{"id":27387,"date":"2021-05-25T14:25:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T18:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=27387"},"modified":"2021-05-25T14:25:14","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T18:25:14","slug":"indianapolis-500-contender-rinus-veekays-rise-powered-by-ford-dealership-chevrolet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/indianapolis-500-contender-rinus-veekays-rise-powered-by-ford-dealership-chevrolet","title":{"rendered":"Indianapolis 500 contender Rinus VeeKay’s rise powered by Ford dealership, Chevrolet"},"content":{"rendered":"

After his family sold their Ford dealership to finance\u00a0his racing\u00a0career, a 20-year-old Dutchman will try and win the Indianapolis 500 on\u00a0Sunday for Chevrolet from the outside of the front row.<\/p>\n

Rinus VeeKay is one of many great acts as the IndyCar circus races under\u00a0its biggest tent.<\/p>\n

\"Twenty-year<\/p>\n
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As\u00a0VeeKay\u2019s meteoric rise to the top of America’s fastest motorsport\u00a0indicates, Indy is a global intersection\u00a0of speed, legends, corporate\u00a0giants,\u00a0and young\u00a0dreams. IndyCar spends the month of May in Indianapolis\u00a0for practice, qualifying, and two races, and 2020 Rookie of the Year VeeKay already had established himself as one to watch May 15\u00a0when he ran away away from the field\u00a0to his first IndyCar victory<\/a> on Indy\u2019s counter-clockwise road circuit.<\/p>\n

One week later, and he was back for Indy 500 qualifying \u2014\u00a0run clockwise around the 2.5-mile oval at speeds in excess of 230 mph. VeeKay ran a breathtaking, 231.511 mph lap that stood as pole until the last minutes of qualifying when he\u00a0was leapfrogged by fellow-Gen Z racer\u00a0Colton Herta and\u00a0pole-sitting veteran Kiwi Scott Dixon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really drove on the limits and almost lost it in the last lap,” VeeKay said in an interview after his four-lap session. “Yeah, didn\u2019t lift. I had a very big moment there of oversteer. But if I had lifted, I\u00a0probably would\u00a0not be on the front row. The goal is always not to lift in qualifying.”<\/p>\n

\"Rinus<\/p>\n
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This prodigious, fearless talent was noticed early on in the young Dutchman\u2019s racing career. After winning multiple European\u00a0karting championships, he came to America as a 17-year-old, finishing second\u00a0in the USF200 open-wheel series. By age 19 he was runner-up in the Indy Lights championship, IndyCar\u2019s Triple-A farm league.<\/p>\n

Like many American immigrants before him, Rinus American-ized\u00a0his surname to \u201cVeeKay\u201d from the Dutch van Kalmthout.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents call me VK. It was hard over here to spell my last name all the time. (It\u2019s) super long. It\u2019s way easier as VeeKay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Though born in the Netherlands, VeeKay was raised in a Ford family. His father, Marijn van Kalmthout, was the country’s biggest Ford dealer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad sold his business when . . . I broke through with go-karts,\u201d said VeeKay, who\u00a0turned 20 last September. \u201cHe did that to make time for me and my, my racing and invest all his time and money managing me and making sure I made the right decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, VeeKay\u2019s big IndyCar breakthrough came from a Chevrolet-powered team,\u00a0Ed Carpenter Racing. Chevy\u00a0and Honda are the series’ major corporate\u00a0sponsors\u00a0and engine providers.<\/p>\n

\"Rinus<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

VeeKay enjoys additional backing from Arie Luyendyk, heretofore Holland\u2019s most famous racing driver, and the winner of the Indy 500 in 1990 and 1997. Luyendyk (whose son is also a U.S. racer and “Bachelor” contestant) helps mentor VeeKay.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>Scott McLaughlin, working to be IndyCar force, as first Indianapolis 500 looms<\/a><\/p>\n

Forty-year-old team owner Carpenter, one of the sport\u2019s best oval-track racers, is not just VeeKay\u2019s boss \u2014 he is also a teammate who will be making his 18th attempt at winning the 500 (he has finished as high as second). He’ll start in the fourth position, right behind his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Carpenter\u00a0is part of a generation of IndyCar graybeards who are hungry to win this weekend, including 40-year-old pole-sitter Dixon, 46-year-old Tony Kanaan (starting fifth), 40-year-old Ryan Hunter-Reay (starting seventh), 46-year-old Helio Castroneves (eighth), 44-year-old Takuma Sato (15th), 45-year-old Juan Pablo Montoya (24th), and 42-year-old S\u00e9bastien Bourdais (27th).<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be fighting it out with rising young guns half their age like VeeKay, Herta, Alex Palou (starting 6th), and Pato O\u2019Ward (12th).<\/p>\n

VeeKay has made the move to the United States for his IndyCar career (he lives right across the street from the famed track), and makes regular treks to the Pratt & Miller simulator in Charlotte, North Carolina, for hours of practice\u00a0on Indy and other upcoming race courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll get a full day\u201d on the simulator, he said, sharing the time with Carpenter or his third teammate, Conor Daly. \u201cThe engineers like to fly there early in the morning, but I always feel like I need my sleep so I go\u00a0the evening before. It\u2019s like office days for drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rinus<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

After Indy, VeeKay & Co. will travel to the Detroit Grand Prix, June 11-13, for a very different\u00a0challenge on the raw streets of Belle Isle.<\/p>\n

“In 2019, I got asked to drive the pace car laps in the (Chevy) Camaro\u201d for the Detroit Grand Prix, VeeKay said. \u201cSo I got some experience there with the Camaro, but that’s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After his family sold their Ford dealership to finance\u00a0his racing\u00a0career, a 20-year-old Dutchman will try and win the Indianapolis 500 on\u00a0Sunday for Chevrolet from the outside of the front row. Rinus VeeKay is one of many great acts as the IndyCar circus races under\u00a0its biggest tent. As\u00a0VeeKay\u2019s meteoric rise to the top of America’s fastest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27388,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27387\/revisions\/27388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}