Great article about Thiago's Indy 500 qualifying effort

Rookie Medeiros well-qualified kid
May 23, 2006
By Mike Brudenell, Detroit Free Press

INDIANAPOLIS -- He gave me a hug and headed off into what, for him, was the great unknown. I don't mind saying, I was fighting hard to control my emotions.

A reporter should distance himself from the story, or the subject, right? Keep it professional. Just print the facts, and, please, no tears.

Easy to say, but when you're being embraced by rookie Thiago Medeiros an hour before the biggest gut test of his young life, you forget what that crusty old editor taught you years ago.

Medeiros, a 23-year-old driver from Sao Paulo, Brazil, qualified Sunday for this weekend's Indianapolis 500 -- his first 500 -- in last place, and in a car that resembled an automotive version of Dr. Frankenstein's monster.

His family was there to watch him take four laps in the No. 18 Ethanol Brazil Panoz/Honda, which was sewn and glued back together from spare parts donated by other teams after a crash in practice May 18.

Forget about the speed -- 215.729 m.p.h. -- it was the manner in which Medeiros went about qualifying for the race, and the respect he showed the people who helped him get there, that mattered.

To read more of this article, click on the headline above.