CSU

The story behind the CSU logo on Jay Howard's car in the Indianapolis 500

Kelly Lyell
The Coloradoan
The pit crew makes adjustments to the One Cure race-car Jay Howard is driving in Sunday's Indianapolis 500 during a practice session earlier this week.

No need to adjust your television set; that really is the CSU logo on the side of the No. 7 car in the Indianapolis 500.

Driver Jay Howard’s car is sporting a green-and-black paint scheme, with the familiar Rams’ head Colorado State University logo prominently displayed on the front and along both sides, in Sunday's race.

It’s part of a sponsorship deal, arranged and paid for by an anonymous donor, to promote the university’s One Cure project for cancer research, said project director Dr. Christine Hardy.

Danica Patrick drove a car with One Cure as its primary logo in a NASCAR race last year, and the sponsorship has been increased this year to other teams. Clint Bowyer will drive a One Cure car in three to four NASCAR races this year, including the Toyota/SaveMart 350 on June 24 at Sonoma Raceway in California. And Graham Rahal will race a One Cure IndyCar in the Grand Prix of Portland on Sept. 2 in Oregon. The logo will remain on all three drivers' cars in a secondary sponsorship position throughout the season, Hardy said.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us to raise awareness about the power and possibility of comparative oncology, and that’s the founding principle behind One Cure,” Hardy said from Indianapolis, where she is attending this year’s race.

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The No. 7 car that Jay Howard will drive in Sunday's Indianapolis 500 leads two others out of a turn during a practice session. CSU's One Cure program has the primary sponsorship position on Howard's car for this year's race.

The goal of One Cure, Hardy said, is to provide innovative treatments through clinical trials for dogs and cats with cancer that could also benefit human cancer patients.

“The disease doesn’t care if you have two legs or four legs,” she said. “It turns out that our canine best friends may help us speed up cancer discoveries toward one cure for all of us.”

Dogs in particular, Hardy said, share “85 percent of our genome,” and are exposed to most of the same environmental factors as the humans they live with.

“They’re exposed to cancer, and they beat it,” she said. “The right thing to do is share that knowledge and also transfer it forward to help people with cancer.”Howard has visited the Flint Animal Cancer Center twice in the past year to learn more about the One Cure program, Hardy said, and Sam Schmidt, one of the owners of Howard’s Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team, has also visited.

Howard, who will start on the inside of Row 10 in the 33-car field, told CSU’s Source that his family lost a dog to cancer when he was a child growing up in England.

“One Cure is literally my ideal Indy 500 sponsor — I couldn’t think of a better partner,” he said. “… To be racing for something that is so near and dear to my heart, well, it’s just incredible.”

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Jay Howard, wearing a hat signifying his car's CSU One Cure sponsorship, gets ready during qualifying May 20 for the 102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The One Cure program sees more than 1,500 animals with cancer each year, and about 400 are enrolled in the clinical trials, Hardy said.

The One Cure program began in 2010 as a continuation of comparative oncology research that had started 20 to 25 years earlier at CSU’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital. There are five full-time staff members assigned specifically to the project and about 20 other nurses, students and technicians involved on a daily basis.

“A Colorado-based philanthropist who prefers to remain anonymous” arranged for the race-car sponsorship, Hardy said, when “we asked for folks to be ambassadors and help spread the word about One Cure.” 

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310) and 10:45 a.m. Saturdays on Denver’s ESPN radio (AM 1600).