IndyCar Series facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
IndyCar Series

Category	Open wheel car
Country	United States
Inaugural season	1996
Drivers	39
Teams	16
Constructors	Dallara
Engine suppliers	Honda
Tyre suppliers	Firestone
Drivers' champion	Ryan Hunter Reay
Teams' champion	Andretti Autosport
Official website	indycar.com

The Verizon IndyCar Series is the premier level of American open wheel racing. The current series was founded by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George. It began in 1996 as a competitor to CART known as the Indy Racing League (IRL). In 2008, the IndyCar Series merged with the Champ Car World Series (formerly CART). The series continues to be sanctioned by the Indy Racing League, which has taken the name IndyCar.

Overview

Series name

The IRL was unable to utilize the name IndyCar until the beginning of the 2003 for legal reasons. For 1996-1997, the series was simply called the USAC Indy Racing League. For 1998-1999, the series received its first title sponsor, and was known as the Pep Boys Indy Racing League. In 2000, the series sponsor became the Internet search engine Northern Light. The series was named the Indy Racing Northern Light Series. This only lasted two of the planed five year contract.

The league went back to the Indy Racing League name for the 2002 season. The IndyCar Series name was adopted in 2003. For the 2008 season, DirecTV served as a presenting sponsor, and the series was briefly advertised as the IndyCar Series in DIRECTV HD.

IZOD was announced as the series title sponsor beginning on November 5, 2009. The contrace runs for at least 5 years. In 2014, Verizon replaced IZOD as the series sponsor.

Car History and current specifications

The IndyCar Series is not an open formula, where teams build their own cars. Chassis and engine manufacturers provided products only to the league in three-year cycles. Currently, Dallara provides the chassis to all teams and Honda is the sole engine supplier. The series basically a one-make or spec series.

Chassis

In the series' first season in 1996 used older CART chassis. Any chassis built by Lola and Reynard from 1992 to 1995 could be used. The current Indycar started in 1997. Tony George defined rules for less expensive cars and production-based engines. This outlawed the CART chassis and turbocharged engines. These had been the type of race car used at the Indianapolis 500 since the late 1960s.

A 1997-spec G-Force IRL car. This car was repainted for promotional purposes in 2008

Dallara began producing Indycars for the 1997 season. The G Force chassis was introduced in 1997. It won the 1997 and 2000 Indy 500 races. In 2002, Élan Motorsport Technologies bought G Force,. The chassis was re-named Panoz G Force, and then shortened to Panoz in 2005.

A Panoz GF09 driven at Indianapolis by Jaques Lazier in 2007

Riley & Scott produced IndyCar chassis from 1997-2000.

From the outside, IndyCars resemble those of other open-wheeled formula racing cars. They have front and rear wings and large air intakes.

Fuel

Methanol

At its inception, the IRL used methanol racing fuel. Methanol has been the standard choice in American open wheel racing since a fiery crash at the 1964 Indianapolis 500. Methanol provided a safer alternative to gasoline. It does not start burning as quickly as gasoline. A methanol fire can be put out with water. A methanol fire cannot be seen in daylight, which is a problem. Material was added to the fuel so it would burn with a color.

Ethanol

For the 2006 season, the fuel was a 90%/10% mixture of methanol and ethanol. Starting in 2007, the league advertised using 100% Fuel Grade Ethanol. The mixture was actually 98% ethanol and 2% gasoline. The additives satisfied the U.S. government's requirement that the alcohol be unfit for human consumption. It also adds a visible color in case of a fire.

Engines

For the 1996 season, the old CART specification engines were used. They were also used for the first two races of the 1996-97 season. They were V8 engines with 45 inches of turbocharger boost. The Menard-Buick V6 engine was used in 1996 with 55 inches of boost was also used.

Ford-Cosworth provided support to teams running their older-spec engines. The Ilmor Mercedes V8 engine, was allowed. It was only used once at the 1996 Indy 500.

Vitor Meira's 2006 Dallara preparing for practice

Starting in 1997, IRL cars were powered by 4.0 L V8, methanol burning engines. They were production-based and normally-aspirated engines. They were produced by Oldsmobile under the Aurora label, and Nissan under the Infiniti label. They produced around 700 horsepower. The engine rules changed in 2000. The displacement was dropped from 4.0L to 3.5L. The block no longer needed to be production-based. In 2004, the displacement was further reduced to 3.0L to curb top speeds.

When General Motors' ended the Oldsmobile name, the engine label was changed to Chevrolet starting with the 2002 season. In August 2003, Chevrolet announced its "Gen IV" motor, a rebadged Cosworth motor for competition. At the time, Cosworth was owned by Ford. On November 4, 2004, Chevrolet stated that it would be ending its IRL engine program at the end of the 2005 season.

In 2003, Toyota came to the IRL. In November 2005, Toyota company officials announced the company's withdrawal from American open-wheel racing and the immediate discontinuation of its IRL program. This was the same time they entered into NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series.

Honda also came to the IRL in 2003. By 2005 was clearly the dominant engine manufacturer. Starting in 2006, they became the only engine manufacturer in the IndyCar Series, and will continue in that capacity until 2010. The Honda engine is designed and produced by Ilmor Engineering, which is part owned by Roger Penske.

A 2008-spec Honda Indy V8

IndyCar Series engines are rev-limited to 10,300 Revolutions per minute (rpm) and produce approximately 650 hp. The valve train is a dual overhead camshaft configuration with four valves per cylinder. The crankshaft is made of alloy steel, with five main bearing caps. The pistons are forged aluminum alloy, while the connecting rods are machined alloy steel. The electronic engine management system is supplied by Motorola, firing a Capacitor discharge ignition (CDI) ignition system. The engine lubrication is a dry sump type, cooled by a single water pump.

Seasons

Following the merger of CART/Champ Car into the Indy Racing League in 2008, the IRL acquired all intellectual property and historic records.

Season	Champion				Rookie of the Year	Most Popular Driver
	Driver	Team	Chassis	Engine
1996	Scott Sharp & Buzz Calkins*	A. J. Foyt Enterprises Bradley Motorsports	Lola Reynard	Ford-Cosworth Ford-Cosworth	not awarded	not awarded
1996–97	Tony Stewart	Team Menard	G-Force	Oldsmobile	Jim Guthrie	Arie Luyendyk
1998	Kenny Bräck	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Dallara	Oldsmobile	Robby Unser	Arie Luyendyk
1999	Greg Ray	Team Menard	Dallara	Oldsmobile	Scott Harrington	Scott Goodyear
2000	Buddy Lazier	Hemelgarn Racing	Dallara	Oldsmobile	Airton Daré	Al Unser, Jr.
2001	Sam Hornish, Jr.	Panther Racing	Dallara	Oldsmobile	Felipe Giaffone	Sarah Fisher
2002	Sam Hornish, Jr.	Panther Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	Laurent Rédon	Sarah Fisher
2003	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	G-Force	Toyota	Dan Wheldon	Sarah Fisher
2004	Tony Kanaan	Andretti Green Racing	Dallara	Honda	Kosuke Matsuura	Sam Hornish, Jr.
2005	Dan Wheldon	Andretti Green Racing	Dallara	Honda	Danica Patrick	Danica Patrick
2006	Sam Hornish, Jr.**	Penske Racing	Dallara	Honda	Marco Andretti	Danica Patrick
2007	Dario Franchitti	Andretti Green Racing	Dallara	Honda	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Danica Patrick
2008	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Honda	Hideki Mutoh	Danica Patrick***
2009	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Honda	Raphael Matos	Danica Patrick
2010	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Honda	Alex Lloyd
2011	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Honda	James Hinchcliffe
2012	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Dallara	Chevrolet	Simon Pagenaud
2013	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Honda	Tristan Vaultier
2014	Will Power	Team Penske	Dallara	Chevrolet	Carlos Munoz	Juan Pablo Montoya
2015	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	Gabby Chaves	Justin Wilson
2016	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	Dallara	Chevrolet	Alexander Rossi	Bryan Clauson
2017	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Dallara	Chevrolet	Ed Jones	Conor Daly

^*1996: Scott Sharp and Buzz Calkins were tied in the final standings, and were declared co-champions. Calkins had one win, as opposed to Sharp being winless, but no tiebreakers were in place.
^**2006: Sam Hornish, Jr. and Dan Wheldon tied in the final standings for first place. Hornish clinched the championship based on a tiebreaker of most victories during the season.
^***2008: Although no report was officially released about it in 2008, IndyCar.com confirmed in 2009 that Danica Patrick being named Most Popular Driver was her "fifth consecutive" win of the award.

Related pages

• Indianapolis 500

Images for kids

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  Dallara IR05 Indycar chassis driven by Scott Sharp at the 2007 Bombardier Learjet 550 at Texas Motor Speedway.

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  2012 DW12 chassis with the Speedway configuration driven by J. R. Hildebrand during practice for the 2012 Indianapolis 500. This initial version of the DW12 would be utilized during the 2012–2014 seasons.

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  2017 DW12 chassis driven by Mikhail Aleshin during Carb Day before the 2017 Indianapolis 500. This was driven with the Honda version of the Separate Manufacture Aerokits that were used for the 2015–2017 seasons.

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  The IR18 chassis in its Road Course configuration, driven by Sébastien Bourdais during the 2018 Kohler Grand Prix at Road America.

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  Cosworth CCW Mk2 steering wheel in the cockpit of Sage Karam's car.

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  Aeroscreen on Juan Pablo Montoya's car.

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  Honda Indy V8 engine on the car

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  Max Chilton during practice for the 2018 Grand Prix of Portland.

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  Takuma Sato during 2019 Indianapolis 500.

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  Hélio Castroneves during 2021 Indianapolis 500

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  1996–1997 and 2002

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  2008 (in conjunction with DirecTV HD)

See also

In Spanish: IndyCar Series para niños