How Borg-Warner Trophy Sculptor William Behrends dealt with Hurricane Helene as he creates a second face for Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden

BRUCE:

IndyCar fans, it's time to start your engines. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy, a production of Evergreen Podcast. I'm your host, Bruce Martin, a journalist who regularly covers the NTT IndyCar Series. Our goal at Pit Pass Indy is to give racing fans an insider's view of the exciting world of the NTT IndyCar Series in a fast-paced podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in the sport. I bring nearly 40 years of experience covering IndyCar and NASCAR, working for such media brands as NBCSports.com, SI.com, ESPN SportsTicker, Sports Illustrated, AutoWeek and SpeedSport. So let's drop the green flag on this episode of Pit Pass Indy. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy as we continue our fourth season of giving IndyCar fans a behind-the-scenes look at the NTT IndyCar Series and the drivers and teams that compete in the Indianapolis 500. One of the great things about the IndyCar offseason is it gives us a chance to go behind the scenes and have deep dive interviews with some of the most important people in the series. It's a chance to develop a greater knowledge and understanding of what is happening at the race shops. Today, we catch up with William Behrens, the famed sculptor who creates the face of the Indianapolis 500 winner that becomes part of the permanent BorgWarner trophy. Barron's art studio and home are located in Tryon, North Carolina. On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene ravaged the western North Carolina area, including Tryon. Barron's was in the process of creating Joseph Newgarden's face in clay, part of the lengthy process that is ultimately reduced to the size of an egg and cast in sterling silver before it is attached to the BorgWarner trophy. New Garden was scheduled to sit in for a live study at Barron Studio in Tryon on October 4th, but the damage in Western North Carolina left many communities devastated, with many of the citizens stranded as roads and bridges were washed away. Tryon, for the most part, was still accessible, but with emergency efforts still underway to help those impacted by the hurricane, the live study session was canceled. Behrens, however, is in the final touches of creating New Garden's face by using photos of the driver shot the morning after his thrilling victory in the 108th Indianapolis 500 this past May. Pit Pass Indy caught up with Behrens on November 5th for this exclusive interview as he talks about getting through Hurricane Helene and forged ahead with getting New Garden's face ready for the Borg Warner Trophy. One of the highlights of the IndyCar off-season is always a trip to Tryon, North Carolina to the studios of William Behrens, the noted sculptor for BorgWarner, who this year is sculpting the 35th face for the BorgWarner trophy. William, we didn't get to make that trip this year because of Hurricane Helene. It hit on September 27th. You're in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Smoky Mountains. wasn't able to make the trip up there because of the devastation to your area. You're not far from Asheville, North Carolina. Western North Carolina sustained a lot of damage. First of all, how did you get through the hurricane?

WILLIAM:

well we got through uh we got through fairly well we were uh compared with people all around us we were lucky uh we're on high ground so we we had no flooding problems but a lot of trees down it was a a true hurricane with all that damage uh and we have a generator so we we luckily had some power uh but the power was out here for 11, 12 days, and the phones and internet even longer than that. But we did well, but on the date that Joseph was due to come here, we had no power then, so it just was not possible to do that.

BRUCE:

Now this was the first time that you weren't able to get the winning driver of the Indianapolis 500 into your studio for a live setting since Ryan Hunter Ray in 2014. You began the live study part of your process in 2015 with Juan Pablo Montoya. So without having that key step in the process of creating a face for the BorgWarner trophy, what kind of adjustments did you have to make?

WILLIAM:

Well, it's more difficult. Having the driver here really helps my process. Just spending time with them, face-to-face and talking with them, you know, helps me. really great deal. It's hard to define how, but it really does. And so starting in 2015 when Juan Pablo Montoya came here, and since then, it's really been something we really look forward to. This year we couldn't do it, so I just had to go back and do it the old way, do it all from photographs. I was helped somewhat with the fact that I did it, did that same image last year, did him last year. And so I really, I know the fate, and so I think that helped me a good bit. But it took me a little longer, I had to work a little harder on it, but the end result I think is good.

BRUCE:

That leads into a very good question. This is the first back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis 500 since Elio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002. You made those images also. Not everybody's faces change much over the course of a year. So what can we expect to see different in the Joseph image for 2024 than the image that you created for his victory in 2023?

WILLIAM:

Well, that's a good question. I, when I, when, in starting with, with, uh, uh, Hillary with Castor Nevis, 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, you portray that image, so I take it as a new challenge and start from scratch. In the case of Joseph, 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, so I don't know. I think the new one is strong, and we'll just see how it looks next to the last year.

BRUCE:

Well, another way to look at it is you created them in 2023 by getting a second chance to do them in 2024. You have an eye for detail because you're an artist, but do you see where things that you can say, well, I can improve on this that I should have done last year on this year's image?

WILLIAM:

Yeah, there were a few things. 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. So that's my attitude going into this. Let's see if I can improve on last year. That's what I'll try to do.

BRUCE:

Well, having already created the image once, was there really something that you learned from the first one that you noticed, added, deleted, or amplified in the second image?

WILLIAM:

You know, not anything that really I can point to, but I do know he has such a strong facial structure, and I just wanted to emphasize that. The brightness of his smile, and I tried to really pump those things up. The things that when I look at Joseph and when I saw him right after he had won this year's race, And those are the things that I really tried to pop up on this one.

BRUCE:

I believe this is the 35th Indianapolis 500 winner that you've done. You started in 1990 with Ari Leyendijk after his victory, the first of his two Indianapolis 500 wins in 1990, got a second one in 1997. But here you are 35 faces later, you're still doing it. Do you see that the images in your eye have improved over that 35 year period from what you do as an artist?

WILLIAM:

Well, I like to think so, but some of those early ones, when I still look at them, they're pretty strong. I don't know if they're gradually getting better. As I said, I'm the perpetual optimist, so I like to think they are, or I try to make them a little bit better every year. No, what I enjoy doing is looking at the whole collection of them, and it makes me very proud, having done all those, and also on the Board Warner Trophy, which I think is the best trophy in any sport. It's so impressive. I'm just so proud to have that much of my work on that impressive trophy.

BRUCE:

Well, another important thing is in corporate America, it's not very often we see people who spend 35 years working for a corporation to be able to do such a high profile duty such as yourself. So how fortunate do you feel that here we are in 2024 getting ready for 2025 and William Barron's images on the Borg Warner trophy started in 1990 and have continued all the way into 2025.

WILLIAM:

Oh, I consider myself extremely fortunate. In 1990, when I did that, I was being a race fan. I was just so pleased to do it, and I had no idea I was going to do it the next year, and then much less for three and a half decades. And I enjoyed so much working with BorgWarner. What a wonderful organization they are. And the people I work with, it's just a treat. We've become like family. And so I just, I really consider myself so lucky every day. But let's talk about my longevity in this 35 years. And having done 33 of them, Board Warner presented me with a special honor of my own Baby Borg and I when they did that it was a surprise they didn't Indianapolis be here before last and their idea and I I thought when they surprised me with that. I thought oh, this is a retirement gift I'm being phased out, but luckily that's not the case. I I was It was just for commemorate at my 33rd image. I

BRUCE:

So if it's not a problem to do two faces in a row of the same person, then what would the challenge be if Joseph Newgarden won the 109th Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend in 2025, which would be three in a row, an accomplishment that has never happened in Indianapolis 500 history?

WILLIAM:

Well, just for that sake, I'd love to see it happen because it would be such an impressive first. But for 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.

BRUCE:

As we mentioned earlier, since 2015, the winning driver That year it was Juan Pablo Montoya has come to your studio and try on North Carolina during the off season and you've had a chance to have him sit in for a live study. You work off of a life size clay model of his face of his head, which then gets reduced down to the. small sterling silver casting that will be put onto the trophy. How does that live study help you be able to create his image on the smaller one?

WILLIAM:

Well, I do, in the other work I do, I work in life-size scale and larger mostly. And so I'm used to working in that scale and it just allows me, you know, I'm more prudent. I'm better working in that scale. So starting in 2015, I started doing the life-size study and And then I really work out what I'm going to do in the image in that life size. And then when I'm finished with our studies, then I redo it in the smaller size in clay. And having learned what I've learned in the large size, it really does help me a lot because it's much easier to work in a life size scale than something the size of an egg. It's easier, for me anyway, to work that way.

BRUCE:

Well, then what's hard for those of us who aren't sculptors or artists to understand is how do you replicate, how do you reduce it down so that it looks just like what you did on the full-size image?

WILLIAM:

Well, I just, you know, it's funny. You look at, you spend hours looking at photos to do the full-size image. You look at, because the full-size image is really well developed by the time Juan Pablo or any of the drivers get here. And so I'm just correcting things and doing the final things while they're sitting here in person. So I've, by that time, I've spent hours and hours looking at and studying the face. And so you really internalize it, you really memorize space or you can almost do it with your eyes closed. And so right after I've done that full size and had that experience, then I can do the, I do the smaller space and it becomes much more straightforward then because I've really memorized that space.

BRUCE:

So without him being able to come to your studio, when did you make the decision or when was the decision pretty much made that we're going to have to dig out the photos and do it a different way because with the Focus had to be on the recovery effort that was going on in Western North Carolina, because there were a lot of people who've been cut off. Their roads have been cut off. Their roads have been washed out. There was still a lot of recovery effort going on in your area, not necessarily in Tryon, but in the greater Western North Carolina area, that you knew that this probably wasn't going to work out with trying to reschedule. You had to redo it a different way.

WILLIAM:

Right, right. Well, you know, 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 and everything, it just didn't seem like the thing to do. And 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 had worked I had already had the full-size model here from photographs that we took the day after this year's race of him, but this year's photographs, so I used those photographs to prepare that life-size image.

BRUCE:

We'll be right back to Pit Pass Indy after this short break. Welcome back to Pit Pass Indy. Here is the second part of my exclusive interview with William Behrens, the sculptor of the Borg Warner trophy. Now having been to your property, you're located up on the side of a mountain. The driveway sometimes is a bit of a challenge to get up to. Was there any damage done to that? Was there any damage to the infrastructure? Did you have a lot of trees that you had to clear out in order to be able to get out to the road?

WILLIAM:

Well, we were lucky. Total on our property, we probably had two dozen large trees. This storm was hard on the old mature oaks, the big ones. And so we had probably had two dozen of those down. Very fortunately, we only had one lying across our driveway. So we had to cut that out of the way and we were out. The rest of them are still there and it will be a long-term project of cleaning up. Still a lot of things to do out there.

BRUCE:

How about the Tryon community itself? It builds itself as the friendliest city in the South, gets a lot of tourism, it gets a lot of people such as yourself who may be artists or people who want to retire to an area that's peaceful and tranquil. When you have a storm like that go through, it's anything but. It's a major cleanup process. How did the city of Tryon, the town of Tryon, deal with it? What were some of the worst instances? How were they able to get through?

WILLIAM:

Well, I think the worst was, I mean, everyone had the damage as we had with trees down, and they were just down over power lines and everything. And a number of people had trees on their houses as well. And so there was damage all over. But the worst damage was in the, we have a city park, Harman Field, and a residential area in the valley, and all that was flooded rather badly. We have a favorite old restaurant down in the valley that had an old covered bridge in front of it, right on the river, and a bridge restaurant, everything is gone. So down low-lying areas were really the hardest hit. But the best part, the best experience of all that was for the next week, even ongoing to some degree now, as the people came out and and just to help each other, provide supplies and whatever was needed, where our town hall became a distribution point for essential supplies. And my wife worked there for over a week, just collecting supplies and then passing them out to people who drove through to get water, food, clothing, whatever was needed. So to see that all these private people come forward and help their neighbors. It was just a, it was really a gratifying experience.

BRUCE:

And how long were you without power?

WILLIAM:

We were about 11 and a half days.

BRUCE:

And did you have a generator that you operated off of during that time?

WILLIAM:

Yeah, we were off a generator. And we were also fortunate that we had Starlink for internet because the regular internet around here was out for, oh gosh, at least two weeks. And so we were very fortunate that we had access to internet throughout that 11 days.

BRUCE:

So how close was the really serious stuff to where you're located?

WILLIAM:

You know, it started, the really serious stuff really started, we're at the lower tip of it. It started here and goes north from us. So from here to Asheville and to also west of Asheville, the little towns like Bakersville and Burnsville, North Carolina, little mountain towns, they were just devastated. And my wife and I, we've driven supplies up there a couple of times, and they were worst hit. Asheville and all the areas within 30, 40 miles of Asheville were the worst hit.

BRUCE:

What was your reaction when you saw the severity of the damage, not only in Asheville, which is a fairly big town, but also Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, that area that was basically washed away by the river?

WILLIAM:

Yeah, it just, you know, it's funny that the news as it was happening, we were seeing it around us, but it wasn't really We didn't see it on the news right away for the first few days. At first, they were focusing on Florida. But then I think because It was so unexpected in this part of the country. And also, no one could literally get into these areas. There were towns like Black Mountain and other little towns, mountains like that, that you couldn't get into for the first two weeks or so. You just couldn't physically get there. So it was an evolving picture of the severity of the storm. It was only after a week or two that we really got an idea of how bad it was.

BRUCE:

Generally, when the Indianapolis 500 winner arrives at your studio for the live study, it's kind of a holiday at your house in many ways. I know your daughter and her family have come before, and it's a gathering, a little bit of a reunion of old friends, friends from IndyCar, friends from BorgWarner. You get a chance to really spend quality time with the winner of the Indianapolis 500. People in the community turn out in front of the theater. You know, autograph seekers, people who want to meet the winner of the Indianapolis 500, they put his name up in lights. I know it's a disappointment that didn't happen, but putting it into perspective, there were greater people in need that needed to be addressed. But from your standpoint, not being able to have that this year had to be a little bit of a disappointment for you.

WILLIAM:

Oh, it was a real letdown. You know, that two, three days has become one of our favorite times of the year. It just really is like a celebration for us because, you know, my daughter and son-in-law and our two granddaughters come, and as they did last year, me, Joseph, and they're starstruck, of course. You know, we really enjoyed 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. 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.

BRUCE:

So did it put any extra urgency into getting the face done, or were you already so ahead of the game that you were able to work around that?

WILLIAM:

Before the storm, I really had the piece done. I was ahead of the game this year, so it was ready to go. And a little bit of a disappointment for me because when I'm working on it, I'm thinking about Joseph when he first sees it. And so I had that anticipation that to not have that opportunity to unveil it in front of him. It was a disappointment, but it was ready to go on that day.

BRUCE:

Now there's more to the process than just what you do by creating the face. It goes from the wax figure that is the egg-shaped size face and then that gets cast in a sterling silver. When does that casting process start and how does that work?

WILLIAM:

That'll start, that'll really start this month and that's, this is, although it's only the size of an egg, it's the casting, it's a lost wax casting, the same as my large bronze pieces. You have all the same steps. You have the, you know, I finish it and then I make a mold and I create wax copies of that and then I prepare those for for casting and send them off to a sterling silver foundry that casts those in sterling and then I get the raw casting back here and I do all the finishing on it. It's exactly the same process as my larger things as far as the steps that we go through.

BRUCE:

now as far as hidden heroes in this process i'm going to meet one of them later this week it's the man who engraves the information that's on the borg warner trophy that's right below his face reed smith he's an engraver in pineville north carolina His job is pretty important. It may not be quite as detailed as what you have to do, but when you look at what an engraver has to do, there's a lot of pressure because you can't get anything wrong when you're an engraver because it's kind of hard to start over.

WILLIAM:

Yeah, well, his job is much more important than you would think. It's funny, you know, when you do these things, you look at something like that, and as most things, you look at it and you don't until you really start studying it, don't appreciate how much goes into that. His work is really vital to this. First of all, it's all handwork that's can't be done by machine. So he's hand doing all those letters and they have to be just right, a very high standard. So Reed does a super job. We were very fortunate to find him. So happy that he's doing these engravings.

BRUCE:

And it's also explained to me that it's not like when a person writes something, they start from the left and go to the right. He actually begins in the center and may do a little bit here and a little bit over there.

WILLIAM:

And frankly, which is another one of those things that you don't appreciate, you don't even think about until you get into the end of it. deep into it he he has to do that of course because these things have you have a a that that square on the trophy that this thing has to be fit into symmetrically so that's that's how that's how he does it well it has to be perfectly centered but for people who haven't worked in typeface or anything like that it seems like a very complicated process yes yes We read it as worth and everything, but he has to deconstruct it and read it as something that he had to build on there. It's an impressive art that he does, it really is.

BRUCE:

Well, it looks like you're off to a great start. The Borg Warner trophy face will be unveiled sometime in early December in Indianapolis. The baby Borgs are going to be awarded to Joseph Newgarden and Roger Penske in mid-January in the Detroit, Michigan area. With the holidays coming up, with the Borg Warner trophy unveiling, it really sounds like you're off to a great start. How excited of a time is it once the wraps come off the big Borg Warner trophy? And there's the newest addition that William Behrens was able to add to the trophy about last year's winner.

WILLIAM:

It's exciting. I mean, it's a really sense of finishing something that, you know, because, you know, on my part, as we've talked about. There's 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.

BRUCE:

Well, we're certainly happy that you've been part of this great tradition of the Indianapolis 500 with the Borg Warner Trophy for so many years. William Barron's famed sculptor who creates the face that goes on to the Borg Warner Trophy. He's done it every year since 1990. Congratulations on your latest effort. Good luck in the future. And thank you for joining us today on Pit Pass Indy. Thanks so much, Bruce. Have a good day. And that puts a checkered flag on this edition of Pit Pass Indy. We want to thank our guest, Borg Warner Trophy Sculptor William Behrens, for joining us on today's podcast. Along with loyal listeners like you, our guests help make Pit Pass Indy your path to victory lane in IndyCar. For more IndyCar coverage, follow me at X, previously known as Twitter, at BruceMartin, one word, uppercase B, uppercase M, underscore 500. This has been a production of Evergreen Podcast. A special thanks to our production team, executive producers are Bridget Coyne and Gerardo Orlando. Recordings and edits were done by me, Bruce Martin, and final mixing was done by Dave Douglas. Learn more at evergreenpodcast.com. Until next time, be sure to keep it out of the wall.

WILLIAM:

Bye.