IndyCar’s St. Pete Grand Prix 2012: Helio Castroneves Gets Emotional Victory

Helio Castroneves had twice won the St. Petersburg Grand Prix before and twice climbed the fence in Turn 1 to celebrate.

So on the occasion of his third St. Pete victory, which came Sunday in the Izod IndyCar Series’ season opener, Castroneves decided to mix it up.

Three miles from the St. Petersburg Grand Prix circuit sits a Spanish-style home in the midst of a modest neighborhood, quietly overlooking the calm waters of the Coffeepot Bayou.

This was the house where Dan and Susie Wheldon decided to raise their family and where they hoped to enjoy many blissful years watching young sons Sebastian and Oliver grow up before their eyes.

There typically isn’t a lot of IZOD IndyCar Series coverage on SBNation.com.

In a media environment where web traffic is increasingly a deciding factor of editorial decisions, NASCAR almost always wins out when matched against IndyCar, the open-wheel series which has struggled to gain attention since the infamous mid-90s split.