Greg Moore (race car driver)

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Greg Moore
Image:Moore8.jpg
Greg Moore
Champ Car World Series Record
Nationality Flag of Canada Canadian
Car # 99
Current team Player's Forsythe Racing
Race starts 72
Series Championships 0
Wins 5
Podium finishes 17
Pole positions 5
First Champ Car race 1996 Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami
First win 1997 Milwaukee Miller Lite 200
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Greg Moore (born April 22, 1975; died October 31, 1999) was a Canadian race car driver who competed in the Indy Lights and CART World Series, where he had great success with several wins in both series and a championship in the 1995 Indy Lights series. However, his promising career and his life came to an end on October 31st, 1999, when he was fatally injured in a violent crash on the 10th lap of the CART season finale, the Marlboro 500, at California Speedway in Fontana, California.

Contents

[edit] Career Biography

[edit] Origins and Early Career

Moore was born in New Westminster, British Columbia. He lived in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge, attending Meadowridge School and graduating from Pitt Meadows Secondary School.

His early racing career progressed through go-karts, winning the North American Enduro Kart Championships in 1989 and 1990 Moving up to Formula Ford cars in 1991, Greg was named the Esso Protec Formula Ford 1600 Rookie of the Year after winning one race and placing fourth in the overall championship.

In 1992, Greg won four races and took four pole positions. He was the USAC Formula 2000 West Champion and Rookie of the Year.

The following year, Greg began racing in the Indy Lights circuit. Despite racing with an under-funded, family-run team, he placed ninth in the 1993 Indy Lights Championship. At the age of 18, Greg became the youngest driver ever to win a CART-sanctioned race when he won the 1994 Indy Lights season-opener at Phoenix. He won three Lights races in 1994 and finished third in the championship.

Greg joined the Player's Forsythe racing team and won the 1995 Indy Lights Championship with a spectacular record-setting season that saw him win 10 of 12 races, including five in a row.

[edit] CART World Series Career

[edit] 1996 Season

At the age of 20, Greg graduated to Indycars when the Player's Forsythe racing team promoted him to the top level series. His rookie season included a second place finish at Nazareth, third at Cleveland and fourth in Toronto. Greg finished 9th overall in the Championship with 84 points and was runner up to Alex Zanardi for the Jim Truman Rookie of the Year award.

[edit] 1997 Season

Greg started the 1997 season well, earning 2nd place finishes at races in Gold Coast, Australia and Rio De Janeiro. At the 7th race of the season, Greg became the youngest driver in Indycar racing history at that time to win a race when he scored his first CART victory in June 1997 at Milwaukee at the age of 22, beating Michael Andretti by mere seconds. 7 days later, Greg scored his 2nd career victory in an exciting and dramatic race at Detroit, where Greg started the final lap in 3rd place, but passed both cars of the PacWest Racing team, when both Mauricio Gugelmin and Mark Blundell ran out of fuel in front of him on the final lap. After those two races, Greg and his team struggled for the rest of the 1997 season, and finished 7th in the Championship with 111 points.

[edit] 1998 Season

At the start of the season Greg was paired with a teammate for the first time, fellow Canadian Patrick Carpentier and started the year strongly, with 3 top 5's in the first 4 races. The 5th race of the season at Rio De Janeiro, Greg diced and raced hard against Alex Zanardi, before a dramatic outside pass sealed the win. Later in the season, at Michigan he passed Zanardi and Jimmy Vasser on the last lap to win the US 500 and the Vanderbilt Cup award. This win was tragically overshadowed by the deaths of three spectators in an earlier incident where a tire flew over the protective fencing and went into the grandstands. As in 1997, Moore's season tailed off in a series of retirements and poor finishes and he finished the year fifth overall with 141 points.

[edit] 1999 Season

1999 started off very well for Greg, with a win at Homestead, his 5th career and final win in the CART series. He led the championship for the first few races, but an uncompetitive Mercedes engine, and poor results ensured that he would not win the Championship again. As 1999 was the final year of his contract with Player's-Forsythe racing, Greg began to look at his options for the coming seasons. Near the end of the 1999 season, at the race in Houston, Greg announced he had signed a contract to race in 2000 for one of the powerhouse teams, Marlboro Team Penske run by Roger Penske.

[edit] The 1999 Marlboro 500

On October 31, the 1999 Marlboro 500 at the California Speedway in Fontana was the final race of the CART World Series season. It was also Greg's final race with the Player's Forsythe racing team, the team he had raced with for the past 5 years.

During the weekend before the race, Greg was knocked off his motor scooter by a paddock vehicle and injured his right hand. Unsure that Greg would be able to race, Player's-Forsythe hired Roberto Moreno as an emergency backup driver. After a medical consultation, and an in-car test, he was allowed to race using a hand brace - albeit starting from the back of the grid because his team had missed qualifying.

On lap nine of the race Moore apparently lost control of his car in the exit of the second turn and spun into the infield grass at over 200 mph. His car hit an access road and was 'tripped' over to strike the infield concrete wall upside-down at unabated speed. Upon impact he suffered massive head, brain, neck, and other internal injuries. He was extricated by the CART Safety Team, and was airlifted to nearby Loma Linda University Medical Center. Exhaustive efforts to rescuscitate him were made as the injuries had stopped his breathing, however they all failed. Moore was just 24 years old when he died. The race continued on, with Adrian Fernandez winning the race. Greg was pronounced dead before the end of the race, and upon learning of his passing, California Speedway ordered all track flags at half staff, and CART ordered that there would be no post-race victory celebrations. Player's Forsythe racing ordered their other driver, Patrick Carpentier, into the pits and retired Patrick's car mid-race (a traditional act by race teams with more than 1 car when one of their drivers die). All other drivers were unaware of Greg's passing until the end of the race. At the request of Greg's father, Ric Moore, the CART end of season awards banquet continued as scheduled on the following night, although its format was changed out of respect for the families of Greg Moore and Gonzalo Rodriguez, another CART driver who was killed in a crash earlier in the season at Laguna Seca.

[edit] Post Accident

Greg Moore was a well-liked driver by both racing fans and members of the CART racing community. Makeshift memorials were started at his former high school, Pitt Meadows, and at Greg's father's car dealership, Maple Ridge Chrysler. The Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in Toronto also had a small memorial with a condolence book for people to sign.

A funeral service was held in Greg's hometown of Maple Ridge, and was attended by over 1500 people. The church was full and consequently a tent with TV screens and speakers were set up outside the church for many others who attended but could not get inside.

The new owners of California Speedway, International Speedway Corporation, reacted quickly to his fatal crash. Following similar procedures done at ISC's Daytona International Speedway in 1984 (on the Turn 4 side) and 1995 (on the backstretch) and Talladega Superspeedway in 1995 (start-finsh line section) and 1998 (Turn 2 and Turn 4), ISC paved over the backstretch infield of the two D-ovals they had recently purchased from Roger Penske, the California Speedway and Michigan International Speedway.

CART mandated a head-and-neck restraint system on ovals shortly afterwards, with the rule eventually being mandatory on all tracks. The most common of these restraint systems is the HANS device.

[edit] Trivia

His father Ric Moore, an active member of the community, continues his legacy through the Greg Moore Foundation.

The Maple Ridge youth center, opened in 2003, was named the Greg Moore Youth center in his honour.

A banner hangs in Meadowridge School as well as Pitt Meadows Secondary in tribute to him.

The McDonald's on the Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge has a trophy case with memorabilia dedicated to Greg.

In 2000 Moore was to join Team Penske, however, following his death, he was replaced by Helio Castroneves, who had just lost his ride when the Hogan Racing team ceased operations.

Friend and fellow Canadian Paul Tracy used the notes on Moore's chassis to score a come-from-behind win at the CART race at Long Beach the following year.

Dario Franchitti dedicated his win in the Molson Indy Vancouver in 2002 to Moore's memory.

Moore's sponsor for most of his career was British American Tobacco (Player's). Player's was a popular sponsor in Canadian motorsport until the Canadian Federal Legislation banned tobacco advertising outright in 2003.

Moore's car number, 99, was retired by CART (now Champ Car) as a mark of respect after Greg's death. The number 99 was Greg's chosen number because it was assigned to him when he first started racing go-karts. Although an ardent hockey fan, 99 had nothing to do with Wayne Gretzky's hockey number.

Champ Car presents a trophy annually called the Greg Moore Legacy Award. It is given every year to a driver who best typifies Moore's legacy of outstanding talent on track, as well as displaying a dynamic personality with fans, media, and within the CART/Champ Car community. As Greg was a product of the CART Ladder System, having competed in the Indy Lights Championship from 1993-95 and winning 10 of 12 races en route to the series title in 1995, drivers from the Champ Car Atlantic series are also eligible for the award.

Not only a race driver, Greg also played ice hockey while growing up in and around Vancouver. He played on the same peewee team as future NHL star Paul Kariya.

Greg was the primary reason for the marriage of fellow racer Dario Franchitti and actor Ashley Judd. Greg was invited to a party hosted by actor, fellow Vancouverite and friend Jason Priestley. Greg brought Dario along and it was at that party that Ashley and Dario were first introduced.

Greg Moore was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2000.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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