Toyota Indy 400

The MAVTV 500 IndyCar World Championships is an IZOD IndyCar Series race held at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The event represents a continuous lineage of open wheel oval racing in the Southern California -area that dates back to 1970. The 2012 event was sponsored by MAVTV, a motorsports cable channel owned by Lucas Oil. NBC Sports Network carried the race on television, as they had done since the then-Versus network picked up rights to the IndyCar Series for every year except one, when ABC televised the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship. With the addition of this race to the schedule for 2012, Fontana returned to the IndyCar series for the first time in seven years. After Las Vegas Motor Speedway was not certified for the 2012 season, IndyCar elected to make the Fontana race its season finale. The race was the first IndyCar World Championship race that ran to its official distance, the 2011 race being abandoned due to a major accident which resulted in major damage to the track and the death of driver Dan Wheldon.

USAC
Open wheel oval racing in southern California dates back to the USAC California 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, held from 1970–1980. The race was part of Indy car racing's "triple crown", and at its inception, was held in high prestige. The inaugural running was considered a huge success, with 187,000 in attendance. However, the track fell into financial troubles, and closed in 1980. Subsequent runnings were never able to match the success of the 1970 event.

Indy car races were also held at nearby Riverside, but only from 1967–1969 (prior to the opening of Ontario) and again from 1981–1983 (after Ontario closed).

CART
CART renewed the 500-mile oval race in 1997 at the newly built California Speedway in Fontana, California. The new track was built just 4 mi from the previous Ontario circuit. The event was held under the moniker Marlboro 500, and served as the CART season finale. This event was held through 2002.

The 1999 race is considered a tragic day in the history of CART, after the fatal crash of Greg Moore. The 2003 event was cancelled due to the Old Fire.

Along with the popular Long Beach Grand Prix, the Southern California area featured two major open wheel CART races annually for a time.

Indy Racing League, LLC
In 2002, the IRL IndyCar Series added a 400-mile race to the facility. Fontana became the first facility to host races from both rival open wheel series (CART and IRL), although the race distance was different (500 vs 400 miles). The Toyota Indy 400 was held through 2005. However, crowds dwindled, and the event was removed from the calendar.

The IZOD IndyCar Series returns to Fontana for the 2012 season with a fall race under the lights at night. The race serves at the season finale. On June 25, 2012, it was announced the race will return to the traditional 500 mile distance and carry the "IndyCar World Championships" title.

Closed-course speed records
Two world closed course speed records were established in qualifying for the CART event. Mauricio Gugelmin, driving a Mercedes-Benz-powered Reynard established a one-lap time of 30.917 seconds (average speed of 232.882 mi/h under the commonly measured distance) before the inaugural race in 1997. On October 28, 2000, Gil de Ferran topped Gugelmin's time; driving a Penske Racing prepared Reynard with a Honda engine, de Ferran lapped the two-mile circuit in 30.255 seconds at 237.977 mi/h. There is a discrepancy in average speed recognised because CART did not use the commonly recognised 2.000 mi distance used by NASCAR and INDYCAR, but measured the track as 2.029 mi, which converts the de Ferran speed under CART measurement to 241.428 mi/h.

Also, the 2003 IndyCar race was the fastest circuit race ever in motorsport history, with an average speed of 207.151 mph (333.306 km/h) over 400 miles (643.737 km).

Ontario Motor Speedway
Race winners of the original California 500 held at Ontario Motor Speedway.

Auto Club Speedway
Races held at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.


 * 2001: Race started late because of rain and was shortened because of darkness.