The Indy Racing League 1996-2004
Author
- Jikku George
Date
- July 1, 2005
Who?Scott Dixon What?Panoz G-Force-Toyota GF09 Where?Indianapolis When?87th Indianapolis 500 (May 25, 2003) |
 |
Why?
The seventy-ninth running of the Indy 500 in 1995 was won by Canadian Jacques Villeneuve in a Reynard-Ford Cosworth XB for Team Green of the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) series. Villeneuve won $ 1.312 million for his win out of the total 1995 Indy 500 purse of $ 8.063 million. Villeneuve then went on to capture the CART Championship of 1995 over American Al Unser Jr before moving on to Formula 1 and a World Championship in 1997. That Indy 500 of 1995 was the last time the race was a part of the CART series. By the end of the year, a new series called the Indy Racing League (IRL) had been announced by Tony Hulman George, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This article is a story of that league, how and why it was born, how by 2003 it had upstaged its rival CART, and the difference still vis-à-vis NASCAR.
1. How the Indy Racing League was born
The Indy Racing League or the IRL is a creation of one man, Tony George, the President and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 1979, CART was formed by a cartel of team owners led by Roger Penske and Pat Patrick, and inspired by Dan Gurney's white paper on the reforms needed in the way that USAC, the body formed by Anton Hulman, in 1955, was running the elite class of the US National Championships - The Championship Cars or Champ Cars.
American motorsport began with the Indy 500 and the 2.5 mile oval Speedway that has hosted the race since 1911. The Indianapolis 500 or the Indy 500 is America's most famous race. The five hundred mile race on the two and a half-mile long, paved oval of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was first run on the 30th of May, in the year 1911. It was won by American Ray Harroun, the AAA National Champion of 1910 in a time of 6h42m8.92s for an average speed of 120.06kph. Harroun was helped by Cyrus Patschke, who drove during laps 71 to 102 of the 200-lap race.
Since then, the Indy 500 has been run every May, every year except for the six World War years of 1917-18, and 1942-45. The Hulman family of Indiana bought the Speedway in 1945 after World War II from Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, a flying ace of the first World War. Rickenbacker had himself bought the Speedway in 1927 and could not afford to maintain it. Hence by 1945, with no races for four consecutive war years, the Speedway was in a derelict condition.
Anton Hulman, the man who bought the Speedway, was a businessman from the American Midwest state of Indiana, who had built his family concern of Hulman & Co, first started in 1879, into a business empire, built on a series of baking powder products, including their best known brand Clabber Girl. The Tony George of today is the grandson of this Anton Hulman, and his full name is Anton Hulman George.
The American Automobile Association (AAA) was established in 1909, and would sanction and run the National Championships from 1909 to 1955. In the aftermath of the Le Mans tragedy on June 11th, 1955, the AAA refused to sanction any motorsport championship from 1956. Anton Hulman formed the United States Auto Club (USAC) to take over the AAA's role from 1956. The National Championships from 1956 to 1979 was therefore run by the USAC. It was this body, first established by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, that the CART was rebelling against.
Anton Hulman passed away on 27th October 1977, and his wife took over. Their only daughter Mari married Elmer George, a one-time racecar driver who had driven in the Indy 500 three times. The present Tony George took over as the President and CEO of the Speedway in 1989, and of Hulman & Co in 1994.
CART successfully established its championship after the USAC backed down, after a confrontation in the initial year, 1979, when the 7-race USAC Championship was deserted by almost all the race-track owners (except the IMS) and teams, running the cars and drivers. By 1995, the last year that the Indy 500 was a part of the CART championship, it was flourishing, ahead of the NASCAR, established in 1948, and the only face of 'open-wheel racing' in the USA.
But from 1994, the plans for a new league, more like NASCAR, concentrating more on oval races and giving opportunities to young American drivers, was in the offing, scripted by Tony George. The CART championship of 1979 had 14 races on its schedule with one road event - Watkins Glen - and 13 oval races on six ovals including the Indy 500. In 1980, CART spread to three road races, including Mexico and Mid-Ohio, while there were only nine oval races on the six oval circuits. This trend continued through the years, with spectator popularity more with road races than with oval ones.
In 1995, the last year of the unified 'open-wheel' CART championship, the ratio had evolved into 11 road races versus only six oval events including the Indy 500. Slowly, CART champions were men not required to be proficient on oval circuits, including the Indy 500. Men like Nigel Mansell, the CART Champion of 1993. Not an American, Not an oval expert. From 1994, the rumblings began. The importance of America's premier race, the Indy 500 was being undermined. And to repair the damage being done, the IMS and Tony George formed the Indy Racing League from 1996.
2. IRL: The early years 1996-2002
It was a Herculean task. Teams had to be formed. Races other than the Indy 500 had to be organized. Car supply had to be regulated. All this was done by the founder of the League. And he had covered himself from the threat of race promoters aligning themselves with the team owners like in 1979. In 1994, he had tied up with NASCAR, there was now a Brickyard 400 race every August from 1994. This gave him the freedom if need be to tap the number of speedways at the control of the Bill France family, the founders and owners of the NASCAR.
1996 was a three-race series, with 17 rookies in the Indy 500 race. No one from CART had accepted the 25-8 condition, 25 of the 33 starting spots on the Indy 500 grid reserved for drivers of the IRL, and only eight open spots. No matter, the race and the league went ahead.
The new IRL series commenced with two new oval races in January and March 1996, and points scored there 'determined' who could start in the 1996 Indy 500. It must be remembered that in 1996, the Indy 500 was the richest motor race in the world with a purse of $ 8.146 million. As a further incentive, the two oval races each carried a purse of $ 1.078 million, making for a three-race IRL series for 1996 and a purse of more than $ 10 million. This was the first year of the IRL. Incidentally, the 1996 Indy 500 saw seventeen 'rookies' (first-timers) in the thirty-three cars that start in eleven rows at Indy, with 25 of them coming from the new IRL. One of the rookies that day was a Tony Stewart. Though Stewart retired after 82 laps with an engine problem, he would win the next year's IRL championship (purse: $1.142 million) before moving on to NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) and winning the Winston Cup in 2002 (purse: $ 9.164 million). He also became one of America's young drivers - a triple USAC Champion - who got a chance to drive only because the IRL was established and none of the established CART drivers were available, a justification for Tony George's move to establish the IRL.
The next season was a hodgepodge, eight races in 1997, two races in 1996, all combined into the 1996-7 Championship, won by Tony Stewart. 1998 had 11 races, 1999 ten races, 2000 nine races, and 2001 13 races. All these races were on ovals, and the Indy 500 was the richest of them, contributing some 40% of the total prize money on offer.
2001 was the year that Sam Hornish Jr and Sarah Fisher emerged. And by the year-end, Roger Penske had come over from CART to the IRL. The end of 2002 saw Toyota and Honda shift gears, leave CART and join the IRL. With the Japanese duo came Chip Ganassi Racing, the newly formed Andretti Green Racing and others. Only one venerable team would be left in CART - Newman-Haas.
By 2003 end, CART was bankrupt, and Tony George was eyeing a take-over of CART assets and unifying open-wheel racing under his control. But it was not to be. A law court ruled in favour of continuation of CART races, and in favour of the OWRS. With Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe, the new owners of CART, buying Cosworth Racing at the end of 2004, engine-supply for CART is assured and it looks like unification is still a long way away.
All the IRL races till the end of 2004 were on paved oval speedways and it is this world of 'oval-racing' that we will look in some depth in this article.
3. The cars of the League
For the initial IRL season of 1996, existing CART cars were used - Reynard or Lola chassis powered by either the turbocharged 2.65-litre Cosworth V8 or the 3.3-litre Menard V6 engines.
For 1997, IRL regulated for 4.0 litre, only normally-aspirated V8s, with revs limited to 10,500 rpm, and to be supplied by only Oldsmobile and Nissan as Aurora and Infiniti engine blocks and at a mandated cost of $ 75,000. Chassis supply was also fixed from Dallara Automobili of Parma, Italy and G Force Composites of Sussex, England.
The chassis suppliers have remained constant through 2004, though G Force Composites have been renamed as 'Panoz G Force', following a take-over by American Elan Motorsport Technologies (EMT) Group of Braselton, Georgia, USA. For the technically minded, the chassis of a 2004 IRL car would be an open-wheel monocoque made of carbon-fibre, kevlar and other composites, 1525 lbs maximum weight without fuel or driver, length 192 inches maximum, width 78.5" maximum and 77.5" minimum, wheelbase 118-122", with 6-speed (all forward) gearbox with sequential shifter and a single rupture-proof fuel cell of 30 US gallons, and costing not more than $ 125,000.
The engine capacity was reduced to 3.5 litres from the year 2000, though the mandatory suppliers remained Oldsmobile and Nissan. In 2002, the 'Oldsmobile' brandname was changed by General Motors Corporation in favour of 'Chevrolet'.
In 2003, the Japanese duo of Honda and Toyota abandoned CART in their hour of triumph and entered IRL. Honda left CART after entering the series as an engine supplier in 1994, and winning six consecutive driver championships between 1996 and 2001 as well as four manufacturer championships in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2001. Toyota had entered CART in 1996, but had to wait till 2002 before winning the driver's championship with Brazilian Cristiano da Matta and the manufacturer's championship with the Newman-Haas team.
The engine capacity would remain at 3.5 litres for the first three races of 2004, and then be reduced further to 3 litres for the rest of the season. From the 2003 season, the three engine suppliers have been the Chevrolet division of General Motors Corporation, the American Honda Motor Co., and Toyota Motor Sales, USA. Nissan had been relegated to IRL's 'junior' series - the Menard's Pro Infiniti Series.
The 2004 IRL engine is a 3.5-litre (213.580 cubic inches) V8 (3.0-litre/183.07 cubic inches from the fourth race onwards, i.e. the Indy 500), 32 valve DOHC, normally aspirated, maximum bore diameter 93 mm, four camshafts, four valves per cylinder, maximum dry weight 280 lbs, to be run on methanol and costing not more than $125,000.
4. What happened in 2003 - the first year for the Jap duo
2003 was the first year for Honda and Toyota in IRL. As already stated they were coming off awesome performances in CART where Toyota had won the driver's championship in 2002 - their seventh year in CART - and Honda had won six consecutive driver's championships till 2001.
For 2003, Toyota had the well-entrenched Team Penske with their Brazilian pair of Castroneves and de Ferran, and Chip Ganassi Racing, in their first full season in IRL. Honda were depending on the newly-formed Andretti-Green Racing, which had moved along with them.
In the event, 2003 ended up as a sweep for Toyota with Scott Dixon, the 23 year-old Kiwi of the Chip Ganassi team winning the driver's championship in a five-way title fight at the last race. Team Penske's Toyota-powered Brazilian team mates, Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves ended up second and third with Brazilian Tony Kanaan of Honda-powered Andretti-Green Racing team beaten to fourth and double defending IRL champion, young 24 year-old American, Sam Hornish Jr in a Chevy-powered Panther Racing car finishing only fifth.
All five drivers had come to the 16th and final race of the 2003 season separated by only nineteen points. (In IRL, the winner of a race gets 50 points, the next four get 40, 35, 32 and 30 points and so on, with all drivers in a race getting points.) The season finale at the 1.5-mile Texas Motorway saw Castroneves and Kanaan collide on lap 179 of the scheduled 200. Gil de Ferran took the win, but Dixon finished second to take the title.
Toyota-powered cars won 11 of the 16 races, including the Indy 500, won 11 of the 16 poles, and led the most laps again in 11 of 16 races. And took 31 of the 48 podium finishes of 2003. Honda were beaten to second place with only two wins, 12 podium finishes, three poles and three most laps led while Chevy, winners of every IRL championship from 1997, took three wins (all from Hornish in a late-season charge), five podium finishes, and two poles. In 2003, Toyota powered five teams and their eight cars, Honda had five teams and seven cars in their fold and Chevy was the choice of seven teams and their nine cars. Earnings-wise, Toyota-engined cars won $ 13.02 million (48.6%), Honda-engined cars $ 6.922 million and Chevy-powered cars $6.876 million of the total IRL race purse (not including end of season bonuses) for 2003 of $ 26.818 millions.
5. The teams and drivers in IRL 2004
All the major teams with Toyota and Honda remained as before for the new season, except for the retirement of 36 year-old Brazilian, Gil de Ferran. The Brazilian, a close friend of F1's David Coulthard was a veteran driver with Team Penske. Gil had won two CART championships in 2000 and 2001 for Team Penske as well as an Indy 500 triumph in 2003. The vacancy in Team Penske was filled by young American, Sam Hornish, the winner of two IRL Championships in 2001 and 2002 with Chevy-powered Panther Racing. Tomas Scheckter left Chip Ganassi Racing to take Hornish's place at Panther.
Four of the Chevy-powered teams - Team Menard, Hemelgarn Racing, PDM Racing and Beck Motorsports - dropped out of IRL after the 2003 season, with indifferent results and the consequent funding problems. All these were teams that entered IRL in the formative years of 1996, and had done well in the League before Brazilian drivers and Japanese engine makers entered the fray. Team Menard had won the IRL driver's championship with Tony Stewart in 1997 and Greg Ray in 1999 while Hemelgarn Racing had won the Indy 500 in 1996 and the driver's championship in 2000, both with American Buddy Lazier.
Leading the Toyota charge into 2004 would be Chip Ganassi Racing, which had entered the IRL fulltime only from 2003 and ended up winning the driver's championship with Scott Dixon. Chip Ganassi had made CART history when his Honda-powered drivers - American Jimmy Vasser (1996), Italian Alex Zanardi (1997 and 1998) and Juan Pablo Montoya (1999) - won four consecutive driver's championships in CART. Chip Ganassi drivers for 2004 were defending IRL champion Scott Dixon and 28 year-old Brit Darren Manning.
Team Penske owned by Roger Penske had led the exodus from CART to IRL, shifting over in 2002 just after winning their second consecutive championship in CART. Team Penske opted for Toyota engines when that choice became available in 2003. It was something of a surprise considering that Team Penske had been running Honda engines in CART very successfully. The first two years in IRL had seen Team Penske miss both the championships at the season finale. The Penske drivers for 2004 were double Indy 500 champion, Brazilian veteran, 33 year-old, Helio Castroneves and young American Sam Hornish.
The other Toyota powered teams were not front-runners, with Kelley Racing running American veteran Scott Sharp, Mo Nunn Racing running Japanese ex-Formula 1 veteran Tora Takagi and AJ Foyt running his grandson, fourth of the AJ Foyt name.
The Honda engine program for IRL had received a boost in 2003, when Honda subsidiary Honda Performance Development entered into a technical partnership with Ilmor Engineering Inc located in Michigan, and with Ilmor Ltd, based in the Britain. Ilmor have worked very closely with Mercedes in Formula 1 and CART and very successfully in the past. Honda's challengers for the title were the four-driver team Andretti Green Racing of Michael Andretti, and three relatively lightweight teams, or at least that is what everyone thought at the beginning of 2004 - Team Rahal, Team Fernandez and Access Motorsports.
Michael Andretti, the son of Mario Andretti (the Formula 1 World Champion of 1978) spent a year in Formula 1 as Ayrton Senna's team mate in 1993 with McLaren, but it is in CART where he has left his mark with one title in 1991, and five runner-up finishes as well as 42 record wins during his nineteen years in CART. In 2002, he along with Kim Green and Kevin Savoree bought the successful CART team - Team Green - he was driving for, renamed it the Andretti-Green Racing team, and shifted to IRL in 2003 along with Honda. For 2004, Andretti-Green had four drivers in the pack - Brazilian Tony Kanaan, American Bryan Herta, Scot Dario Franchitti and
Englishman Dan Wheldon.
Team Rahal-Letterman Racing is co-owned by Bobby Rahal, a four-time CART Champion (including in 1992 as a owner-driver) and an Indy 500 winner and David Letterman, host of CBS-TV's Late Show with David Letterman. Team Rahal's drivers for 2004 were the unemployed 26-year-old American Buddy Rice and 27-year-old Brazilian Vitor Meira. Team Fernandez, a last minute defector from CART, was running owner-driver and Mexican veteran, 39-year-old Adrian Fernandez and Japanese rookie, 24-year-old Kosuke Matsuura
in the 2004 IRL season while Access Motorsports had only one car for owner-driver, 37-year-old American veteran, Greg Ray.
Four teams only were running Chevy engines in 2004. The leading Chevy teams were Panther Racing with Scheckter and Brit Mark Taylor, and Red Bull Cheever Racing running Americans Alex Barron and rookie Ed Carpenter. Dreyer and Reinbold Racing ran veteran co-owner Robbie Buhl for the first three races and then following his retirement from driving, opted for 28-year-old Brazilian Felipe Giaffone. Patrick Racing were just shifting over from the CART series and started racing only from the Indy 500, the fourth race, when the new 3.0 litre V-8 engines would be in place. Patrick Racing ran veteran American legend, Al Unser Jr for three races, rookie Jeff Simmons in the seventh race at Kansas, another veteran, Jacques Lazier for the next seven races and finally Czech Tomas Enge for the last two races. Enge had driven three Formula 1 races for Alain Prost's now defunct team in 2001.
6. The 16 races of 2004 - very briefly
|
Race venue |
Date |
Oval length |
Race laps |
Race Winner (team) |
Victory margin |
Most laps led |
Lead changes |
Laps under caution |
Last restart |
|
Miami |
29-Feb |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Hornish (Penske) |
0.0698s |
85 HC |
15 |
45(5) |
Lap 136 |
|
Phoenix |
21-Mar |
1 mile |
200 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
0.5344s |
195 TK |
4 |
26(3) |
Lap 192 |
|
Motegi |
17-Apr |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
1.4454s |
192 DW |
5 |
23(3) |
Lap 177 |
|
Indianapolis |
30-May |
2.5 miles |
180 |
Rice (Rahal) |
yellow |
91 BR |
17 |
56(8) |
None |
|
Texas |
12-Jun |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
0.2578s |
145 TK |
14 |
37(5) |
Lap 186 |
|
Richmond |
26-Jun |
0.75 mile |
250 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
yellow |
79 DF |
3 |
77(7) |
None |
|
Kansas |
4-Jul |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Rice (Rahal) |
0.0051s |
83 BR |
18 |
16(2) |
Lap 186 |
|
Nashville |
17-Jul |
1 mile |
200 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
0.3375s |
113 VM |
3 |
52(7) |
Lap 188 |
|
Milwaukee |
25-Jul |
1 mile |
225 |
Franchitti (AGR) |
0.6590s |
111 DF |
8 |
39(5) |
Lap 219 |
|
Michigan |
1-Aug |
2 mile |
200 |
Rice (Rahal) |
0.0796s |
183 TK |
4 |
24(4) |
Lap 162 |
|
Kentucky |
15-Aug |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Fernandez (Fernandez) |
0.0581s |
126 TK |
9 |
22(3) |
Lap 165 |
|
Pikes Peak |
22-Aug |
1 mile |
225 |
Franchitti (AGR) |
2.2429s |
128 DF |
7 |
26(3) |
Lap 168 |
|
Nazareth |
29-Aug |
1 mile |
225 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
3.5553s |
100 HC |
5 |
42(4) |
Lap 194 |
|
Chicago |
12-Sep |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Fernandez (Fernandez) |
0.0716s |
83 AF |
23 |
58(6) |
Lap 194 |
|
Fontana |
3-Oct |
2 miles |
200 |
Fernandez (Fernandez) |
0.0183s |
145 HC |
23 |
23(5) |
Lap 199 |
|
Texas |
17-Oct |
1.5 miles |
200 |
Castroneves (Penske) |
0.3732s |
104 HC |
13 |
35(4) |
Lap 198 |
Legend: HC - Helio Castroneves (Penske); TK - Tony Kanaan (AGR); DW - Dan Wheldon (AGR); BR - Buddy Rice (Rahal); DF - Dario Franchitti(AGR); AF - Adrian Fernandez (Fernandez)
The above table should give a picture of four major features of oval-racing, i.e. the number of yellow or caution laps in every race, the closeness of the finish, the final restart and the resulting shootout to the end of the race. Also, unlike Formula 1, the number of lead changes in every race.
Something to realize is that is that these cars are racing very fast, two and three abreast, side by side, and the margin of error is virtually zero. Any collision with the wall or with other cars results in the yellow flag, when no overtaking is allowed – like in the "safety car" laps in Formula 1 - but without the Safety Car. The flow of a race, so crucial an aspect of F1, is therefore constantly broken by these caution periods, often brought about by driver errors, of touching each other or the outer wall.
I will just touch upon races that were notable for something or the other:
The opening race of the 2004 season was to see fifteen lead changes among eight drivers, with young Sam Hornish taking the win from his team mate Castroneves by 0.0698 of a second on the very last lap. Hornish led only six laps totally in the race to his team mate's eighty-five laps in the lead, but he led where it mattered - at the finishing line. It was his first race for Team Penske, and he had started with a win. Surprisingly, Toyota were to win again only in the last race of the season. Team owner Roger Penske was to later say he had never heard of a driver winning in his first race for any team in his thirty-five years in motor racing.
The third race at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan, won by Andretti-Green’s Dan Wheldon ahead of Kanaan, his team mate, was a momentous win for Honda. The 1.5-mile Twin-Ring oval Motegi circuit was built by Honda in 1998. Since then Honda had tried for a home win six times, 1998-2002 in CART and in 2003 in IRL - but in vain. During Honda’s CART years, first in 1998 and 1999, Adrian Fernandez in a Reynard-Ford took the win, then in 2000, Michael Andretti won in a Lola-Ford, in 2001 Kenny Brack won again in a Lola-Ford and finally in 2002, Bruno Junqueira won in a Lola-Toyota. Honda shifted to IRL in 2003 only to have Scott Sharp in a Kelley Racing’s Dallara-Toyota take the win last year. So the first win in seven attempts at Motegi, their home venue, was later acknowledged by Honda to be every bit as important as the championship itself.
The fourth race was the 88th running of the Indy 500, and from which the new engine regulation of only 3.0 litre, normally aspirated V8 with revs limited by IRL-supplied rev limiter to 10,300 rpm would apply. This race again typified another feature of oval racing - the havoc rain creates in these oval races. The race start was first delayed for more than two hours, and then after the race started, another shower stopped the race after 29 laps. After a delay of 1 hour and 47 minutes, the race restarted, but ended 20 laps early, when rain again brought out the yellow flag on 174 and after six laps run under caution, the chequered flag was waved.
This race is usually the fastest of all IRL/CART races, since it is the only 2.5-mile oval and length of oval, gives it greater speed vis-à-vis shorter length ovals.(The fastest ever race at Indy 500 was the 1990 race, won by Arie Luyendijk of the Netherlands, where the 500-mile (804.67km) race was completed in just 2 hours, 41 minutes and 18.414 seconds, giving an average speed over 804.67km of 299.307kph. And this must surely be the fastest ever race anywhere in the world.)
The 2004 Indy 500 affected by eight yellow flags lasting 56 of the truncated 180-lap race (of the scheduled 200), was the slowest Indy 500 of many years. This year’s speed was first reached in the 1960 Indy 500 when Jim Rathman covered the full 500 miles in 3 hours, 36 minutes and 11.36 seconds for an average speed of 223.324kph.
The rain-shortened race of 2004 was won by 27-year-old American, Buddy Rice, in a time of 3 hours, 14 minutes and 55.2395 seconds for an average speed of 222.923kph. Rice was the first American winner since Eddie Cheever in 1998. Foreigners have won the Indy the last five years, with Swede Kenny Brack in 1999, Colombian Juan Montoya in 2000, and Brazilians Castroneves in 2001 and 2002 and Gil de Ferran in 2003. Rice won $ 1.762 million of the total Indy purse of 10.251 million.
The remaining races were not particularly notable except for the usual awesome speed, the roar of 22 car engines – the usual field except for the Indy 500 - in a closed space, and the very close finishes, often only by millimeters, and the consistent display of opportunism at the crucial finish line displayed time and again by the Honda-powered teams.
After sixteen races, Andretti-Green’s Tony Kanaan, remarkably consistent all season, and completing all the 3305 laps of the year won the title and the bonus of $ 1 million with 618 points ahead of team mate Dan Wheldon, second with 533 points and Rahal’s Buddy Rice third, giving Honda drivers a 1-2-3 in the 2004 IRL championship. In IRL the team championship is decided by their driver’s position, so Andretti-Green had a remarkable one-two in the IRL team standings.
Honda drivers ended up winning 14 of the 16 races, 38 of the 48 podium places, 11 poles, 10 fastest laps, led 2439 of the 3305 laps in 2004, and won US $ 12.892 million of the $ 26.223 million disbursed over 16 races.
|
Date of |
Final |
Podiums |
M |
Laps |
Laps |
Prize |
|||||||||||
|
Driver Name |
Birth |
Place |
Team |
Pts |
W 2 3 |
L |
Led |
Comp |
Money |
||||||||
|
1 |
Tony Kanaan |
31 12 74 |
Brazil |
AGR |
H |
618 |
3 6 2 |
4 |
889 |
3305 |
1.913m |
||||||
|
2 |
Dan Wheldon |
12 06 78 |
UK |
AGR |
H |
533 |
3 0 8 |
1 |
433 |
3215 |
1.641m |
||||||
|
3 |
Buddy Rice |
30 10 76 |
USA |
RL |
H |
485 |
3 2 0 |
2 |
342 |
2886 |
2.689m |
||||||
|
4 |
Helio Castroneves |
10 05 71 |
Brazil |
TP |
T |
446 |
1 1 3 |
4 |
505 |
3299 |
1.315m |
||||||
|
5 |
Adrian Fernandez |
20 04 65 |
Mexico |
FR |
H |
445 |
3 1 0 |
1 |
173 |
2856 |
1.159m |
||||||
|
6 |
Dario Franchitti |
19 05 73 |
UK |
AGR |
H |
409 |
2 1 1 |
3 |
349 |
2883 |
1.101m |
||||||
|
7 |
Sam Hornish |
02 07 79 |
USA |
TP |
T |
387 |
1 1 1 |
0 |
301 |
3000 |
1.042m |
||||||
|
8 |
Vitor Meira |
27 03 77 |
Brazil |
RL |
H |
376 |
0 2 0 |
1 |
152 |
2841 |
1.019m |
||||||
|
9 |
Bryan Herta |
23 03 70 |
USA |
AGR |
H |
362 |
0 1 0 |
0 |
67 |
3120 |
1.058m |
||||||
|
10 |
Scott Dixon |
22 07 80 |
NZ |
CGR |
T |
355 |
0 1 0 |
0 |
3 |
2813 |
0.976m |
||||||
|
11 |
Darren Manning |
30 04 75 |
UK |
CGR |
T |
323 |
0 0 0 |
0 |
12 |
2611 |
0.873m |
||||||
|
12 |
Alex Barron |
11 6 70 |
USA |
RBC |
C |
310 |
0 0 1 |
0 |
3 |
2930 |
0.932m |
||||||
Legend: AGR - Andretti-Green Racing, RL - Rahal Letterman Racing, TP - Team Penske, FR - Fernandez Racing, CGR - Chip Ganassi Racing, RBC - Red Bull Cheever; H - Honda, T - Toyota, C - Chevy engines; Podiums give the wins, 2nd places, 3rd places during 2004; ML - Most laps led in the each of the 16 races, for which the driver gets 3 additional points in that race; total laps in 2004 was 3305 - these 12 top drivers led 3229 of them.
7. Some insights into oval racing in the IRL
- TAG-Heuer moved from Formula 1 to IRL in 2004 as the official time-keeper, and they brought time-keeping to a new level with all time recorded upto a 10,000th of a second. In the sixteen races of 2004, two races finished under yellow. Of the remaining fourteen races in IRL in 2004, the biggest victory margin was 3.553 seconds at the Nazareth Speedway. The smallest victory margin was 0.0051 of a second in the seventh race at Kansas. The next five smallest margins of victory were all under the tenth of a second – 0.0183 second (race 15), 0.0581 second (race 11), 0.0698 second (1st race), 0.0716 second (race 14) and 0.0796 second (race 10). Another five races were decided by margins below 1 second, and in only 3 races were the margins over a second - the third race at Motegi (1.4454 seconds), the 12th race at Pikes Peak (2.249 seconds) and the 13th race at Nazareth 3.3732 seconds).
- There were 74 caution flags during the sixteen races affecting 601 laps of the 3305 laps that constituted the 2004 IRL season. That’s an average of more than four cautions and 37 ‘yellow’ laps per race. There was not a single race without a caution, with eight cautions at the 88th running of the Indy 500 affecting 56 laps of the eventually 180-lap race and seven cautions at the sixth race at Richmond affecting 77 laps of the 250 in the race.
- The last of the yellows in races took place very close to the final lap leading to a lap-198 restart in the 200-lap sixteenth race at Texas, a lap-199 restart in the 200-lap fifteenth race at Fontana, a lap-194 restart in the 225-lap race at Nazareth, a lap-219 restart at the 225-lap Milwaukee Mile, a lap-192 restart at 200-lap race at Phoenix etc. (details in the table above). This results in shootouts over very short distances, where acceleration and opportunism plays a big part.
- There were 171 lead changes in the 16 races with 23 lead changes each at the 15th and 16th races, 18 lead changes at the 7th race and so on. Hence every driver in the field is in with a chance to get a race win, provided he remains in the race.
- There were three race wins each for Kanaan, Wheldon, Rice, and Fernandez with Franchitti winning two races and one each to the team mates of Team Penske and Toyota - Hornish and Castroneves. Total prize money in 2004 in IRL races was $ 26.223 million, with the Andretti-Green team alone winning $5.713 from its four cars. Total prize won won by Honda-engined cars in 2004 was $12.892 million or 48% of the total purse at stake, while Toyota-engined cars won $ 7.730 million and Chevy cars winning only $5.601 million.
These then are the bare facts of the IRL season of 2004. For 2005, three additional races will be on road and street circuits, bringing IRL even more into CART territory. But with the financial side better taken care of than CART, the presence of Toyota and Honda (GM though will pull out at the end of the year) and the flood of foreign talent unable to find a place in the F1 sun, surely means that IRL has already evolved into the premier open-wheel racing series in the USA, second only to the stock cars of NASCAR.
8. The awesome speed of oval racing
The fastest Formula 1 race in history was the Italian GP at Monza on September 14, 2003, Michael Schumacher covering the 306.720 kms in 1 hour 14 minutes and 19.838 seconds, at an average Speed –247.585 kmph. In 731 official Formula 1 Races between 1950-2004 this was the greatest average race speed ever attained. They called it the fastest race ever. Yet the Monza 2003 speed would rank only 8th fastest among the 16 races of the Indy Racing League in 2004.
TABLE: IRL 2004: The sixteen races
(Table of poles, race speeds, and fastest laps in IRL 2004. Times in red indicate speeds greater than F1 at Monza 2003)
|
Race |
Date (2004) |
Venue |
Pole (Team) |
Speed-kph |
Winner (Team) |
Speed(kph) |
Fastest Lap |
Speed (kph) |
|||
|
1 |
29-Feb |
Miami |
Rice (Rahal) |
349.852 |
Hornish (Penske) |
243.162 |
Hornish (Penske) |
348.573 |
|||
|
2 |
21-Mar |
Phoenix |
Wheldon (AGR) |
281.28 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
205.965 |
Manning (Ganassi) |
259.801 |
|||
|
3 |
17-Apr |
Motegi |
Wheldon (AGR) |
331.142 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
267.335 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
323.744 |
|||
|
4 |
30-May |
Indianapolis |
Rice (Rahal) |
357.313 |
Rice (Rahal) |
222.923 |
Meira (Rahal) |
351.482 |
|||
|
5 |
12-Jun |
Texas |
Franchitti (AGR) |
337.333 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
247.783 |
Meira (Rahal) |
340.349 |
|||
|
6 |
26-Jun |
Richmond |
Castroneves (Penske) |
275.523 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
184.413 |
Hornish (Penske) |
272.652 |
|||
|
7 |
4-Jul |
Kansas |
Rice (Rahal) |
338.189 |
Rice (Rahal) |
285.148 |
Scheckter (Panther) |
339.126 |
|||
|
8 |
17-Jul |
Nashville |
Rice (Rahal) |
323.85 |
Kanaan (AGR) |
217.221 |
Meira (Rahal) |
318.785 |
|||
|
9 |
25-Jul |
Milwaukee |
Meira (Rahal) |
272.523 |
Franchitti (AGR) |
206.434 |
Franchitti (AGR) |
257.864 |
|||
|
10 |
1-Aug |
Michigan |
Kanaan (AGR) |
347.411 |
Rice (Rahal) |
293.099 |
Manning (Ganassi) |
348.549 |
|||
|
11 |
15-Aug |
Kentucky |
Rice (Rahal) |
347.644 |
Fernandez (Fern.) |
290.628 |
Meira (Rahal) |
348.28 |
|||
|
12 |
22-Aug |
Pikes Peak |
Kanaan (AGR) |
280.526 |
Franchitti (AGR) |
228.82 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
272.155 |
|||
|
13 |
29-Aug |
Nazareth |
Castroneves (Penske) |
269.398 |
Wheldon (AGR) |
191.309 |
Hornish (Penske) |
255.096 |
|||
|
14 |
12-Sep |
Chicago |
Castroneves (Penske) |
345.621 |
Fernandez (Fern.) |
226.636 |
Meira (Rahal) |
350.76 |
|||
|
15 |
3-Oct |
Fontana |
Castroneves (Penske) |
349.999 |
Fernandez (Fern.) |
287.793 |
Meira (Rahal) |
349.162 |
|||
|
16 |
17-Oct |
Texas |
Castroneves (Penske) |
347.612 |
Castroneves (Penske) |
256.525 |
Herta (AGR) |
345.885 |
|||
9. Money and where the League stands
Money is a necessity for racing. In Formula 1 and the feeder and associate series prize money is mentioned nowhere. NASCAR started the trend in 1975, and IRL has followed it. Like lawn tennis GPs, the teams and drivers know what they are aiming for. To give a reflection of where IRL stands in relation to NASCAR and CART - money and sponsors go to the successful series with high TV ratings etc. - I am giving the below table, which is a analysis of four season prize winnings list available on the websites of each of these series. These do not include end-of-season bonuses, point-fund bonuses etc. Only winnings race by race till the end of season:
|
|
IRL 2004 |
CART 2004 |
NASCAR 2004 |
NASCAR 1995 |
|
|
|
|||
|
No of races in Championship |
16 |
14 |
36 |
31 |
|
Total Prize Money Won by |
|
|||
|
Drivers During Season |
|
|||
|
(Excl End Season Bonuses) |
$ 22.312 Million |
$ 8.562 Million |
$ 166.561 Million |
$ 33.344 Million |
|
Top Driver in Prize Money |
Buddy Rice (2.6M) |
S Bourdais (0.84M) |
D Earnhardt Jr (7.2 M) |
D Earnhardt (2.3M) |
|
No of Drivers in list |
37 |
24 |
88 |
71 |
|
5 Million Plus - No of Drivers |
0 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
|
3 Million to 5 Million |
0 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
1 Million to 3 Million |
9 |
0 |
15 |
9 |
|
500,000 to 1 Million |
11 |
4 |
4 |
20 |
|
200,000-500,000 |
12 |
13 |
18 |
11 |
|
100,000-200000 |
4 |
2 |
13 |
6 |
|
Below 100,000 |
1 |
5 |
9 |
25 |
The above table tells us what one suspected: that in 1995 CART and NASCAR were on a par. But since 1996, the division and the conflict, which marked open wheel racing in the USA, has helped NASCAR grow exponentially. There is so much money now in NASCAR that young American motorsport talents will gravitate to NASCAR directly. That is the threat that maybe IRL - with the 2005 Indy 500 with its very high TV ratings, with Danica Patrick leading until seven laps from the end (laps 56, 172-185, 190-193) - may redress in the years ahead.