When Danica Patrick talks about Helio Castroneves, you can imagine her sitting on the floor of her Phoenix home amid hundreds of files, contracts and tax documents. It would be the middle of the night, Patrick with a flashlight in one hand, magnifying glass in the other, mumbling gibberish as she speed-reads the forms.
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Patrick’s pit-in-stomach moment was not so anecdotally perfect, but it was profound and jarring for someone who earned $5 million in 2007 (according to a Forbes.com list which ranked her as the 95th highest-paid celebrity in America) and, at 26, is one of the most recognizable, marketable and bankable figures in sports. The feisty IndyCar series driver with the Swimsuit-edition portfolio was a virtual license to print money even before she won her first race last spring. Earning it is one thing. Keeping it is another. So is making sure bills get paid, like taxes. That point becomes poignant this week with two-time Indianapolis 500-winner Castroneves going on trial in Miami on seven counts of federal tax evasion, crimes punishable by more than six years in prison.
Castroneves, 33, is hardly alone in being bedeviled by the details. Weeks before the start of the NASCAR season, Sprint Cup driver Elliott Sadler admitted he was unsure of the contents of his contract with Richard Petty Motorsports even as the team attempted to depose him from the No. 19 Dodge and replace him with A.J. Allmendinger. Sadler eventually retained his job by threatening possible legal action.
Patrick is determined not to be snared. It was a revelation late in coming.
“Number one, it’s sad when you have to revert to the contract all the time because it should just be… you all just should be upstanding with each other,” Patrick said, “but anyway, I was reading my contract this winter—I’ll be super honest—I didn’t know much about my finances. I didn’t know about how much was coming in, where it was going, when it was coming and going. I would ask ‘Could I afford this?’ ‘Can I get this money here?’ ‘[Do] I want to do this?’ Remember those commercials where knowledge is power? I really believe that now. The more I know, the less that I can be taken advantage of. So I learned about all my finances and stuff.”
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Patrick called Castroneves’ situation unfortunate and described him as a “really nice guy” who “would do anything for you if you really needed it.” If Castroneves is exonerated after what is expected to be a six-week trial, he should do something for an IndyCar series that needs star power of his degree: get wiser about his finances and protect himself. He should do what Patrick is doing.
“Trust me, I am still a little lost, because it is not my forte, but I just started learning about different spreadsheets and things, the breakdown of where all my money goes and how much we spend here and there and so on,” Patrick said. “Now I look at it and I’m like, “We spent how much on what? What’s this? What’s this category?” I think it’s a really good healthy step into a mature direction for me, as a person. I should know.”
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Castroneves’ Trial Does Not Mean He Will Be Released By Penske Racing Says President Tim Cindric
Judge Turns Down Castroneves Request To Postpone The Proceedings
Trial Date Will Decide Castroneves Racing Future With Team Penske
Judge Permits Castroneves To Race In Indy 300 At Australia
For Helio Castroneves, The Case Is Like A Race Against The Internal Revenue Service
Helio Castroneves Faces Up To Six Years In Prison If Convicted
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