INDIANAPOLIS — 366 days as a defending Indianapolis 500 winner – the chaotic, sometimes demanding schedule, the raucous celebrations, the hunger to win again and unique stresses that April and May 2024 delivered – aged Josef Newgarden in ways the Team Penske driver perhaps only realized Wednesday evening, nearly 200 days later.

Those wrinkles, along with the evidence of a more low-key celebratory romp through downtown Indianapolis’ night life, will now live in sterling silver on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

Because like only five of the 800 drivers to have raced in the 500 in its 113-year history, Newgarden went back-to-back in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing this May. The 110-pound Borg-Warner Trophy now carries 111 different faces and stands more than five feet tall. But like only Wilbur Shaw (1939, 1940), Mauri Rose (1947, 1948), Bill Vukovich (1953, 1954), Al Unser Sr. (1970, 1971) and Helio Castroneves (2001, 2002), Newgarden’s successes are now displayed side-by-side on the Borg, offering an opportunity for comparisons between the emotions of those two historic days, the lessons learned and the gargantuan challenge that still lies ahead.

“Oh wow, there are more wrinkles!” Newgarden exclaimed as the black sheet was removed from the base of the trophy near the end of Wednesday evening’s intimate ceremony at COHatch Polk Stables near downtown Indianapolis. “But I like the hair a little better. You don’t always get the same thing. You kinda just guess, and man, it does look better in 2024.

“I love that the details are different. You can tell I was a little different on the day. I’d had a different night. When you win it the first time, things go a little differently.”

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Even to the naked eye and the casual observer, those faint details are clear in an up-close glance at the work of renowned sculptor Will Behrends, who’s crafted each face on the Trophy since 1990. On Newgarden’s Ken Doll-like figure, the faint wrinkles around his eyes pop as the light catches the sterling silver mold, just as it reveals notably taller, coiffed hair.

To the latter, Newgarden notes this May he “had a better morning, which means I had a better night.”

“I was a little more ‘professional’ the second time around, shall we say,” he continues. “The first time around, it’s a lot. You go with the flow, and then you realize that you have to wake up at 7 a.m. the next morning, and I said I wouldn’t do that again, so I was more prepared for the aftermath the second time around, and I think that reflects that.

“I definitely look slightly older, but I think I look better, too.”

It’s no doubt Newgarden appears more relaxed, more comfortable in his own skin this second time around. A year ago, the IndyCar veteran was eliminating distractions and extraneous social and business ventures – including his still young media company and his popular YouTube series with teammate Scott McLaughlin – in an effort to direct his attention, talent, time and energy to the things that mattered most to him. As he got a glimpse of his face on the Borg-Warner Trophy for the first time last year, he masked an inner turmoil from the frustrations of an otherwise disappointing 2023 IndyCar campaign.

For a dozen years, Newgarden had chased this dream. Then, just as he’d detached himself from winning the 500, the accomplishment came in a flash. For a driver famous for never being satisfied, the path forward as the newest member of the 500 winners’ fraternity was muddied.

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Twelve months later, with another Baby Borg in his trophy case and winner’s ring, there’s a jovialness to the soon-to-be 34-year-old. Wednesday night, he cracked jokes – about his transition to being a veteran driver and being unafraid to admit his confidence in what would be an historic three-peat in the 500 next May.

“I think the (victory tour) the second time around is certainly more enjoyable than the first, if you can believe it,” Newgarden told IndyStar on Wednesday. “You know how to go through it and savor it a little more than just drinking through a firehose.

“The second win is different in a lot of ways. The first one, you’ve never won it, and I was in a palace where I was kinda okay with the fact that I may never win it. And then you break through, and there’s that emotion. This time around, it’s more contentment.”

To kick off Wednesday’s ceremony, the two-time series champ joked with IMS president Doug Boles about off-handed conversations they’ve had about the unique, historic way the Racing Capital of the World might celebrate the first driver to win the 500 in three straight years. 

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“It’s kinda crazy to think that it hasn’t been done before. It’s a unique position for us, with this race being over 100 years old,” Newgarden said. “The (odds are) certainly against us but … I don’t think we’re going to be shy about how we have a great opportunity to win it. We’ll do the same things we always do, and it would be really significant if we can get it done.”

Newgarden has begun petitioning BorgWarner executives to make a special prize if he were to do the unthinkable. Since 1995, the namesake of racing’s most famous trophy has offered a rolling jackpot to the defending 500 winner, if they were to repeat. Before this year, only Castroneves had claimed the prize, which started at $20,000 in its first year and added an additional $20,000 each year until the Brazilian took home $160,000 in 2002.

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The prize pool then reset in 2003, just as it has for Newgarden for next year, meaning that after taking home a nearly half-million-dollar bonus this year ($440,000) to create a record-setting grand-prize of $4.288 million, a theoretical third-straight win in 2025 to capture perhaps American open-wheel racing’s most famous untouched feat would deliver a relatively meager $20,000 bonus.

“I don’t want to sound unappreciative of the $20,000, but can we make a three-peat challenge?” Newgarden joked on-stage Wednesday evening with BorgWarner’s global director of marketing and PR, Michelle Collins. “(BorgWarner CEO Frederic Lissalde) loves a good deal. We can insure it! Insurance companies love this kind of stuff.”

Later, Newgarden was a tad more introspective.

“I joke about it, having that extra prize money for winning three years in a row, but winning three years in a row in itself, no amount of prize money can buy the significance of that,” Newgarden told IndyStar. “It will just be significant for all of us if we can get it done.”