The IZOD IndyCar World Championship Presented by Honda was an

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of ...

race on the

Las Vegas Motor Speedway Las Vegas Motor Speedway, located in Clark County, Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada about 15 miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip, is a complex of multiple tracks for motorsports racing. The complex is owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which is ...

, held from 1996 to 2000, and again in 2011. It was first known as the Las Vegas 500k. The Champ Car World Series held a race at the track during the

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

and

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

seasons as doubleheaders with the

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a pickup truck racing series owned and operated by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and is the only series in NASCAR to race production pickup truck based stock cars. The series is one of th ...

and a street race was held in Las Vegas at the

Fremont Street Experience The Fremont Street Experience (FSE) is a pedestrian mall and attraction in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The FSE occupies the westernmost five blocks of Fremont Street, including the area known for years as "Glitter Gulch", and portions of some ot ...

in 2007.

Race history

AAA Championship Car

The Silver State Century was a 100-lap/100-mile race at Las Vegas Park, a dirt track in Las Vegas.

Jimmy Bryan James Ernest Bryan (January 28, 1926 – June 19, 1960) was an American racecar driver who won the 1958 Indianapolis 500. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Bryan died as a result of injuries sustained in a champ car race at Langhorne Speedway. Career ...

was the winner of the race's lone running.

Stardust Raceway

The

USAC Championship Car From 1956 to 1978, USAC Championship Car seasons featured the top teams and drivers in U.S. open-wheel racing. Until 1971, the Championship contained road courses, ovals, dirt courses, and, on occasion, a hill climb. Thereafter, the schedule ...

series held a race on the short-lived

Stardust International Raceway The Stardust International Raceway was an auto racing track in present-day Spring Valley, Nevada, in the Las Vegas Valley. It featured a flat, , 13-turn road course, and a quarter-mile drag strip. Some track maps depicted the road course with ...

in 1968. Bobby Unser won the Stardust 150 ahead of Mario Andretti and Joe Leonard.

Caesars Palace

Starting in 1981, Formula One scheduled a race on laid out in the parking lot of the Caesars Palace hotel. Following mediocre crowds, Formula One left after only two years. In 1983, Champ Car, CART picked up where Formula One left off, and started holding a race on the same course (albeit the layout was modified). After two editions under CART sanctioning, the race ended.

Indy Racing League

In 1996,

was announced as a venue for the newly formed Indy Racing League. The facility was still under construction when it was added to the 1996-1997 in IRL, 1996-97 season. For the first four runnings, the race was advertised as a 500 km race. Starting in 1997, the race was moved to a night race. In 2000, it was moved from the fall to the spring, and returned to a day race. After 2000, the race was removed from the

for a decade.

Champ Car

In 2004–2005, the Champ Car series held a race at

. Both editions were held under the lights on a Saturday night as part of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series weekend in the fall. After only two years, however, the race was considered unpopular and was removed from the schedule. For 2005, the name of the race was changed to the Hurricane Relief 400, and it served as a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Fremont Street

In July 2006, the Las Vegas City Council approved a , 14-turn, counterclockwise street circuit in Downtown Las Vegas area near the

. Champ Car held their first event on Easter, Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007. The race was titled the Vegas Grand Prix. The course was generally liked by competitors and fans. With the dissolution of the Champ Car World Series in 2008, the event was cancelled after only one running.

Lap Records

IZOD IndyCar World Championships

On February 22, 2011, IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard announced the IZOD IndyCar World Championships to be held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, reviving the 200-lap, 300-mile race format on the new variable banking. The race was adopted as a tripleheader, with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Smith's 350 on Saturday and for the first time, a 100.5-mile Firestone Indy Lights race on Sunday morning. The 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship, first INDYCAR race since 2000 started with a hard-charging Indy Lights race where Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammates Josef Newgarden, Esteban Guerrieri, and Victor Carbone battled each other on the final lap, but Carbone cut the new Indy Lights champion Newgarden's tire on the Nellis Straightaway, leading Guerrieri and Carbone to fight for the win in a side-by-side finish, with Carbone winning by .0229 seconds. The 200-lap IndyCar feature ended on lap 12 after a 15-car crash that claimed the life of fellow Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver Dan Wheldon. IndyCar decided that the race would not continue, and spectators were offered refunds of all Sunday tickets that were used, and partial refunds of multiple-day tickets (Qualifying and NASCAR tickets could not be refunded, as Friday qualifying and Saturday NASCAR events finished without incident, so only the portion relating with the Sunday race could be processed).Dan Wheldon dies in crash at Las Vegas Indy 300
/ref> As a result of the incident, on December 8, 2011, Bernard announced that the IndyCar World Championships would not return to Las Vegas in 2012. The Smith's 350, which had been set for the IndyCar weekend, was moved up two weeks.

Past winners

Las Vegas Park (dirt oval)

Fremont Street circuit

Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Firestone Indy Lights

In 2011, the Firestone Indy Lights support race was added to the World Championships.

References

External links

IndyCar.com race page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Izod Indycar World Championship Champ Car races Motorsport in Las Vegas Former IndyCar Series races Las Vegas Motor Speedway