Walker Racing was a racing team founded by

Derrick Walker Derrick Walker (born 8 April 1945 in Leven, Scotland) is a former British auto racing team owner. In May 2013 Walker became President of operations and competition of IndyCar until the finalization of the 2015 Indycar season. Career Formula ...

in 1991 racing originally in the

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed tr ...

Championship Car American open-wheel car racing, also known as Indy car racing, is a category of professional automobile racing in the United States. As of 2022, the top-level American open-wheel racing championship is sanctioned by IndyCar. Competitive event ...

series. It last competed in the

United SportsCar Championship The IMSA SportsCar Championship, currently known as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship under sponsorship, is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMS ...

under the name of Team Falken Tire until Falken Tire pulled out of not only the series but the team in general at the conclusion of the 2015 United SportsCar Championship season.

Early success

The team was founded by Walker, who purchased the left over assets of the former Porsche Indy team. In the first season, 1991, the team successfully qualified rookie

Willy T. Ribbs William Theodore Ribbs Jr. (born January 3, 1955) is a retired American race car driver, racing owner, and sport shooter known for being the first African-American man to have tested a Formula One car (he did so in 1986) and to compete in the Ind ...

at the

Indy 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianap ...

. In 1992, the team fielded

Scott Goodyear Scott Goodyear (born December 20, 1959) is a Canadian former race car driver. He ran the Indy Racing League and Champ Car series during his career from 1987, winning the Michigan 500 in 1992 and 1994. Goodyear qualified for eleven runnings of th ...

on a full-time basis who won at

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and nearly won the

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

. He was joined beginning with the 1993 Indianapolis 500 by

who raced with the team until the end of the 1994 season. The team ran a third full-time car in 1993 for

Hiro Matsushita , also known by , is a Japanese businessman and former racing driver. Matsushita is the first and only Japanese driver to win the Toyota Atlantic Championship (Pacific) in 1989 and also the first Japanese driver to race at the Indy 500. He is th ...

. Goodyear was replaced at the beginning of the 1994 season by

Robby Gordon Robert Wesley Gordon (born January 2, 1969) is an American auto racing driver. He has raced in NASCAR, CART, the IndyCar Series, the Trans-Am Series, IMSA, IROC and the Dakar Rally. He is active in top-tier off road motorsports such as BITD, N ...

who raced with the team with

Valvoline Valvoline Inc. is an American manufacturer and distributor of Valvoline-brand automotive oil, additives, and lubricants. It also owns the Valvoline Instant Oil Change and Valvoline Express Care chains of car repair centers. , it is the second ...

sponsorship until 1996. Gordon raced alongside teammate Mark Smith who was a championship contender in Indy Lights and showed promise in his 1993 CART rookie season but had a difficult 1994 season with the Walker Racing team. Smith was replaced by rookie

Christian Fittipaldi Christian Fittipaldi (born 18 January 1971) is a Brazilian former racing driver who has competed in various forms of motorsport including Formula One, Champ Car, and NASCAR. He was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, and parti ...

in 1995 who finished second in the Indy 500 and finished 15th in points. As a results of the CART-

IRL IRL may refer to: Places * Republic of Ireland (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code) * Irlam railway station (National Rail station code IRL), England Organizations * International Rugby League, the governing body for the sport of rugby league * I ...

split in 1996, the Walker team elected to participate in both races with Gordon and

Fredrik Ekblom Fredrik Ekblom (born 6 October 1970) is a Swedish race car driver from Kumla. After an early career in single-seaters he switched to touring car racing where he won multiple titles in his native Swedish Touring Car Championship and later in the ...

driving in the

U.S. 500 The U.S. 500 was an automobile race sanctioned by Championship Auto Racing Teams, CART, it was held at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. The event was held from 1973 to 1986 and again in 1996 due to the event being known as t ...

and

Mike Groff Michael Dennis Groff (born November 16, 1961 in Van Nuys, California) is a former race car driver who competed in CART and the IRL IndyCar Series and was the 1989 Indy Lights champion. His younger brother Robbie was also a CART and IRL driver ...

racing in the 1996 Indianapolis 500. In 1997,

Gil de Ferran Gil de Ferran (born November 11, 1967 in Paris, France) is a French-born Brazilian professional racing driver and team owner. De Ferran was the 2000 and 2001 Champ Car champion driving for Team Penske and the winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 5 ...

took over the Valvoline car and was the runner up in the championship that year, despite not scoring a victory. De Ferran stayed with the team until 1999, a year where he finally broke through and scored his first victory for the team, the team's first since Gordon's win at

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

in 1995.

A series of pay drivers

With no driver or sponsorship for the 2000 season, the team was forced to take on

pay driver A pay driver is a driver for a professional auto racing team who, instead of being paid by the owner of their car, drives for free and brings with them either personal sponsorship or personal or family funding to finance the team's operations. Th ...

Shinji Nakano Shinji Nakano (中野信治, born 1 April 1971) is a Japanese professional racing driver. His father, Tsuneharu, was also a racing driver. He competed in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship. Racing career Pre Formula One Career Formu ...

who finished a disappointing 24th in points. Meanwhile, the team entered the

Indy Racing League 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 ...

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 ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

with rookie female driver

Sarah Fisher Sarah Marie Fisher (born October 4, 1980) is an American retired professional race car driver who competed in the Indy Racing League (IRL, now IndyCar Series) and the Indianapolis 500 intermittently from 1999 to 2010. She also raced in the NAS ...

who was inconsistent but fast in her two years with the team, scoring a career-best finish of 2nd place at Homestead-Miami Speedway in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

. Nakano was replaced in the team's CART entry in 2001 by countryman

Tora Takagi Toranosuke "Tora" Takagi (高木虎之介; born 12 February 1974) is a Japanese former racing driver. Early career Takagi was heavily influenced by his father, a touring car driver. In the early 1980s he began racing karts, competing in his f ...

who brought

Pioneer Electronics commonly referred to as Pioneer, is a Japanese multinational corporation based in Tokyo, that specializes in digital entertainment products. The company was founded by Nozomu Matsumoto in January 1, 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair ...

sponsorship to the team. Takagi managed slightly improved results over Nakano scoring 10 top-10 finishes in his two seasons with the team. The team also attempted to field

Oriol Servia Oriol () is a Catalan name, which can be found as a given name or a surname. It derives from the Latin word ''aureus'' (golden). It was originally just a surname, but started to be used as a given name in honour of Saint Joseph Oriol. It may refe ...

in the 2002 Indianapolis 500 but he failed to qualify. Takagi left to the IRL in 2003 and the void was filled by Mexican driver Rodolfo Lavin who brought

Corona Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to: * Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star * Corona (beer), a Mexican beer * Corona, informal term for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 di ...

sponsorship. Walker ran

Darren Manning Darren Manning (born 30 April 1975) is a British motor racing driver who has raced in the IRL IndyCar Series for Chip Ganassi Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Career history Early career Manning was born in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, ...

full-time in a second car with a variety of different sponsors and he finished 9th in points while Lavin only managed 18th. Both drivers were gone for 2004 as the series morphed into the

Champ Car World Series Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ...

. Brazilian

Mario Haberfeld is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...

drove the team's only full-time car. Late in that season Australian businessman Craig Gore bought into the team and it became

Team Australia Team Australia was an auto racing team competing in the V8 Supercars and Champ Car World Series. It was created in early 2005 when two Australian businessmen Craig Gore and John Fish bought into Derrick Walker's Walker Racing operation. After ...

Team Australia

In 2005 the team took an Australian turn due to its new sponsorship, with the addition of Aussie Vineyards sponsorship and Australian rookie driver

Marcus Marshall Marcus Marshall (born 25 November 1978) is a former Champ Car driver from Australia. Biography He began racing in British Formula Three, where he was generally a running outside the top ten, but took a hard-fought win in a wet race. He contest ...

joining Canadian veteran

Alex Tagliani Alexandre Tagliani (; born October 18, 1973), nicknamed "Tag", is a Canadian professional racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series, driving the No. 18 Chevrolet Camaro for 22 Racing. Tagliani has competed in a variety ...

as the team returned to two full-time cars.

Will Power William "Will" Steven Power (born 1 March 1981) is an Australian motorsports driver who currently competes in the IndyCar Series, driving for Team Penske. He is the 2014 and 2022 IndyCar Series champion and the 2018 Indianapolis 500 champion. ...

made his debut in a third car at the 2005

Lexmark Indy 300 The Gold Coast Indy 300 was an annual open-wheel motor race event that took place at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia from 1991 to 2008. The challenging track, alongside a strip of beaches, had sever ...

in Australia and replaced Marshall for the season finale in Mexico. The pair of Tagliani and Power continued with the team in 2006 and Tagliani was replaced by 2006

Champ Car Atlantic Series The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

champion

Simon Pagenaud Simon Pagenaud (born 18 May 1984) is a French professional racing driver. He is contracted to drive the No. 60 Honda for Meyer Shank Racing in the IndyCar Series. After a successful career in sports car racing that saw him taking the top class ...

in 2007. Power won two races in 2007 including the season opener in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, the team's first victory since Gil De Ferran was with the team. Walker initially indicated that he believed that the Champ Car World Series had run its last race and he was preparing to race in the IRL IndyCar Series in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

. However, on March 9 the team announced that it would not race in the IndyCar Series in 2008 as it was unable to find adequate funding to do so as sponsor Aussie Vineyards jumped ship to KV Racing. Walker Racing did finally appear in the 2008 season in a joint effort with

Vision Racing Vision Racing was a racing team in the Indy Racing League founded in 2005 when Tony George purchased the assets of the defunct Kelley Racing and hired his stepson Ed Carpenter to be the driver. The team has previously raced in the Izod IndyCa ...

at Edmonton to run

Paul Tracy Paul Anthony Tracy (born December 17, 1968) is a Canadian-American former professional auto racing driver who competed in CART, the Champ Car World Series and the IndyCar Series. He is known by the nicknames "PT" and "the Thrill from West Hill". ...

. Walker fielded Stefan Wilson for a partial season campaign in

Indy Lights Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as Firestone Indy NXT Series for sponsorship reasons. Indy Lights is the highest step on the Road to Indy, a program ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

American Le Mans Series

In 2011, Derrick Walker joined forces with Team Falken Tire to run a

Porsche 997 GT3 The Porsche 911 GT3 is a high-performance homologation model of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is a line of high-performance models, which began with the 1973 911 Carrera RS. The GT3 has had a successful racing career in the one-make national ...

-RSR in the upcoming American Le Mans Series season in the GT class. Falken's motorsports division made their ALMS début in

racing certain events before entering a full 2010 season. The team took its maiden victory at the 2011 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge in which heavy rain towards the end of the race which favoured the team as the rain tires Falken developed were considerably better than those of

Michelin Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...

and Dunlop.

Wolf Henzler Wolfgang Henzler (born 5 April 1975) is a former German Porsche factory racing driver. He began racing in 1991 with a win in the German Junior Kart championship. Born in Nürtingen, Baden-Württemberg, he won one time the 24 Hours of Le Mans in ...

, one of the drivers in the race was in seventh when the rain started falling and went up to fifth before the safety car came out. In the restart, Henzler overtook the next four cars in a single lap to take the lead before the red flags came out around ten minutes before the end of the race. It was also the first win for a team running on Falken Tires and also the first wins for drivers Wolf Henzler and

Bryan Sellers Bryan Sellers (born August 19, 1982 in Dayton, Ohio) is an American racing driver. Sellers won the title in the U.S. F2000 in 2002 and later competed in the Atlantic Championship and in racing sports cars. Racing career Bryan Sellers first com ...

Ed Carpenter Racing

In 2012, Derrick Walker returned to the

as team manager for Ed Carpenter Racing, co-owned by

Tony George Anton Hulman "Tony" George (born December 30, 1959) is the former Chairman, President, and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Hulman & Company, serving from 1989 to 2009. He was also formerly on the Board of Directors of both entities ...

and driver Ed Carpenter. The team is based in the Walker Racing facility and utilizes Walker Racing's equipment and personnel.

Closure

On 20 November 2016 the team was put up for auction after a year of searching for a replacement sponsor for its IMSA team. On 6 December 2016 after the auction is complete the team will be officially listed as defunct.

Drivers

CART/CCWS

Jon Beekhuis Jon Beekhuis (; born March 31, 1960) is an American former race car driver. Beekhuis was born in Zurich, Switzerland while his American father was studying at ETH Zurich, and grew up in California. The 1988 ARS (Indy Lights) champion, Beekhuis d ...

(1992) *

David Besnard David Besnard, (born 21 January 1977 in Sydney, Australia) is a retired professional racing driver. Career history Starting in karts in 1991, he quickly proceeded into Formula Ford in 1995. After initial success, he had a major accident at Easte ...

(2004) *

(1997-1999) * Luis Diaz (2003) *

(1996) *

(1995) *

A. J. Foyt Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr. (born January 16, 1935) is an American retired auto racing driver who has raced in numerous genres of motorsports. His open wheel racing includes United States Automobile Club Champ cars, sprint cars, and midget cars. H ...

(1992) *

Memo Gidley José Guillermo "Memo" Gidley is a Mexican-born racing driver, of German and Canadian ancestry, born in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico on September 29, 1970. He holds dual citizenship - American and Mexican. In his early years, he sold his ...

(1999) *

(1991-1993, 1996) *

(1994-1996) *

(1992, 1996) *

(2004) *

Naoki Hattori is a motoring journalist and racing driver from Japan. After he won the Japanese Formula 3 championship in 1990, he failed to pre-qualify for two Formula One Grands Prix with Coloni in 1991 as a late-season replacement for Pedro Chaves. He r ...

(1999) *

Bryan Herta Bryan John Herta (born May 23, 1970) is an American former race car driver. He currently runs his own team, Bryan Herta Autosport in the NTT IndyCar Series. His team won the 2011 Indianapolis 500 with driver Dan Wheldon and the 2016 Indianapol ...

(2000) *

Rodolfo Lavín Rodolfo Lavín Martínez (born July 30, 1977) is a Mexican racing driver from San Luis Potosí. He most notably raced in the Champ Car World Series. In Mexico, Lavín raced in Formula Azteca and Formula 3. With funding in the form of sponsorsh ...

(2003) *

Buddy Lazier Robert Buddy Lazier (born October 31, 1967) is an American auto racing driver, best known for winning the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and the 2000 Indy Racing League season championship. Lazier began his career in the 1980s by competing in such s ...

(1991) *

(2003) *

(2005) *

(1993) *

(2000) *

(2007) *

(2005-2007) *

(1991-1994) * Mark Smith (1994) *

(2005-2006, 2008) *

(2001-2002) *

Michael Valiante Michael Valiante (born November 11, 1979, in New Westminster, British Columbia) is a Canadian racing driver. Formula racing Valiante began racing in karting where his success earned him a full-season scholarship in the Skip Barber 2.0 Series. ...

(2004) *

Charles Zwolsman Charles Zwolsman (6 August 1955 – 21 January 2011) was a Dutch drug dealer and professional racecar driver and team owner. Drug dealing Zwolsman was born in Oostzaan, and started dealing in marijuana in the 1980s. He built an organization ...

(2005)

IRL IndyCar Series

(2008) *

(2000-2001) *

(1996)

Racing results

Complete CART FedEx Championship Series results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (results in bold indicate pole position) (results in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) # The

Firestone Firehawk 600 The Firestone Firehawk 600 was a CART series auto race scheduled for April 29, 2001 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It was scheduled for 248 laps around the oval at TMS. However, it was postponed and ultimately ca ...

was canceled after qualifying due to excessive

g-force The gravitational force equivalent, or, more commonly, g-force, is a measurement of the type of force per unit mass – typically acceleration – that causes a perception of weight, with a g-force of 1 g (not gram in mass measure ...

s on the drivers.

Complete IRL IndyCar Series results

(

) # Run to

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

specifications. # Non-points-paying, exhibition race. # Run in conjunction with

References

{{Champ Car teams 1991 establishments in the United States American auto racing teams American Le Mans Series teams Champ Car teams IndyCar Series teams Indy Lights teams 2016 disestablishments in the United States Auto racing teams disestablished in 2016 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams Atlantic Championship teams Formula BMW teams