IndyCar set for 200th race
Chicagoland Speedway will this weekend stage the 200th race in the history of the IndyCar Series.
Inaugurated in 1996, the championship has seen off all competition to become North America's premier open-wheel racing series and has made international stars of Sam Hornish Jr, Dario Franchitti and this season, Will Power.
That it continues to grow year on year is a testimony to the quality of racing and competitors. Such a glittering future may not have been obvious when the championship first came into being.
The series was set up by then Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief Tony George 14 years ago following a fall-out with Champ Car organiser CART over the direction in which the series was heading.
Taking CART's showpiece race, the Indianapolis 500, for his own series, George set about building up his brand to rival the owner-run championship.
Initially named the Indy Racing League in deference to its showpiece event, the inaugural race was held at Walt Disney World Speedway on January 27, 1996 and featured a diverse grid of drivers that included Tony Stewart, Eddie Cheever and Michele Alboreto.
The winner that day was Bradley Motorsport driver Buzz Calkins, who went on to share the inaugural title with Scott Sharp and would curiously retire from racing before his 30th birthday.
Over the next six years it gradually gained strength and finally overhauled CART as North America's premier open-wheeled series in 2003 once the Penske and Ganassi squads had swapped codes.
When CART finally died in early 2008, its teams and (selected) races were absorbed by the IRL, which had re-christened the championship The IndyCar Series a few years earlier. Its mix of road, street and oval courses mean that it is currently every bit a match for CART in its 1980s heyday.
There is debate as to who can claim to be the most successful driver in the history of the series. Hornish (right) is the only three-time champion having claimed titles with Panther Racing (2001 and '02) and with Team Penske ('06). However, Scott Dixon broke the American's all-time wins record of 19 at Watkins Glen last year and now has 23 himself - all in Chip Ganassi machinery - to add to his 2003 and '08 championships.
Dixon has found himself upstaged by Power this year, the Australian having already set a new record of eight pole positions in a season. Power still has a long way to go to watch the qualifying achievements of his Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves. The Brazilian has taken a record 28 pole positions during his career and has started from the front at least once for each of the last nine seasons.
The closest fought championship involved Penske team-mates Hornish and Castroneves in 2006. The pair finished third and fourth at the Homestead finale as Ganassi drivers Dan Wheldon and Dixon led the way. Wheldon finished the season level on points with Hornish, but lost out on countback as he only won two races to his rival's four. Castroneves was only two points behind himself.
The most dominant performance ever seen by IndyCar fans came at St Petersburg in 2005 as Dan Wheldon led home a 1-2-3-4 finish for Andretti-Green Racing on his way to that year's title (below).
AGR, which became Andretti Autosport during the winter, is the third most successful team in championship history with 36 victories and three drivers' titles.
Ahead of them are Penske, which has 42 wins to its name, but only one drivers' title (Hornish in '06) and Ganassi on 38 wins and three titles (Dixon in '03 and '08, Franchitti in '09).
One of the features of the IndyCar Series, at least in its early days, was the diversity of ages between the drivers. Arie Luyendyk was 45 years old when he won at Las Vegas in 1999, while 54-year-old Danny Ongais started the 1997 Disney World race.
By contrast, Graham Rahal was just 19 when he won at St Petersburg in 2008 and AJ Foyt IV was a year younger again when he made his debut at Homestead in 2003.
There have been some amazing races, none as dramatic as the Chicagoland event in 2002, when Hornish beat Al Unser Jr to the line by just 0.002s in the closest finish ever witnessed in the series; and none as surprising as last year's Homestead race, which still stands as the only one of the championship's 199 races to run caution-free.
While Chicagoland is unlikely to produce the same result, it has played host to five of the 10 closest finishes in series history. A great race is a guarantee.
