the only pair of three-time Indy winners in the lineup, Dario Franchitti of Scotland and Helio Castroneves of Brazil.

Franchitti, the defending champion who also won in 2007 and 2010, is stuck in midpack, in the middle of the sixth row, after a weak performance by most of the Honda-powered teams in qualifying. His Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon of New Zealand, is next to him, in 16th starting position. Castroneves, in a Chevrolet-powered Penske car, starts eighth, in the middle of Row 3.

“I am worried,” Franchitti said of the apparent disparity between the Honda and Chevy engines, although most teams will be switching to fresh engines for the race itself, giving Honda a chance to perform some tweaks.

“Last year, we had an even bigger deficit,” Franchitti said. Obviously, that didn’t hurt him on race day. “The Honda guys brought in a new engine and made a big step forward in fuel consumption and horsepower. Hopefully, they can bring something similar this time.”

Castroneves offered some hope for Franchitti. “It doesn’t matter if you have the fastest car,” said Castroneves, who won the race in 2001, 2002 and 2009. “You need everything going right for you.”

Both drivers said they were impressed by the depth of driving talent and quality of the teams in this 500. “There’s probably 20-something cars that can win that race,” Franchitti said. “There’s a drop-off in some of the cars, but it’s only maybe three, four guys.”

Like the Kentucky Derby in horse racing, the Indy 500 is an event that draws many viewers who do not regularly follow the sport. Asked for viewing tips for newcomers, Franchitti pointed to “the subtleties of what’s going on.”

“You’re not going to see big slides or big steering movements,” he said. Instead, the in-car cameras, Franchitti said, can be telltales: any driver using anything but the smoothest, slightest steering input is having a handling problem.

He also suggested that viewers call up indycar.com to follow the race timing and scoring. “You can see if someone is moving up from the back of the pack,” he said.

“If you see a car really close behind another car, you know that person has a very good car,” Castroneves suggested, referring to the difficulty most teams have in getting a car to handle well once it is in the turbulent air coming off a car ahead.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway has received approval from the State of Indiana for millions of dollars in loans for improvements. One planned project would light the track for night racing. But Franchitti would not want to see the Indy 500 run under lights. “I don’t think you mess with 100 years of tradition,” he said.

Jamie Squire/Getty Images Helio Castroneves, driver of the No. 3 Shell V-Power/Pennzoil Ultra Team Penske Chevrolet, after qualifying for the 2013 Indianapolis 500.

Franchitti can appreciate tradition, being a serious student of racing history. “I read anything I can get,” he said. “I collect memorabilia. I talk to drivers who have gone before. No matter how long these guys have been out of the car, they still get it.”

(A little more from the history department: Castroneves and Franchitti are tied with Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford, Mauri Rose, Wilbur Shaw and Louis Meyer for the second-highest number of Indy 500 victories.)

He is the second Scot to win Indy, the other being Jim Clark, in 1965. Franchitti had a dream experience not long ago when he had the chance to drive Clark’s Indy-winning Lotus 38-Ford at the speedway. “It was something I never thought would happen, ” he said. “I saw it at the Henry Ford Museum. They let me walk behind the rope and touch it. I thought that was as close as I’d ever get to it. It was one of the greatest days of my life.”

A fellow Scot, Derrick Walker, will take over as the president of operations and competition for the IndyCar series after Sunday’s race (during which he will be the team manager for the pole-sitter, Ed Carpenter). Franchitti and Castroneves said they were happy to see Walker get the job.

“I think it’s a great hire for the series,” Franchitti said. “I pushed for it years ago. The only facet of experience he doesn’t have is as a driver.”

Walker owned his own team for many years and before that ran the Penske IndyCar team.

“There’s nothing like putting a person in that position who’s had to struggle to balance the books each year,” said Franchitti. Either he or Castroneves would be tied with A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr. for the most Indy 500 victories with a win on Sunday.

And that would mean another trip to New York.

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Putting the Cardio Before the Horse

If we had a nickel for every time someone asked us whether it's okay to do cardio and strength training on the same day -- and if so, in what order -- we'd have at least a quarter, a significant value in a land rife with parking meters. So we'll do our best to address those queries, ideally before the meter maid circles back.

First, for most Moving Crew readers -- i.e., people who exercise at light to moderate intensities -- performing both on one day is fine, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. You're not putting high enough demands on your body to significantly compromise the value of either activity or risk injury.

So do your 20 minutes watching CNN on the treadmill, and follow it up with your half-hour set of strength training moves. Or do a strength training circuit of six exercises with no rest between sets and keep your heart tapping throughout. Godspeed, ya big galoot.

The asterisks begin to fly as intensity levels increase.

"You wouldn't want to have a heavy lifting day after running 10 miles" on the same day, says William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology, physiology and neurobiology at the University of Connecticut. That's because your body is busy restoring energy, rebuilding damaged tissue and recovering hormones exhausted during the first exercise bout.

After hard activity, "your body wants to say, 'We're in repair mode,' " Kraemer says. If you jump to another demanding task while your system is busy synthesizing protein to repair stressed muscles, the body goes back into metabolic mode, which interrupts the recovery. "You want to be fully metabolically and neurologically capable for the big stuff. Whatever [activity] you do first will have the highest quality," he says.

Kraemer suggests following a tougher strength session with a light run, or doing hard interval cardio training before light lifting.

While the strength-cardio sequence matters little, Walter Thompson, a kinesiology, health and nutrition professor at Georgia State University, does recommend an ordered approach within a strength training session.

This essentially involves doing the bigger-payoff moves earlier in your workout. So, for example, work your large muscles (quads) before smaller ones (abductors); perform multi-joint exercises (bench press) before single-jointers (biceps curls).

A related question we hear often (hey, cut us a break -- we need another quarter) is whether doing too much cardio will burn away muscle. Thompson and Kraemer say the answer for most people is no.

But lots of cardio -- say, an hour of intense activity five days a week -- can deplete muscle glycogen, especially in people on low-carbohydrate diets. (Is anyone still on a low-carb diet?) This could compromise muscle growth. Carbs are our bodies' first choice as an energy source, and if there's not enough available the body will eventually tap into protein stores for energy -- stores that would otherwise be used to strengthen muscle.

But, Thompson says, even a robust cardio routine should not interfere with muscle mass increase in people with a balanced diet of about 65 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent fat and 15 percent protein.

There's a little more to this -- real sciencey stuff about muscle fiber size -- but the heavy lifting is done (figuratively) and we've got to run (literally: our meter expires in 30 seconds).

-- John Briley

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