Somewhere in the heart of Brazil, that large, lush country of white beaches, rain forests and Pele, the eyes of hundreds of teen-age go-kart drivers are turned northward this week.

         Northward toward Indianapolis, the dream home away from home of go-karting kids who speak Portuguese, salute a bright green-and-yellow flag and already know the way to the racing capital of the U.S. of A., thanks to the seven boys from Brazil who are giving the 2002 Indy 500 a decidedly Brazilian flavor.

         "I'm very proud," one of the seven, Tony Kanaan, said of his own and his six countrymen's success after leading the speed parade during final warmups Thursday for Sunday's race.

         "People ask us why there are so many Brazilian race car drivers and why they're so good," Kanaan added, seated next to another of Thursday's fastest runners, Texan Greg Ray. "We all started very young, and go-kart is really big in Brazil, so I would say that's why we have so many."

         Fellow Brazilians Raul Boesel and Felipe Giaffone spoke the same language on the same topic Thursday. "Go-kart in Brazil is very, very popular," noted Boesel, who will start from the outside of Indy's front row on Sunday.

         "This generation, like Tony Kanaan, they come from go-kart and start in very early stages. I start in go-kart, too, but not as early as they did, but I think they saw so many Brazilians in so many kinds of racing that their determination is so great, and the perseverance and the experience."

         "The competition starts when you're really young," Giaffone, Kanaan's teammate, chimed in. "You have lots of great American drivers; the only thing where we were a little ahead of the Americans is the way we start driving earlier and the go-karts are a bigger thing there than here."

         The benefits of an earlier start in the racing wars is clearly reflected in Sunday's race lineup. Boesel, Giaffone and Kanaan will start third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Another Brazilian, 25-year-old Bruno Junqueira, will lead the starting field from the pole position.

         Last year's Indy winner, Helio Castroneves, and his Team Penske teammate, Gil de Ferran, will be slotted in 13th and 14th positions. The youngest of the Brazilian delegation, Airton Dare, starts 30th in an A. J. Foyt Racing entry.

         The collective success of the brigade of Brazil's former go-kart racers has created a seven-man festival this month along the all-American aisles of Indy. "It's just nice to see everybody here," said a smiling Kanaan, 27, who has already won a 500-mile race for his homeland, at Michigan in 1999, "especially people that we have raced together, like, forever. Between me, Felipe, Helio and Bruno, I mean we've been racing together since '86, and that's a long time."

         And the Portuguese-speaking gang recognized that the eyes of young go-karters in Brazil would be upon them Sunday. "It has become very, very big, especially this year," Boesel noted of his native country's focus on the 500.

         "It's very, very important to follow that when you have all the Brazilians up front there."

         "A chance for a Brazilian to win would be quite good," added Boesel, who, at 44, is the oldest of the seven and, with 12 previous starts, has the most Indy experience, "and, of course, I hope the one that comes first will be me."

         Boesel, who finished third at Indy in 1989, entered this year's field only as a substitute driver for another substitute driver. Team Menard's regular driver, Jacques Lazier, was injured in a racing crash at Nazareth, Pa., and his temporary replacement, P. J. Jones, was knocked out of the running when he crashed during Indy practice earlier this month.

         The native of Curitiba, Brazil, who also qualified a car for last year's 500 but had to surrender his seat to Giaffone because of team contractual obligations, acknowledged how the view from the southern hemisphere had changed since he first arrived at Indy in 1985. "Motor racing is so big in Brazil now that this race is becoming more and more important, and well-known," he said Thursday afternoon.

         "A few years back, when I first came here, nobody really knew what Indianapolis was, or anything about oval racing especially."

         For his part, the 27-year-old Kanaan, who is considered a favorite Sunday in his Mo Nunn Racing entry, affirmed the notion that the national fascination with racing had given him and his countrymen a leg up on the Indy-car racing ladder. "In America, football is so popular, and baseball," the native of Salvado, who was Junqueira's go-kart instructor back home 14 years ago, commented Thursday. "We don't have anything like that there.

         "It's soccer and racing, so we start younger. I started racing when I was 7 or 8, so that means I've been racing for 20 years. That's a long time, and Bruno was the same thing, Helio was the same thing, Felipe, too."

         Whether the Brazilian domination continues Sunday or not, the three spokesmen for the South American cradle of Indy-car drivers agreed Thursday that celebrations - the real national pastime of Brazil - will definitely break out.

         "Over there, every day is a holiday; we make holidays about anything," Kanaan explained, with a hearty laugh and then a nod toward his American sidekick for a day, Ray. "If Greg wins the race, I'm going to make it a holiday over there.

         "If I win, we'll make it a week."

         For Boesel, the potential of a breakout of a national festival seemed just as real, though somewhat tempered by recent history. "I think they will celebrate, yes," the dean of the Brazilian band said, "but it's not like it would be the first time, you know.

         "Emerson Fittipaldi won twice, Castroneves won already, so maybe they expect a little bit because of the possibility a Brazilian driver wins. But they know how hard it is, so I think it will be Brazilians cheering for every Brazilian driver."

         Giaffone, too, expected a festive wave to sweep across his native land, even if he and his countrymen don't finish quite high enough to change Indy's official language to Portuguese or its checkered flag to a green-and-yellow one. "It's hard to say, but if I win, I'm going to take the day off, anyway," the driver from Sao Paulo forecast, with a celebratory chuckle.

         "In Brazil, if they want to take time off, they go for it big," he added, still chuckling like a man looking toward to a holiday weekend. "It's not for one day; it goes for a week, just like we have Carnivale. Brazil's a great place."

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 Copyright 2002 by Jerry Miller ©

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