Indycar Championships 1999 vs 2015

In the 2015 Verizon Indycar Series Championship,

Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) tied in season points with Juan Montoya (Penske Racing).  The tie was broken based on wins, Dixon had 3 wins to Montoya's 2.

Ironically, in 1999, Juan Montoya (racing for Chip Ganassi Racing) tied with Dario Franchitti (Team Kool Green) for the season championship. Juan Montoya won his only Indycar title based on his 6 wins to Dario's 3 that season.

 

 
In the same year that Juan won the Championship, Scott Dixon was a rookie in Indy Lights, and had just won his first Lights race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juan Montoya gave Chip Ganassi his 4th Indycar title in 1999.

 



Scott Dixon gave Ganassi Racing it's 11th Indycar title in 2015.
(It was Scott's 4th title)



2 Days Till Pocono!!!

The #2 car driven by Juan Montoya

will start the ABC Supply 500 in 2 days

with a slim lead of just 9 points in the Indycar championship.

 

As the defending Pocono winner and with an average finish of 3rd in 500 mile races, he seems to be an easy bet to come out of the weekend still in the lead.

 But Graham Rahal is on a roll, coming off a win at his home track at Mid Ohio.   He will no doubt have a lot of support in the mountains of Pennsylvania from fans eager to see the second generation Indycar driver go for the championship. 

So things may not be as predictable as they seem.

 

 

 

 

 

Montoya returned to Indycar last year and won at Pocono

in his first ever Indycar start at the Tricky Triangle.

 

 

99th INDY 500

 
2015 marked the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500. 
It was a hard fought battle between Penske drivers and Ganassi drivers (all Chevys), but in the end, Juan Montoya prevailed over Will Power in the fourth closest 500 finish in history.
The victory gave Montoya his second Indy 500 victory (in just 3 starts) and car owner Roger Penske his sixteenth '500' win.  

With the new aero kits for Indycar this year, no one knew what they would see at the 500.  We saw three cars flip upside down in early practice sessions, giving us a preview of the race to come.  Or did they?

The expected crashing and flying did not happen on Sunday at the 500.  Instead, we saw one of the best races in a long time.  
There was a ton of passing into turn 1 and 3 and along the front straightaway.  
It came down to one of the greatest battles for the win ever between three drivers.  Penske's Juan Montoya and Will Power and Ganassi's Scott Dixon battled till the final laps.  Montoya took home his second 500, Will Power's came in a close second trying for his first '500' win, and Ganassi's Charlie Kimball was able to get around his teammate Scott Dixon for third when Dixon's car started overheating.

 

 

The top 10 Finishers

1.  Juan Pablo Montoya - Set a new record for the most years between two Indy 500 wins at 15 years.

2.  Will Power - Got his best finish ever in his 8 attempts at the '500'.

3.  Charlie Kimball - His best finish ever in the '500' and the highest finishing of the 4 Ganassi cars.
 

4.  Scott Dixon - Started from the Pole Position to get his 8th 'Top 6' finish in 13 Indianapolis 500 starts.
 

5. Graham Rahal - His third 'Top 5' in the last three races, and the top finishing Honda.

6.  Marco Andretti - Battled hard for his 6th 'Top 6' finish in 10 Indy 500 starts.

7.  Helio Castroneves - Didn't really contend all day in his 6th try at joining the 3 four time winners of the '500'.  Led 2 laps.

8.  J.R. Hildebrand - The highest finishing of the three CFH Racing cars as a part time driver for the team.

9.  Josef Newgarden - Finished where he started in ninth.  His best finish in his three previous 500's was 25th.

10.  Simon Pagenaud - Led 35 laps and battled for the lead most of the day until a broken wing necessitated a very late race pit stop.

Top Ten included..

* Four Penske Drivers & Two Ganassi Drivers & Two Carpenter Fisher Hartman drivers
* 8 Chevys and 2 Hondas 
* Drivers from 6 different countries
* 3 past winners

Saturday's Public Drivers Meeting

Other:

*  Montoya became the only driver to win two races this season.

*  There were 6 cautions for 47 laps.

*  This win was the 3rd win for Team Penske this season ( The first was Montoya, the second Power)

*  There were 37 lead changes among 10 different drivers.

*  Average Race Speed:  161.341 mph

*  Fastest Lap: 226.712 mph by Charlie Kimball


Shout Out To...
Simon Pagenaud who led 35 laps while trying to become the first driver to win both the GP of Indianapolis (2014) and the Indy 500.  Looked like he would contend for the win until a late pit stop dropped him back to 21st with just 15 laps to go when the green flag came out and he moved up to 10th by the race's end.

Indianapolis Month of May 2015

The month of May 2015 is here!!!

 

Opening Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was Sunday, May 3 as Indycar teams took to the oval track
to test out the new oval aero kits.

Robin Miller interviews Juan Montoya (Chevy) and Marco Andretti (Honda)  to see what they thought of the new cars.

 

 

 

Juan Pablo Montoya

 

 

And here is a more comedic take
on the first day of practice at IMS.

ICYMI: @TonyKanaan, Miller on #Indy500 test, ConorDaly busts up Hinchcliffe impression [WATCH] http://t.co/0o7GEKHsPA pic.twitter.com/8SuOxn5qMe

— Dave Furst (@DaveFurst) May 4, 2015

 

 

 

 

Practice begins Thursday, May 7th on the Indianapolis road course

for the GP of Indy on May 9th.

Pocono Indycar 500 Re-cap

The Pocono Indycar 500 was amazing!!

 

Will Power, Helio Castroneves, Juan Montoya and Tony Kanaan dominated the race, with a determined rookie Mikael Aleshin running in 5th for much of the day.
The race stayed green for the first 168 laps until Graham Rahal brought out the only caution of the day.

It was the fastest 500 mile race in Indycar history at 202.402.
The fans at Pocono seemed really got into the closing laps and seemed thrilled to see Montoya win in Indycar for the first time in 13 years.
 

 

 

After starting from the last position, Josef Newgarden led with just 6 laps to go, but had to make a splash and dash pit stop and finished 8th.  Kanaan took over the lead but also had to stop for gas. Will Power was penalized for blocking Helio.

So pole sitter Juan Montoya won the race, Helio Castroneves 2nd, and rookie Carlos Munoz finishing 3rd.

How many Montoya's does it take to win at Pocono? Just Juan.... Congrats @jpmontoya on the win! And @CarlosMunoz034 on another great run!
— James Hinchcliffe (@Hinchtown) July 7, 2014

 

 

The Top Ten:

5 Chevys, 5 Hondas
5 Different Teams
7 Different Countries

 

1st Juan Montoya 

 

-First driver this year to win from the pole

-His 12th Indycar win
-Can he win the championship?

 

2nd Helio Castroneves

 

-Now tied with Will Power in the season points

-His 5th podium this year

 

3rd Carlos Munoz 

 

-He has 3 podiums this year                                                                              

-Is 6th in points         

 

4th Ryan Briscoe

 

-Highest Ganassi Racing finisher

-His best finish this season

 

5th Scott Dixon

 

- Last year's Pocono winner

- Is this the turning point in his season?

 

6th Simon Pagenaud

 

- 3rd in points

- Can he beat the Penske team to the championship?

 

7th Mikhail Aleshin

 

- Was running fifth all race till the last 10 laps

-  For someone who has never been to these tracks he is amazing!

 

8th Josef Newgarden
 

- Led laps 188 to 194
- Previously had only led 1 lap in his Indycar career

 

*9th Marco Andretti

 

- 2nd top ten in 2 years at Pocono
- Had a drive through penalty for speeding on pit lane early in the race

 

10th Will Power

- Seriously blocked his teammate late in the race

- His 5th penalty of the season cost him a podium finish


 

 

 

 

 



Past Winners in the 500

We did a young drivers post,
and now we are doing a post
on the older more experienced 
drivers and past winners 

 They include...

Helio Castroneves: 3 time winner
'01, '02, '09

 

Tony Kanaan: 1 time winner
'13

 

Scott Dixon: 1 time winner
'08

   

Juan Pablo Montoya: 1 time winner
'00

 

 

Buddy Lazier: 1 time winner
'96

Jacques Villeneuve: 1 time winner
'95


The record number of past winners in the field for the 500 was 10 in 1992 with a combined total of 20 wins. There were also 3 future winners in the race. (Al Unser, Jr., Buddy Lazier & Eddie Cheever)
The neatest part was that all three 4 time winners were in the 500 that year.



The former winners in that race were:

A. J. Foyt (4 wins)

Al Unser, Sr. (4)

Rick Mears (4)

Gordon Johncock (2)

Mario Andretti (1)

Tom Sneva (1)

Danny Sullivan (1)

Bobby Rahal (1)

Emerson Fittipaldi (1)

Arie Luyendyk (1)

Will we see a four time winner this year?

Or maybe another 2 time champ. 

We can't wait!

Indycar Offseason News #2

 

Indycar Offseason #2!!!

 

Lets begin.

 

*  2013 Indy 500 winner Tony Kannan's image was unveiled on the Borg Warner trophy on Dec. 2nd.

 *  Paul Page, chief radio announcer for IMS Radio Network from 1977 to'87, will return to that position in 2014.  Our mom is excited about that.

 

*  Josef Newgarden and Graham Rahal had a Tricycle Showdown on the Pat McCarthy show.   (It starts at the 6 minute point in the video.)  Very funny....and you can probably guess we've watched it many times since it has Josef in it.
 

*  The 2014 Indycar tv schedule was released and the great news is that their will be more Month of May of network tv in 2014!

*  Sebring Raceway in Florida has been busy the past few weeks with teams testing for 2014.  Ganassi racing was there this week with Alex Tagliani filling in in the #10 car.  Prior to Thanksgiving Penske Racing tested there including their new driver Juan Pablo Montoya.   Andretti Autosport, Dale Coyne Racing and RLL drivers have also tested there in recent weeks.
And to keep Alexandra happy we need to mention that Josef will be testing there on Dec. 18th and 19th with Sarah Fisher Hartman racing.

 



Juan Montoya's Indy 500 Win

 

With Juan Pablo Montoya in all the Indycar news this week
signing with Penske Racing for 2014
we dug around our mom's old Indystar newspapers and found this:

 

 

 

Indycar Happenings

Wonder what's been happening in the world of Indycars?

 

Look below!

*  Juan Pablo Montoya, 1999 CART Champion and 2000 Indy 500 winner, will be returning to Indycar after years in F1 and Nascar.  He will drive a third car for Penske Racing joining Helio Castroneves and Will Power.

*  Tire Testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last week. 

*  Graham Rahal and Ryan Briscoe tested on the road course at IMS in anticipation of a possible Indycar road race there in 2014.

*  Jack Hawksworth, winner of the most recent IndyLights race at Baltimore tested for Rahal Letterman racing today.

*  Boo Hoo.  The Grand Prix of Baltimore will not be back in 2014 or 2015.   We loved this race and were so looking forward to going back!