Indy 500 winner shares exciting news ahead of 2021 season

By Asher Fair | Apr 14, 2021

Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing, IndyCar - Mandatory Credit: Chris Owens/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Network /

Ahead of the 2021 IndyCar season, veteran Tony Kanaan has taken an exciting next step in his never-ending pursuit of peak athleticism and fitness.

Ahead of his 24th season of competition at the highest level of American open-wheel racing, Tony Kanaan has announced that he has joined the Advisory Board of Reflexion.

Reflexion is the cognitive sports training service that “rewires” the brain to improve athletic performance, to accelerate the adoption of cognitive sports training in racing and beyond.

The 2004 IndyCar champion and 2013 Indy 500 winner, who has trained harder than anybody in the paddock for decades to keep himself in top shape, believes that training the eyes and the brain is just as vital for athletic prowess as training any other muscle you typically think of when it comes to working out.

“You have to train your eyes,” said IndyCar’s Ironman. “Your eyes are not different than your triceps, your biceps, or your legs.”

And that’s what stood out to the 46-year-old Brazilian about the Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based company, ultimately leading to this agreement.

The addition of Kanaan to the Advisory Board of Reflexion is particularly significant for both parties because of just how vital vision is for race car drivers — arguably more so than any other top-level athletes, considering the nature of motorsport.

“Look what we’re doing nowadays,” Kanaan said. “Visual skills, especially for a race car driver, are so important. When you’re on an oval, going 240 mph, and something happens in front of you, you have to be prepared. Not to react to what is happening 100 feet from you, but what is happening 500 feet from you while you are anticipating what will happen around you.

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“I am excited to join Reflexion because I have been driving IndyCars for the past 25 years and since I was introduced to Reflexion, I have to say I became a better driver.”

Reflexion CEO Matt Campagna shares Kanaan’s excitement.

“Reflexion is catalyzing a sea change to bring cognitive sports training to athletes of all levels and we are incredibly privileged to work with some of the world’s greatest competitors like Tony to deliver a world-class experience to athletes at every level,” he said. “Additions to our team like this one are a key factor in what sets Reflexion apart from the pack.”

Kanaan was introduced to the cognitive sports training platform at PitFit Training, where he trains in Indianapolis, Indiana.

“We started working with Tony through a customer of ours,” added Campagna. “Most of our customers are gyms and training centers and PitFit Training, a gym in Indianapolis focused on driver training, has been a customer of ours for some time. Tony trains there practically every day. It’s a key piece of what has kept him competing at the level he has.”

“Tony knows that training your vision and your mind is like training your biceps or your triceps or your legs. In fact, your eyes are comprised of multiple different muscles that control your visual system. Just like every other muscle that you have, you have to train them, and cognitive processes like your peripheral vision, your reaction time, and your inhibitory control can be trained as well.

“We first had the opportunity to meet Tony at PitFit about 6 months ago when we traveled out to film a case study of PitFit’s success using Reflexion. At that time, we saw his passion for the technology, and of course you’ve been covering Tony, you know the kind of person that he is.

“We thought that he would be an excellent person to tell the story of why visual cognitive training is so important because he has had such an impressive and enduring career, and it’s because he is always training to keep himself in top shape.”

Jim Leo, the founder and president of PitFit Training, offered nothing but high praise of the company, which combines its state-of-the art lightboard-powered touchscreen and cloud-based data analytics to achieve the best results.

“Reflexion decreases mistakes and improves visual data processing skills that reduce our drivers’ chance for injury while boosting performance in the car,” he said.

Kanaan isn’t the only driver who has been exposed to this new technology, either. Alexander Rossi, the 2016 Indy 500 winner, sees it as vital to his success behind the wheel of his #27 Andretti Autosport Honda.

“Visual cognitive training has really been a new thing that PitFit has kind of pioneered in terms of driver training and driver development off-track, and now it’s something that we do at least four times a week,” Rossi said. “I train with Reflexion and PitFit every day. It’s vital for me in my on-track performance in the NTT IndyCar Series, and I feel like I would be a lesser athlete without both of those programs.”

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Kanaan is set to return to Chip Ganassi Racing for a part-time schedule this season which includes the four oval races on the schedule: the two races of the doubleheader at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 1 and Sunday, May 2, the 105th running of the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 30 and the race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on Saturday, August 21. He is set to drive the #48 Honda in these four events.