helio castroneves

Helio Castroneves Voted `Dancing' Champ
By SANDY COHEN – 59 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Race-car driver Helio Castroneves upset Spice Girl Melanie Brown to capture the "Dancing With the Stars" mirrorball trophy on Tuesday night.

"It will look so good between my two Indy 500 trophies," Castroneves said.

He and his partner, Julianne Hough, came into the finals in second place, one point behind Brown and Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Both couples received perfect scores of 30 from the judges in their final dances Tuesday.

Overall, Brown was by far the more polished performer, consistently wowing the judges with her versatility and flair. But Castroneves' personality and enthusiasm, plus an effortless quickstep on his final performance, earned enough viewer votes to carry the day. His partner, Hough, also had won last season's competition, with speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno.

Afterward, Castroneves said that he was "shocked" by the victory: "I was not expecting it. Mel, she's an incredible dancer."

Brown admitted that losing "was a horrible feeling. I'm not going to deny it."

Earlier Tuesday, as expected, Marie Osmond was the first finalist to be eliminated. She and her partner, Jonathan Roberts, came into the finals in third place with 46 points after a doll-inspired freestyle routine panned by judges and bloggers alike.

Osmond, 48, had enjoyed strong viewer support throughout the hit show's fifth season while enduring the death of her father and fainting on stage.

The show "gave me something that I knew was solid, something I can count on," she said in a segment recorded before her ouster. "It's been one of the best experiences of my life."

The hit ABC show, which drew up to 20 million viewers per week, began with a dozen dancers. Model-actress Josie Maran was the first to be eliminated. Other nixed contestants were actresses Sabrina Bryan, Jennie Garth and Jane Seymour, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, entertainer Wayne Newton, boxer Floyd Mayweather, actor Cameron Mathison (who took off his shirt after his last dance Tuesday) and model Albert Reed.

Hélio Castroneves
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Hélio Castroneves


Helio at the 2006 Nashville Superspeedway race.

Nationality Brazil
Date of Birth May 10, 1975 (1975-05-10) (age 32)
Place of Birth São Paulo
2007 IRL IndyCar series
Debut season 2001
Current team Penske Racing
Car No. 3
Starts 95
Wins 12
Poles 23
Best finish 2nd in 2002
Previous series
1996-1997
1998-2001 Indy Lights
CART
Awards
2001 & 2002
2001 Indianapolis 500 Winner
Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year

Practicing for the 2007 Indianapolis 500

A noted lover of potato chips
Hélio Castroneves (born Hélio Castro Neves on May 10, 1975 in São Paulo, Brazil) is one of the top drivers in North American open-wheel racing, first in the CART series and now in the IndyCar Series. He won the Indianapolis 500 in both 2001 and 2002, becoming the fifth driver to do so in consecutive years, and finished second to teammate and countryman Gil de Ferran in 2003. Castroneves also won two pole positions for the race, including one in 2007. Aside from success in racing, he won season 5 of the American reality TV show Dancing with the Stars with partner Julianne Hough.

Contents
1 Recognition
2 Career Results
2.1 IndyCar
2.2 CART Champ Car career results
2.3 Indianapolis 500 results
3 References
4 External links



[edit] Recognition
After being occasionally misidentified by U.S. media as "Helio Neves" he at first changed the spelling to Helio Castro-Neves and then to the current spelling. He has one sister, Katiucia. After showing potential but lacking reliability while with the Bettenhausen and Hogan teams, Helio was signed by Penske Racing in CART in 2000 following the death of Greg Moore who was killed during the last race of the 1999 season in California. Moore had signed on with Penske but never had the opportunity to race with the team. Castroneves immediately became a regular front-runner. He switched with the team to the rival IRL for 2002, and has remained there ever since, now teamed with Ryan Briscoe.

Racing fans have given Castroneves the nickname "Spider-Man" because of the form of victory celebration he introduced, in which he climbs the track-side debris fence, a practice since adopted by NASCAR driver Tony Stewart in the 2005 Nextel Cup season.

In Fall 2007, Castroneves became a contestant on ABC's Dancing With the Stars television program in the United States, paired with season 4 champion, Julianne Hough. On a show based on judges scores and fan votes, he was announced the season 5 winner on November 27, 2007, beating out Spice Girl Melanie Brown. Castroneves' performances have been mentioned on SPEED TV's The Speed Report.

Helio has been engaged to a jewelry designer from Florida since November 2006.[citation needed]