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.

History

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 miles (Template:Convert/(4)*1609.344) 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 Template:Convert/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 Template:Convert/mi/h. There is a discrepancy in average speed recognised because CART did not use the commonly recognised 2.000 miles (Template:Convert/(2.000)*1609.344) distance used by NASCAR and INDYCAR, but measured the track as 2.029 miles (Template:Convert/(2.029)*1609.344), which converts the de Ferran speed under CART measurement to Template:Convert/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).

Race results

Ontario Motor Speedway

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

Season	Date	Driver	Team	Chassis	Engine	Race Distance		Race Time	Average Speed (mph)
						Laps	Miles (km)
USAC Championship Car
1970	September 6	Jim McElreath	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Coyote	Ford	200	500 (805)	3:07:22	160.106
1971	September 5	Joe Leonard	Vel's Parnelli Jones	Colt	Ford	200	500 (805)	3:16:55	152.354
1972	September 3	Roger McCluskey	Lindsay Hopkins	McLaren	Offy	200	500 (805)		151.54
1973	September 2	Wally Dallenbach, Sr.	Patrick Racing	Eagle	Offy	200	500 (805)	3:10:17	157.66
1974	March 10	Bobby Unser	All American Racers	Eagle	Offy	200	500 (805)	3:11:04	157.017
1975	March 9	A.J. Foyt	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Coyote	Foyt	200	500 (805)	3:14:22	154.344
1976	September 5	Bobby Unser	All American Racers	Eagle	Offy	200	500 (805)	3:29:26	143.246
1977	September 4	Al Unser	Vel's Parnelli Jones	Parnelli	Cosworth	200	500 (805)	3:17:16	154.687
1978	September 3	Al Unser	Chaparral Racing	Chaparral	Cosworth	200	500 (805)	3:26:40	145.158
CART IndyCar
1979	September 2	Bobby Unser	Penske Racing	Penske	Cosworth	200	500 (805)	3:24:22	146.794
1980	August 31	Bobby Unser	Penske Racing	Penske	Cosworth	200	500 (805)	3:11:51	156.372

Auto Club Speedway

Races held at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Season	Date	Driver	Team	Chassis	Engine	Race Distance		Race Time	Average Speed (mph)	Report
						Laps	Miles (km)
CART Champ Car
1997	September 28	Mark Blundell	PacWest Racing	Reynard	Mercedes-Benz	250	500 (805)	3:02:42	166.575	Report
1998	November 1	Jimmy Vasser	Chip Ganassi Racing	Reynard	Honda	250	500 (805)	3:17:54	153.785	Report
1999	October 31	Adrián Fernández	Patrick Racing	Reynard	Ford-Cosworth	250	500 (805)	2:57:17	171.666	Report
2000	October 30	Christian Fittipaldi	Newman-Haas Racing	Lola	Ford-Cosworth	250	500 (805)	3:38:04	139.563	Report
2001	November 4	Cristiano da Matta	Newman-Haas Racing	Lola	Toyota	220*	440 (708)	2:59:39	149.073	Report
2002	November 3	Jimmy Vasser	Team Rahal	Lola	Ford-Cosworth	250	500 (805)	2:33:42	197.995	Report
2003	November 9	Cancelled due to wildfires in the San Bernardino Mountains.								Report
IRL/IZOD IndyCar Series
2002	March 24	Sam Hornish, Jr.	Panther Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	200	400 (644)	2:13:49	179.345	Report
2003	September 21	Sam Hornish, Jr.	Panther Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	200	400 (644)	1:55:51	207.151	Report
2004	October 3	Adrian Fernández	Aguri-Fernández Racing	G-Force	Honda	200	400 (644)	2:14:13	178.826	Report
2005	October 16	Dario Franchitti	Andretti Green Racing	Dallara	Honda	200	400 (644)	2:22:23	168.567	Report
2006 – 2011	Not held
2012	September 15	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	250	500 (805)	2:57:34	168.939	Report
2013	October 19	Will Power	Penske Racing	Dallara	Chevrolet	250	500 (805)	3:13:43	154.867	Report

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

Firestone Indy Lights

Season	Date	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Race Distance		Race Time	Average Speed (mph)
					Laps	Miles (km)
Auto Club Speedway
1997	September 27	Clint Mears	Lola	Buick	50	100 (161)	0:52:16	116.467
1998	October 31	Mark Hotchkis	Lola	Buick	50	100 (161)	0:39:41	153.395
1999	October 30	Jonny Kane	Lola	Buick	50	100 (161)	0:46:52	129.902
2000	October 29	Scott Dixon	Lola	Buick	50	100 (161)	0:33:08	183.672
2001	November 4	Townsend Bell	Lola	Buick	44	88 (142)	0:29:23	182.334
2002	Not held
2003	September 20	Mark Taylor	Dallara	Infiniti	50	100 (161)	0:41:14	145.536
2004	October 2	James Chesson	Dallara	Infiniti	50	100 (161)	0:40:51	146.894
2005	October 16	Wade Cunningham	Dallara	Infiniti	50	100 (161)	0:43:07	139.17
2006 – 2011	Not held
2012	September 15	Carlos Muñoz	Dallara	Honda	50	100 (161)	0:37:38	159.41
2013	October 19	Carlos Muñoz	Dallara	Honda	50	100 (161)	0:32:10	186.552

External links

• Champ Car Stats: Ontario archive, Fontana archive
• Ultimate Racing History: Ontario archive, Fontana archive

Template:IndyCar Series races