New Year’s Revolutions at the Indy Racing League
Written by Allan Brewer · January 4, 2007
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Photo: IndyRacingLeague
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2007 Season On-Deck for American Open-Wheel Fans
First IRL Start Beats Baseball’s First Pitch
Sam Hornish’s engraved sterling silver image on the base of the Borg-Warner trophy glimmers anew just in time to tip-off another season of open-wheel competition in the Indy Racing League.
Two warm-weather pre-season tests at Daytona and Homestead in January and February kick off the New Year for the IRL teams. The evening of March 24th delivers the season-opener under the lights at tropical Homestead/Miami International Speedway. The event will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 8PM EST and drops the flag on a seventeen-event high-speed tour across the continent and into the Far East.
Last year’s Homestead champ Dan Wheldon returns bedecked in the familiar Target bulls-eye to battle the Penske duo of steely-eyed Sam Hornish and teammate Helio Castroneves. New Zealander Scott Dixon shares stable-space with Wheldon again in the red cars that chased to the end in 2006’s thrillingly close wrap-up in Chicago.
“It’s a great racetrack, and I’ve had a lot of success there,” said Hornish of Homestead-Miami Speedway. “I look at that track as someplace that I love starting the year out because it seems I usually get a good start in the points. I like the night races and I think it will be a great show there.”
The knock on the IRL has always been its oval-course overdose at the expense of the twisty-turning road circuits. In this new season, however, the shocking truth that nearly a third of the schedule plays out over street and road racing courses promises more suspense than an Eddie Cheever-Marco Andretti double date.
Hard-working Texas Motor Speedway, host to 17 races (the most in the series) since the birth of the IRL in 1996, remains on course for an encore in 2007. Cowboy-hatted Helio Castroneves was top gun in 2006 for the second time at the 1.5-mile oval. This year the winning hand will have to travel 50 kilometers further up the trail as additional distance has been added to the race.
All of the IRL venues from 2006 return to the League schedule. The road courses at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Belle Isle in Detroit, as well as the 0.875-mile oval at the new Iowa Speedway, round out the remainder of the calendar.
The corn will barely be in the ground when the IRL’s semi-tractor trailers roll into Kansas Speedway on April 29th. Along with Nashville and Michigan International, Kansas has played host to a different driver/car combination in the winner’s circle dating back to the last century.
Delightfully mild Watkins Glen promises relief from the midsummer swelter of the Midwest to the faithful fans that follow the League there on July 8th, where back-to-back winner Dixon and two-years-running pole-sitter Castroneves battle for their respective hat-trick on the historic upstate Empire State circuit.
Beating the heat at humid little Sparta, Kentucky’s tiny jewel of an oval led the IRL and organizers to move the start to the cooler evening hours as well. Hornish attempts to put up his third victory at the track in the Bluegrass on August 8th.
Needless to add that the venerable grand-dame of American racing, the Indianapolis 500, goes off on Memorial Day May 27th for its 91st running. This year’s theme of “Spirit and Speed” parallels a month of festivities, events, celebrations and competition that make central Indiana’s spring tradition the greatest marathon of motor-driven madness in the world.
2007 Indianapolis 500 tickets: Tickets are on sale for the 91st Indianapolis 500, scheduled for Sunday, May 27, 2007. Tickets can be purchased at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Web site, www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com, by phone or at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Ticket Office. The IMS Ticket Office can be contacted at (800) 822-INDY outside the Indianapolis area or (317) 492-6700 locally. Ticket Office hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Parking and camping permits for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” also can be purchased online, by phone or at the Ticket Office.
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