INDIANAPOLIS – The magnificent Borg-Warner Trophy has stood the test of time since it was first introduced in 1935 and made its first appearance in Victory Lane at the Indianapolis 500 in 1936.

The winning driver that day was Louis Meyer, who captured his third Indy 500 on a hot, Indiana day and introduced another enduring tradition by requesting a cold bottle of buttermilk after completing 500 grueling miles on a race track that still had a brick surface on the frontstretch.

Eighty-eight years later, both traditions remain part of the historic legacy at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Meyer’s face, etched by a sculptor and cast in sterling silver, appears on the Borg-Warner Trophy as the first three-time winner. He is one of 75 drivers that have won the Indianapolis 500 and one of the 111 faces that appear on the impressive trophy.

There are two co-winners because the winning cars included relief drivers – LL Corum and Joe Boyer in 1924 and Floyd Davis and Mauri Rose in 1941.

From Ray Harroun, winner of the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, to Josef Newgarden of Team Penske in 2024, the faces on the trophy are frozen in time from the way they looked on the year of their Indy 500 triumph.

There is one face on the trophy cast in gold and it honors Tony Hulman, the man who saved the Indianapolis 500 from extinction when he purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from previous owner Eddie Rickenbacker on November 14, 1945, for $750,000.

Because of World War II, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had been shuttered from 1942-45 and was in dilapidated condition.

Under the guidance of the Hulman-George family, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway became the world’s largest sporting arena and built the Indianapolis 500 into the world’s largest single-day sporting event.

When Roger Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2019, it ended 74 years of “stewardship” by the Hulman-George family. Penske has added his special touch to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including many modern amenities to improve the fan experience.

In addition to owning the speedway, Penske is also the winningest team owner in Indianapolis 500 history with a record 20 victories, including Newgarden’s incredible drive in May.

In one of the more memorable Indy 500s in history, a race that was delayed by four hours because of rain and did not start until 15 minutes before 5 p.m. and ended at dusk, it was also historic.

Newgarden became just the sixth driver to win the Indianapolis 500 in back-to-back years.

The Indy 500 winner has defended his title 84 times with an average finish of 12.89 place. Only Wilbur Shaw (1939, 1940), Rose (1947, 1948), Bill Vukovich (1953, 1954), Al Unser (1970, 1971), Helio Castroneves (2001, 2002), and Newgarden, in 2023 and 2024, have won the Indy 500 back-to-back.

Helio Castroneves after winning his second-straight Indianapolis 500 in 2002 — AFP via Getty Images

Thanks to BorgWarner, NBCSports.com was able to get an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at three key members that are part of this year’s Borg-Warner Trophy.

The one key element that all three share is a steady hand.

Newgarden needed a steady hand, and a coolness and calmness under pressure, to defeat Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren in a daring duel in the final laps of the 108^th Indianapolis 500. He won the race with a brave move, taking the high line through Turn 3 to drive around O’Ward on the final lap to become the first repeat winner since Castroneves.

For sculptor William Behrends of Tryon, North Carolina, it takes a steady hand to first create a life-sized clay head image of Newgarden’s face and doing it again in miniature version using the lost-wax sculpting method. This method has been used since the 3^rd millennium BC.

Once Behrends completes this process, Newgarden’s face is cast in sterling silver. That image is about the size of an egg.

Behrends attaches that sterling silver face onto the Borg-Warner Trophy.

This year was the 35^th face of the Indianapolis 500 winner that was created by Behrends.

Josef Newgarden stands next to the Borg-Warner Trophy on May 27, 2024 — Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

It also takes a steady hand for the engraver.

Since 2021, that responsibility has gone to Reid Smith, a hand engraver from the Ballantyne area of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Smith etches the important details that go underneath the winning driver’s face on the trophy, including year, name and the winner’s average speed in the race.

The Borg-Warner Trophy is a monument to history as it actually tells the story of the Indianapolis 500 through the faces and the engravings.

It takes a steady hand to win, sculpt and engrave this story.

THE ENGRAVER

There is a key element to the Borg-Warner Trophy on a silver panel right below the face that is equally important as the face itself.

Engraved on that panel is the winning driver’s name above the year and the average speed of the race.

It’s the information that identifies the face of the winner for each year on the Borg-Warner Trophy. It is engraved in immaculate detail just as the stone tablets were once etched to tell tales of history in previous millennia.

Smith is the man who engraves the important details on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

Advertisement

Engraver Reid Smith — Bruce Martin Photo

For 35 years, he has mastered the art of hand engraving, including 20 years as a full-time engraver and the past 15 years working on special projects from his small studio in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte.

Ironically, the man who engraves one of the most famous trophies in sports, is not a sports fan.

In fact, when he was contacted by Behrends in 2021 to take over the role of engraving the key details on the Borg-Warner Trophy, he didn’t know what it was.

“Will Behrends called me on the phone when he was told to help find a craftsman to do the engraving,” Smith told NBCSports.com. “I’m not a sports fan at all, but it was the first time I remembered hearing the Borg-Warner Trophy and he says, ‘Are you familiar with that?’

“I was like, ‘No, not by name.’

“And he said, ‘Well, it’s the trophy that’s given to the Indy 500 winners.’

“Then I went, ‘Oh, wow, then I can kind of picture it.’

“And then he told me a little bit about it, but it was over several months of phone calls and emails.”

Watching games or races on TV isn’t Smith’s thing, but it was important to his father.

“I don’t care anything about college basketball, pro basketball, football,” Smith said. “I would be watching cooking shows. That is what I’m used to watching.

“My dad was a big jock and loved watching sports. It just never appealed to me.

“It’s just a very different lifestyle and culture that I’m used to because I’m not really into sports. It just has never been part of my life. I’ve always been more of the artistic- and dramatic-type loves. So, it was a very different world.”

Smith agreed to become the engraver for the Borg-Warner Trophy and his first assignment was a historic one as he etched the details of Castroneves’ fourth Indianapolis 500 victory in 2021. With the win, Castroneves became just the fourth, four-time winner of the Indy 500 joining Foyt, Unser and Rick Mears.

Smith became an engraver because of his father, who opened a trophy store after spending 24 years with the Sears corporation. When his father quit Sears and opened his own business, he specialized in trophies and promotional items.

“I fell in love with the art when I was 17 years old,” Smith said. “When my dad opened his trophy store, that’s where I began engraving, doing some machine engraving, and during the course of that learned that there was such a thing as hand engraving.

“There was an old man named Jim Buchanan who worked in uptown Charlotte, and I happened to visit his shop one day. I think I was picking up something for the family store and he asked, ‘Son, are you interested in engraving?’ I was like, ‘Well, I guess. I have worked the pantograph machine.’

“He said, ‘No, no, no. This is done by hand. Let me show you a thing or two.’

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Norman Rockwell painting, it’s called the Watchmaker. It shows a little, red-headed boy watching the watchmaker work. I had red hair when I was little, and it just so much reminds me of me, maybe because it was just like the heavens opened and it was, ‘I want to do that. How do I learn?’”

Reid Smith engraves Josef Newgarden’s 2024 details on Borg-Warner Trophy — Bruce Martin Photo

It takes a steady hand, and a detailed eye, to engrave because it is so meticulous and so precise.

“There is art, there is craft, there is a lot that goes into it with working with metals,” Smith continued. “It’s like any other love or any other craft you learn by doing and by continuing to do. It’s one of those things, one of those strange things that you just continually run into roadblocks and just problems that happen, but for some reason, that love stays there and wants you to overcome that.”

During his 35-year career in the engraving industry, Smith has worked on many projects, primarily antiques and silver jewelry. But there have been some items that require hand engraving because they can’t be done on a machine.

It would simply be far too risky.

The process of engraving the winner’s information on the base of the Borg-Warner Trophy happens before the winner’s face is added. The base of the trophy is brought to Smith’s studio in Charlotte by BorgWarner representative Steve Shunck.

Smith takes the base into his engraving studio and begins a process that takes between six-to-seven hours to complete.

“It starts when we place it on my workbench when he takes it out of the case, and I end up turning it upside-down and remove the six screws that are on the bottom of it and take the bottom off of it,” Smith explained. “A lot of people would be interested to know that there’s lots of goodies and memorabilia that’s stored inside the base.

“I do that then I move it to my workbench and cradle it on an — it’s basically, a flannel pillowcase that’s filled with rice and it can cradle it but yet hold it firmly enough for me to move it around.

“Most of the job is involved with just manipulating the trophy itself. There’s a lot of turning and twisting so my back muscles get pretty shredded over the day. You know it’s probably 50- or 60-pound base.

“It’s significant weight and I just manipulate it around.”

Engraver Reid Smith working on the base of the Borg-Warner Trophy — Bruce Martin Photo

Smith then waxes the surface so it will accept a pencil line. He then hand-draws the design, or in this case, where the duplicate winner’s information will go.

Because it is the same driver as last year, he can make a “pull” and transfer the design to this year’s panel.

He then uses different hand tools to cut out the design. That is followed by cleaning off the waxy film and adding the final touches.

Because this is his first time as an engraver that the same driver has won the Indianapolis 500 in back-to-back years, Smith was able to use a “pulling process” of lifting the engraved name from last year using a mixture a block powder called “bone black.”

It fills in the previous cuts where a layer of Scotch Tape is applied. Smith rubs that down and can lift the inscription with the tape, similar to the way a forensic scientist can lift fingerprints.

He waxes the surface with a mixture of half Bee’s Wax and half mutton tallow – a fancy word for “sheep fat.”

Engraver Reid Smith and the “Pulling Process” — Bruce Martin Photo

Smith uses a variety of tools to engrave, including calipers to get the proper measurements using some mathematical equations to make sure it is centered perfectly.

He also has a tool that can help move the metal in case a mistake is made, and then rub down the surface to fill in the area that is repaired.

“I’ve often told people the first rule of engraving is do it correctly, so you do all you can to try to avoid problems, but they do come up and it’s part of the work and it’s part of the art and skill of it,” Smith said. “I think if you practice enough, you can do whatever you want to do — and even through all the hardships of learning how to engrave. I initially learned the hammer-and-chisel method where I used to have a vice mounted on the corner of the bench, and it would probably be really hard to do the hammer and chisel.

“I could do it. If the power went out — now this machine is basically, just a little jackhammer inside of a hand piece, but it’s imitating the exact same, to the exact same motions. And I’ve had that happen before, like when the power went out and you’ve got a job to do and you got to make it happen.

“I’ve changed my tools. I’m a professional. Sometimes you just got to make it happen.”

Reid Smith’s finished engraved panel — Steve Shunck Photo

Advertisement

For a man who admits he isn’t a sports fan, since 2021, he has made time to watch one sporting event during the year.

It’s the Indianapolis 500, now that Smith, himself, is part of the history of the Borg-Warner Trophy.

“It is quite humbling,” Smith said. “The first time I did it in 2021, I remember it hit me after I did it, nobody can take that away from me.

“I don’t want to make it about me, I don’t want to make it bigger than this, but that was a big deal being able to work on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

“And just knowing that I have done something, and nobody can say that I didn’t.

“I’m just tickled that BorgWarner trust me and that it’s part of history. Simple as that.”

THE SCULPTOR

Nestled away in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near the North Carolina-South Carolina state line, is the small community of Tryon, North Carolina. It bills itself as the “Friendliest City in the South.”

Up on one of the mountain roads is the home of Will Behrends, a noted sculptor who has created larger-than-life statues of former U.S. vice presidents that are in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. He has also built statues of some of baseball’s greatest players, from Willie Mays in San Francisco to Tom Seaver of the New York Mets.

Since 1990, Behrends has created the face of the year’s Indianapolis 500 winner that goes onto the Borg-Warner Trophy. His first was Arie Luyendyk in 1990 and his latest was Newgarden in 2024.

Somehow, Behrends had to create an image of the same driver that won the Indy 500 in 2023 and make sure it didn’t look the same.

Side-by-Side Josef Newgarden from 2023 and from 2024 on the Borg-Warner Trophy — SCOTT R LEPAGE for BorgWarner

Advertisement

“Starting with Helio Castroneves, I decided that what I would do with back-to-back winners is just start from scratch, not even look at last year’s winner and just create the image all over again because I think there’s a number of different ways you can portray that image,” Behrends told NBCSports.com. He was referring to the only other time he has created the face of the same driver two years in a row.

“I take it as a new challenge and start from scratch,” Behrends continued. “In the case of Josef, I haven’t put the two images side by side, so, I just don’t know. There will be differences, but I haven’t looked at them both in the same frame yet.

“I think this one, the new one, is strong and we’ll just see how it looks next to the one from last year.”

By creating a face in 2023 and having a chance to do another one of the same subject in 2024, it gives Behrends an opportunity to fine-tune it.

“I have high standards for myself, and I try to do my very best every year, but I also am a perpetual optimist that I think I can do a little bit better than I did last year,” Behrends said. “And so that’s my attitude going into this. So, let’s see if I can improve on last year.

“That’s what I tried to do.”

Sculptor William Behrends working on Josef Newgarden’s “Clay Head” — Scott R. LePage for BorgWarner

Behrends described what changes he saw in one year on Newgarden’s face.

“He has such a strong facial structure, and I just wanted to emphasize the brightness of his smile,” Behrends said. “I tried to really pump those things up, I think.

“The things that when I look at Josef and when I saw him, right after he had won this year’s race, those are the things that I really tried to pump up on this one.”

One of the highlights of the IndyCar offseason is the annual trip for the winning driver of that year’s Indy 500 to Behrends’ studio in Tryon.

The first driver to do come to Behrends’ studio for a live study was Juan Pablo Montoya after he won the 2015 Indianapolis 500. Every driver since, including Takuma Sato during the COVID year of 2020, has come to meet with Behrends, sit in the chair and have the sculptor make subtle changes in the clay face that is a key part of the process.

This year, however, was different.

Hurricane Helene aftermath — Tim Pennington /Getty Images

Hurricane Helene ravaged the Western North Carolina area on September 27. Newgarden was scheduled to come to Tryon on October 4, but with widespread damage from the hurricane, many of the roads were closed and the area was without power.

The decision was made to cancel the live study and Behrends had to rely on a series of photographs taken the morning after Newgarden’s victory in the 108^th Indianapolis 500.

“We did well, but on the date that Josef was due to come here we had no power then, so it just was not possible to do that,” Behrends explained. “It was more difficult.

“That decision was made really at the last minute. We tried to do it, and we really could have cobbled together something to have him here. But with so many people suffering around us, it just didn’t seem like the thing to do.

“So, we had to go to Plan B, and that was the old plan of doing it all from photographs, without a sitting. But by that time, I already had the full-size model paired from photographs that we took the day after this year’s race of him. I used those photographs to prepare that life-size image.

“Having the driver here, it really helps my process. It’s spending time with them face-to-face and talking with them, that helps me a really great deal. It’s hard to define how, but it really does.

“Starting in 2015 when Juan Pablo Montoya came here, and since then, it’s really been something we really look forward to.

“I was helped somewhat with the fact that I did him last year. I think that helped me a good bit, but it took me a little longer, had to work a little harder on it, but the end result I think is good.”

The good news for Behrends was he had the clay head essentially finished before Hurricane Helene hit. By being ahead of the game, it helped the process continue without Newgarden being present.

Behrends and his wife, Charlotte, helped several relief efforts in the area that sent food and supplies to the hardest hit regions, including Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Burnsville, Black Mountain and Asheville.

Tryon did not have a chance to celebrate Newgarden’s victory, though, because of the hurricane. It’s usually a very big day for the community when the Indy 500 winner comes to town and his name is put up on the marquee at the Tryon Theater. It serves as a photo backdrop that features the Borg-Warner Trophy and the Indy 500 winning driver.

“Oh, it was a real letdown,” Behrends admitted. “You know that two to three days has become one of our favorite times of year. It just really is like a celebration for us because my daughter and son-in-law and our two granddaughters come, as they did last year and meet Josef and they are starstruck, of course.

“We really enjoy it so much, a perfect time of year around here to do something like that. And the same in the town when we have the pictures taken in front of the theater, the people, you know the people of the town come up and everything and an unusual kind of thing to happen in a little town like this so we get a lot of curious people coming up and it’s a lot of fun.

“It’s our two little days of celebrity that we get to enjoy.”

Newgarden’s sculpted face in 2024 is the 35^th Indy 500 winner that Behrends has created.

Newgarden has a chance to become the first driver in Indianapolis 500 history to win the race three years in a row in the 109^th running on May 25, 2025.

Behrends would like to play a role in that history.

“Well, just for that sake, I would love to see it happen because it would be such an impressive first,” Behrends admitted. “But from my own perspective in my work, I would love the challenge. I would do as I did this year, try to find something new and something fresh there and go for it.

“I would love it.”

Just three days before the Borg-Warner Trophy unveiling at a special ceremony at COhatch Stables in Indianapolis, Shunck arrived with the base of the Borg-Warner Trophy. Behrends, who received the sterling silver casting of Newgarden’s face five days earlier, completed the process by attaching the casting onto the base.

William Behrends attaches the sterling silver image of 2024 Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden to the Borg-Warner Trophy on December 2 — SCOTT R LEPAGE Photo for BorgWarner

Once that was done, Shunck made a rocket run from Tryon to Indianapolis, by car, and arrived at 2:08 a.m. on December 3.

The base was reattached to the Borg-Warner Trophy as it was prepared for the special ceremony the following day.

When the winner’s face is unveiled on the Borg-Warner Trophy, it’s the most significant day for the Indy 500 outside of the on-track events during the Month of May.

“It’s exciting,” Behrends admitted. “It’s a really sense of finishing something that, on my part, there are many steps in the process.

“It’s a six-month process for me and for it to come to completion and successfully is just really gratifying to me and happy to have another one in the books.”

THE DRIVER

A steady hand is a requirement to be an Indianapolis 500 winner, as well as incredible skill, bravery, the ability to think in milliseconds and maybe an extra-large dose of courage.

The drivers in the Indianapolis 500 are fighter pilots. In previous generations when innovation came rapidly, often ahead of safety, they displayed the same attitude as test pilots. They willingly climbed into machines with no guarantee of coming back and had the ability to look danger in the eye and never flinch.

Luckily, safety improvements give these high-speed gladiators a chance to have a lengthy and successful occupation.

When it comes to success, Newgarden is in the prime of his career.

At 33, he has 31 career IndyCar wins, including two Indianapolis 500 victories, and is a two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, in 2017 and 2019.

Advertisement

Josef Newgarden (left), son Kota (middle) and wife Ashley (left) on Monday, May 27, 2024 after winning the 108th Indianapolis 500 — Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Blonde and handsome with his wife, Ashley, who was once a character princess at Disney World, and a young son named Kota, the driver from Nashville is the All-American Boy at Team Penske.

On December 4 at COhatch Stables, a shared workplace, social and family space in Indianapolis, the stage was set, and the spotlight was on the Borg-Warner Trophy. A black curtain covered the base and would be removed at the appropriate time to reveal Newgarden’s latest image.

“Today, we’ll see for the first time Will Behrend’s artwork and what it looks like on this beautiful trophy,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles said to the crowd of media and other dignitaries invited to the unveiling. “There is nothing more iconic than this trophy, but what’s really cool about the relationship is that it just isn’t about the trophy.

“It’s about the relationship we have with BorgWarner and the work that they’ve done with the cars that are actually competing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway each year through the turbochargers and just the technology that the relationship with BorgWarner brings to the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500.”

Michelle Collins is BorgWarner’s global director of marketing and communications and spoke of the importance of this event.

“This is one of my favorite days of the year outside of the race and, of course, when we give the winning team owner and driver their Baby Borgs,” Collins said. “It’s just such an honor for me. I feel really honored to be part of this tradition, to uphold it, to still do things in the way that they were done when this trophy was created.

“We hand-engrave it. We have a sculpture that does the actual face. We’re not using any 3D printing. We’re not using any type of machinery. It’s just good, old-fashioned hard work, and I think that ties in so nicely just with all of the teams and the drivers.

Advertisement

BorgWarner Global Director Marketing and Communications Michelle Collins — Rick McIntyre Photo for BorgWarner

“A lot of people have asked me, ‘Hey, well Josef won last year. Are you just reusing the same face? Is Will Behrends just reusing the same face?’ No.

“If you know Will, he is a consummate professional and perfectionist. So, the day after the race, he started like he did last year for the very first time and went through every single step. And for BorgWarner as well, we treated it the same way. We’re not going to do anything different just because Josef has won before. In fact, we’re right behind him encouraging him to win three times in a row next year.”

As Newgarden was called to the stage, two videos were played, including one from Behrends and another from Castroneves, the last back-to-back Indy 500 winner before Newgarden.

Before the wraps came off, Newgarden described the importance of having a steady hand, cool composure and a calculating approach to his race-winning pass on the final lap of this year’s Indy 500.

“If I really think back to it, it is so vivid in my mind, ‘like this is an OK run. It’s not a great run and he is blocking to the inside,’” Newgarden recalled. “I was like, ‘I can’t wait though.’

“So, then I went to the outside and I thought, ‘We can do this.’ And then about midway through turning in, I thought, ‘I really hope I clear him, and he doesn’t hit me.’

“I tried to just give him enough room so that I had the excuse being like, ‘you have room, so what, don’t hit me.’ And he didn’t.

“I spoke about that afterwards. I thought Pato was extremely clean in the way he raced me. I tried to be clean in the way I raced him. I tried to give him just enough room to have his part of the corner, and it just worked out.

“I think it’s hard to win that race without the great car. Indy just really defines the team aspect, and the car is such a big part of that, and my car was so good on that day. So, it gave me the confidence to make that move. It’s not just, ‘oh, it was a brave move.’ I had a really good car that was capable of doing it, and I think that made a lot of the difference, too.”

Josef Newgarden looks at his latest face on the Borg-Warner Trophy as BorgWarner’s Michelle Collins watches — Rick McIntyre for BorgWarner

Finally, it was time to take off the wrap and reveal Newgarden’s face.

“Oh, wow,” he exclaimed as he inspected the image. “There are more wrinkles, yes.

“The hair is a little different.”

“I think you actually look better in 2024,” Boles said.

“Yeah, I agree,” Newgarden admitted. “I like the hair a little better. You know, you don’t always get the same thing.

“Oh, yeah, it does look better in 2024. Gosh, Will had a good day in 2024.

“That’s really cool. I do love that the details are different, and you can tell I was a little different on the day. I had a different night from when I won the first time.

“So very cool.”

Afterwards, Newgarden had a chance to give more detail to NBCSports.com.

“He’s capturing it in time,” Newgarden said of Behrends’ latest effort. “So, I think I saw a different night before, you know, and a different morning.

“I was a little more fresh, the second time around. I think I had a more professional evening the second time around than the first. And that certainly comes through.

“And there’s a little bit of age difference there, too. I think the year still shows through and probably a little more wrinkles, but he did a great job. Will is just an incredible artist, sculptor and, you know, I always enjoy getting to see what he does in his process It’s really painstaking the detail that he goes through.”

Having a face on the Borg-Warner Trophy is more than just honoring the winner of the Indianapolis 500, it’s honoring the history of courage, bravery and human achievement in one of the most unique sporting events on earth.

“I think the Indy 500 is what can immortalize you,” Newgarden said. “I think even if you don’t win it, you can still have an immensely significant career. And that’s what speaks to the difficulty of Indy.

“People that probably should have won it, never win it and then there’s some people that win it four times, you know, it’s just a tough race to get right.

“There’s nothing like it. There is no win that compares. It really is the top of the mountain, and you feel that when you finally do win it.”

Josef Newgarden admiring the Borg-Warner Trophy — RICK MCINTYRE for BorgWarner

For a race that began in 1911 and continues 114 years later, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the Mount Olympus of motorsports and BorgWarner is the caretaker of the history of achievement at the Indianapolis 500.

“They are a custodian of the event, of the traditions,” Newgarden said. “The trophy is such an iconic part of it. And they keep that cherished and operating at the level it should. It is one of the things that makes Indy so great and the Indy 500 what it is.

“We are indebted to BorgWarner and not only their collaboration on the performance side and giving us great turbochargers, but it’s the history, it’s the tie-in together, it’s protecting what’s important about this event and they do it so well.”

Two faces, side-by-side, but subtly different, frozen in time.

“It’s just something to cherish, this event,” Newgarden said. “And you really understand the significance of it, and why it is what it is. BorgWarner is a huge component of that. They protect the sacredness of the race’s traditions and certainly the Borg-Warner trophy is a big part of that.

“And so, nights like tonight and being able to go through all these little processes that you get to experience as the winner is something that will never get old.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500