A day at the races with SportsCenter’s Sage Steele

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The look of surprise and delight on Sage Steele’s face summed up her experience as the honorary pace car driver for the start of the Sunday’s Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

As the ESPN SportsCenter anchor wheeled the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 around the famous track at the pace car speed of 55 mph, a pack of 43 race cars, lined up two-by-two, was inches behind her car and snarling to start racing at speeds of more than 180 mph. And five-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who was starting on the outside of the front row, sent that message by pulling up and giving Steele’s car a playful bump.

 

 

An ESPN camera mounted in the pace car was focused on Steele’s face and provided viewers a priceless moment when Johnson bumped the pace car.

“I had heard on SportsCenter that he might be up to something,” said Steele. “When it really happened, I could believe he actually did it. It was just so cool. I know it was a lot slower and less intense than the bumping they do when they’re racing, but to experience a tiny part of it was phenomenal.”

Steele, who finished high school in Indianapolis, graduated from Indiana University and began her TV career at a local TV station, was invited by the Speedway and Chevrolet to lead the field to the green flag.

Her race day was like an ESPN Carwash.

First, Steele took a fast ride around the track as a passenger in the Camaro with NASCAR’s official pace car driver, former Sprint Cup racer Brett Bodine. She received training from NASCAR official Buster Auton on pace car procedures and then the two went onto the track and she made several laps at pace car speed. After Auton was satisfied that Steele was ready, he gave her permission to have some fun and she topped 130 mph on the track.

Afterward, she did a series of TV, radio and print interviews, a photo shoot with the Camaro and then a SportsCenter appearance.

She then attended the pre-race driver’s meeting, after which Johnson approached her and wished her luck. After some lunch, it was time to get in the pace car to start the race.

“I was most nervous when they started the engines,” she said. “It was just surreal. Once we were done with the first lap (of three), I calmed down a little and tried to enjoy it, and toward the end I didn’t want to get off the track.”

She watched the race from several vantage points, including the pits of Johnson and Kyle Busch, before heading home to be ready for Monday morning SportsCenter duty.

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