An Indy 500 win is life-changing, even for IndyCar champions - ESPN

Winning the Indianapolis 500 changes you. For life.

There's no reason to underplay the massive personal value of adding one's name to the rostrum of triumph at Monaco, Daytona Beach and Le Mans, and there's also no mistaking how standing in Victory Lane at our oldest and holiest cathedral of speed is a transformational event unlike any other event in motor racing. On Sunday, for the 107th time in its rich history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will do it again, forever altering whomever climbs from their Indy car in Victory Lane.

«It's weird to talk about yourself this way, but I had this feeling that I was popular prior to 2013 because I was one of the best to never win around this place,» says 2004 IndyCar champion Tony Kanaan, whose eruptive 2013 Indy 500 win nearly incited a riot. «When I won, everything exploded.»

The Brazilian racer moved to Ohio when his open-wheel career was rerouted from Europe, spent years afterward in Miami when he joined the CART IndyCar circuit in the late 1990s, and eventually settled in Indianapolis. With his victory at the 500, Kanaan — nearing 40 at the time — was adopted as the state's favorite son, and the sentiment has radiated throughout the Midwest and everywhere else the IndyCar Series performs.

Following his crowning achievement on May 26, 2013, Kanaan hasn't spent a single day in the past decade without posing for dozens of pictures and signing photos, napkins, hats, receipts, shirts and whatever else starstruck fans can find when he stops at a gas station or pops into a market to buy groceries.

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«It changes your life in so many ways,» he says. «I mean, it changed my career. That was probably the most crucial year for me because