However Tony Kanaan is ranked among drivers of his generation, he is certainly in the top part of the conversation.
Kanaan has shown to be fearless and incredibly aggressive on the racetrack. He didn’t justrace an Indy car, he used it to attack. While some drivers in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES are smooth thoroughbred racers, Kanaan was a pit bull ready to pounce on the competition.
To see Kanaan’s car coming from behind in the side-view mirrors was an intimidating sight. He drove into the corners deeper than any other driver and that tenacity and fearlessness made him a fan favorite.
Every year in driver introductions before the Indianapolis 500, Kanaan received the loudest ovation from the throng of fans at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Many of those same fans have appreciated Kanaan’s racing style as fans of another driver who was a hard-edged racer: the legendary A.J. Foyt, the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and the man considered the grand champion of the world’s most famous race.
Foyt raced hard yet was very clean. The same could be said for Kanaan, who could drive his Indy car beyond the limits while remaining a driver his competitors could trust.
That is why it was fitting that the last full-time team Kanaan was part of in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES was AJ Foyt Racing.
Thursday, Kanaan announced he will be driving the five oval races on the 2020 NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule, including the Indianapolis 500, and then step away from full-time competition. The 45-year-old driver from Salvador, Brazil who now lives in Miami will call it a career, but he is open to competing in future Indy 500s.
Kanaan will be able to spend more time with his wife, Loren, and their four children.
Although his career is nearing completion, Kanaan still has the heart of a pure racer. He is also leaving NTT INDYCAR SERIES fans with over 25-years-worth of racing memories.
He arrived in the United States with his Brazilian boyhood friend Helio Castroneves in the Indy Lights Series in 1996. His rookie season in Indy Lights driving for Tasman Racing, he won two races and finished second in the championship behind David Empringham. In 1997, Kanaan won the Indy Lights championship with two more victories.
Kanaan was hired by team owner Steve Horne of Tasman Motorsports to step up to a ride in CART in 1998. The following season, he was hired by team owner Gerry Forsythe to drive the McDonald’s car. Kanaan won the pole at Long Beach and captured his first CART win at Michigan Speedway in 1999.
In 2000, Kanaan moved over to team owner Mo Nunn’s operation, where he would stay though the 2002 season.
Nunn brought Kanaan to Indy in 2002 to run the famed 500-Mile Race. Kanaan proved to be an incredibly quick learner had was in front of the field for 23 laps. Kanaan was leading the race when he drove through an oil slick that had been laid on the track when another competitor’s engine blew up on the north end of the track. He lost control and hit the wall on Lap 89, ending his race with the car on the hook.
The fans at the Speedway that day saw a star in the making and warmly cheered him as he returned to pit lane after the crash.
Kanaan joined what was then known as Andretti Green Racing in 2003 and became a full-time entrant in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. He drove the 7-Eleven car to victory in the second race of the season at Phoenix. He finished third in the 2003 Indianapolis 500 and was the points leader after nine different contests. He led the championship as late as the Kentucky Motor Speedway race in mid-August before he finished fourth at the end of the season.
That set the stage for Kanaan’s “season of the ages” in 2004.
He finished every lap of every race that season to win the championship. He won races at Phoenix, Texas and Nashville and finished second to Buddy Rice in the rain-shortened 500 after leading 28 laps. He took over the points lead in the next event at Texas and held it for the remainder of the 16-race season.
Kanaan was so dominant that season that he clinched the championship with one race to go. When Kanaan’s second-place finish at Auto Club Speedway secured him the 2004 NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship, he celebrated along with his Andretti Green Racing teammates by doing donuts on the race track to honor their friend, Greg Moore, who had lost his life at the same track in 1999.
It was at IMS where Kanaan earned much of his fame for his ability to always be in contention for the win but not getting the checkered flag. He was eighth in 2005, fifth in 2006 and dominated the first 113 laps of the ’07 race before it was halted for rain.
After a lengthy rain delay, the race restarted. Kanaan was in contention, but he spun down pit lane on a Lap 156 restart when he made contact with Buddy Lazier and suffered a flat tire. Rain fell and the race was halted for good after 166 of the 200 laps with his friend Dario Franchitti claiming the first of his three Indy wins.
Kanaan won five races in 2007, the most of any single season, but he finished third in the championship behind Franchitti and second-place Scott Dixon.
The 2008 season saw a string of hard luck finishes for Kanaan at Indy. He crashed in 2008 and finished 29th. Another crash in 2009 resulted in a 27th-place finish.
In 2010, Kanaan started last in the 33-car field after two crashes – one on Pole Day and the other on Bump Day. Kanaan vowed that he would race his way to the lead. He passed seven cars on the opening lap before getting to Turn 2 in one of the most incredible starts by a single driver in 500 history.
Kanaan made it all the way to second place on Lap 192 behind Franchitti. But with five laps left in the race, Kanaan had to pit for fuel and finished 11th.
The fans showed their appreciation for Kanaan’s incredible drive by giving him a huge ovation when he pulled into the pits after the race. Kanaan called that one of the most emotional moments of his career because of the fan reaction.
At the end of that season, Kanaan left Andretti Autosport. In 2011, he joined KV Racing Technology. He finished fourth at Indy in 2011 and third in 2012. He did not win a race in either of those seasons.
When Kanaan arrived at Indy in 2013 for his 12th attempt at the 500, the fans desperately wanted to see him win the race. Finally, after all those years of heartache, Kanaan had the restart of his life on Lap 197, passing Ryan Hunter-Reay for the lead. Seconds later, Franchitti crashed behind them to bring out the yellow flag and the race ended under caution.
Kanaan had finally won the Indianapolis 500. He believed that victory rounded out his career, but he was far from finished in racing.
He joined Chip Ganassi Racing in 2014, replacing his friend Franchitti, who retired after a crash at Houston in October 2013. Kanaan drove to victory in the final race of the 2014 season on the big oval at Fontana, California.
Entering the 2020 season, that remains Kanaan’s last victory.
He left Ganassi after the 2017 season and has been with AJ Foyt’s operation ever since. Foyt admired Kanaan’s racing style and skill and believed it was similar to the way Foyt drove during his legendary career.
Kanaan showed flashes of brilliance in a third-place finish at Gateway last August, the best finish of his time in Foyt’s famed No. 14.
Despite the hard times, Kanaan’s race face has always been one of fierce determination. That is one of the qualities that race fans of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES have always admired.
Kanaan is on the clock with just five oval races left in his career. But it is obvious that his career is timeless. He would have been successful in any era.