James Hinchcliffe on Greg Moore: "I met my hero, and he was great!"

A few days before the 25th anniversary of the death of Greg Moore, rising star of IndyCar, his compatriot James Hinchcliffe spoke to AUTOhebdo about the importance of prolonging the memory of one of the best drivers in the country.

James, you were 9 years old when Greg Moore began his career in IndyCarIn Canada you had great drivers like Scott Goodyear or Jacques Villeneuve, what attracted you to Greg Moore?

I think it's a combination of factors. He started his IndyCar career in 1996, the same year I started in karting. I was already following Greg because he had a great season in Indy Lights the year before, and he was one of the great Canadian hopes in IndyCar. I felt a certain connection with him, we kind of started at the same time actually. The first time I saw an interview with him, he was very good, he spoke well… he was very Canadian if I'm honest! I remember at that age, I thought if I could make it as a professional driver, I would like to be like this guy. It was very easy to like Greg, right from the beginning.

The fact that he is in IndyCar, did that unconsciously give you the desire to drive in this championship, and not necessarily in Formula 1 ?

I think it was honestly quite a big influence! My aspirations were never really to go to Formula 1. Growing up, I was very close to IndyCar. It started with Jacques Villeneuve of course, and then Greg Moore took over, when Jacques left for F1. It was him coming there in 1996 that got me interested in Formula 1! By that time, I had already been to the Toronto IndyCar race seven times, so I had already fallen in love with that particular sport. Having Greg in that series, in the early years of my career, allowed me to follow IndyCar in a much stronger way than if I didn't have anyone to support like I could have for Greg Moore. If it was just Jacques Villeneuve at the top, maybe I would have been more attracted to F1, so I think you could say Greg is partly responsible for my desire to become an IndyCar driver.

On track Greg Moore was quite aggressive, but off track he seemed to be everyone's friend. Is that something you could feel from Canada too?

Definitely, and I think that was part of his charm and why I wanted to follow him. His personality on the track was so different from the one he had off it. He was a competitor, a risk-taker, very talented. Off the car, he was humble, polite, jovial, funny… all these traits are ultimately very Canadian! That made it easy to like Greg. It was also easy for a young driver to want to have the same career and behave like him.

Greg Moore on the track at Mid-Ohio in 1996. © Rick Dikeman

You were able to meet Greg Moore in Toronto a few months before the accident, in 1999. It is often said that you should not meet your heroes at the risk of being disappointed, how did that happen for you?

I absolutely do not believe in the phrase "don't meet your heroes", because I met mine, and he was great! Being good at something doesn't give you the right to be a bad person. That's what made Greg special, because he was a very good driver, but also a great human being. I got to meet him in Toronto, it was, along with Vancouver, his two biggest races of the year, he was very busy. Having been in the same situation later, I understand even better what he was dealing with with all the demands. I had a steering wheel that came from his Formula Ford 1600, which he drove in Ontario at the beginning of his career. I really wanted him to sign it. We waited at least 3 hours with my sister in front of his motorhome, trying to see him. We would see him from time to time come out to sign a few autographs and then come back in. We were standing there with my sister, watching the mechanics work on the car, and at one point a mechanic comes up to us and tells us that we've been waiting a long time, and he asks us if we're waiting for something. I explain the story of the steering wheel to him, he tells me that it's really cool, and he asks us to wait a few moments. He goes to get Greg, who signed the steering wheel, and he gets to chat with us for about ten minutes. Knowing how busy these weekends are, it's even more special because I know how hard it is to find ten minutes of free time on a weekend at home.

Listening to you, I have the feeling that Greg Moore was very close to a Dan Wheldon, also missed, in the sense that they always put the fan at the center of everything, understanding well that without fans there would be no motorsport?

I think they were cut from the same cloth. They both had a special appreciation for the fans and what it gave them the chance to do. There are so few people in the world who can drive race cars and make a living from it! It's really nice to see people being grateful for that opportunity, and I think both of these guys were absolutely grateful.

Now let's talk about October 31, 1999. You were young, how did you experience that day, and did it change anything instantly for you?

Looking back, it was a special day for me, it was Halloween, I was 12 years old, and like many kids my age, I was getting ready to go trick-or-treating! I was watching the race, and Greg had his accident. At that age, I still couldn't tell the difference between serious accidents and those that didn't injure the drivers. Once I knew it was him, I turned off the TV because I wasn't interested in the race, and I also had to go to my friend's house to go trick-or-treating in the early evening. It was once I got to my friend's house that I saw on a TV screen that Greg had succumbed to his injuries. I was in shock, I couldn't believe it, I didn't want to believe it. I remember calling my parents, my mother was in tears, it was extremely sad. This proves once again who Greg was, because we didn't know him, we met him for ten minutes, and we felt his passing as if he were a family member or a close friend. The next day, we talked to my parents about my career, because my hero had just killed himself doing what I wanted to do when I grew up. My parents could have simply sold the karting and bought me golf clubs, and I wouldn't have had a say in it! They preferred to let me make the decision. They told me that if I didn't want to drive anymore, we would have sold the karting and moved on. I thought about it for a day, and I said to myself that I would continue, because Greg would not have appreciated me stopping because of his accident. I made the decision to continue and I am obviously delighted about it.

Didn't you have much doubt before making the decision?

Not at all, and I think that's the mentality of racing drivers. We're not very smart! I think back to Dan Wheldon, Justin Wilson, Robert Wickens... We've seen drivers get hurt, lose their lives, but drivers have this ability to compartmentalize it all, and not think about all that when they're driving. That was the first time I'd encountered that part of the sport, when Greg crashed.

Is that when you started wearing the red gloves, or were you already doing it before, to imitate Greg Moore in a way?

I think I was already using them, but I definitely made the decision to always do it at the time of the accident. I wanted to be like Greg, and it became a way to remember and honor him.

In 2012 in Indianapolis, you did your first qualifying run for the 500 Miles with a Greg Moore glove in your suit. What were the steps to get to that moment, and what were your feelings during that run?

I was contacted by a mechanic from Forsythe Racing who worked with Greg, and he had a pair of his gloves that he had worn. The Indy 500 is a special event for everyone in IndyCar, and because of the split between CART and the IRL at the time, he never got a chance to drive at Indianapolis. We know how good he was on ovals, we know what Penske did at the Speedway, he should have driven for them, so we think a lot about what could have happened if Greg had driven at Indianapolis. It's sad to think that he never got to experience the highlights of May, like a qualifying run at Indy. So the plan was to take a glove with me for a run, because those four laps are some of the most incredible, scariest, most emotional and stressful moments of the entire year. So I took that glove and we had the best time of the day.

In 2016, you took pole position for the Indianapolis 500 wearing red gloves. I imagine that was a great moment?

Absolutely. That's what I love about the red gloves, because when you celebrate your success in a race car, you do it by making a fist because that's about all you have room to do! Every big moment in my career, there's a picture of a red glove in the air, it's a great way for me to pay tribute to Greg Moore.

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