Sometimes a ring is more than a ring.

On June 7 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Stefan Wilson received his Official Starter’s Ring crafted by Jostens for the 107th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. Of course, Wilson didn’t actually start the May 28 race due to the back injury he suffered six days earlier in a Turn 1 accident with Katherine Legge, but that wasn’t the point.

Wilson knew he earned that ring, and he has been thinking about it almost since the moment doctors told him his surgically repaired vertebrae would prevent him from competing in the race.

The ring even came up in conversation with Graham Rahal when Dreyer & Reinbold Racing tabbed him to be the replacement driver for the No. 24 DRR Cusick CareKeepers Chevrolet. Wilson couldn’t hide his desire.

“I told Graham, ‘All I want is the ring,’” Wilson said. “Besides, you’ve got 16 of them.”

For the record, Rahal received a ring for this year’s race, too, and he asked IMS to make sure Wilson received one.

Again, sometimes a ring is more than a ring, and this one is important to Wilson for another reason: All these rings have the driver’s qualifying average engraved on them, and while Wilson now has five of them, this is the first one that shows he qualified in excess of 230 mph. His four-lap average speed was 231.648 mph.

In 2021, Wilson’s four-lap average was tantalizingly close to that magical mark at 229.714 mph. Last year, engine failure kept him from posting an official qualifying speed.

“There’s only a few drivers who can say they qualified at Indy over 230 mph, and I’m one of them,” Wilson said, proudly. “I want all of that (on the ring).”

As Wilson was hospitalized when the drivers received their rings at the annual Public Drivers’ Meeting, IMS organized an event Wednesday to present Wilson with his ring. The gathering was on the front straightaway of the iconic oval in about the same location where Wilson and his car would have rolled off the grid on Race Day.

“I didn’t realize there would be all this kerfuffle, but I really do appreciate it,” Wilson said.

The ring wasn’t the only highlight of Wilson’s day. At a morning doctor’s appointment, he received permission to return to his Denver-area home to resume therapy. The back brace he has been wearing must remain for three months, but he said getting back to some form of normalcy will be important for him and his wife, Katie.

The healing and rehabilitation will take longer than is ideal, but Wilson said things could be worse. The pain has been reduced to the point of needing only the equivalent of Tylenol, and he walked 1.6 miles on the treadmill Monday. Soon, he expects to return to his day job of coaching other drivers, and he will start building a package in pursuit of another shot at the “500.”

That has a nice ring to it.