Homestead–Miami Indy 300

The Homestead–Miami Indy 300 was a champ car race held at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida from 1996 to 2010. Before the construction of the Speedway, the race was a held on a road course at Bicentennial Park.

History

Early Miami races

In 1925, Carl Fisher (who built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909) was developing Miami Beach and envisioned the Miami area as the winter auto racing capital of the world. Fisher built the world's fastest 1-1/4 mile "boardtrack" (a wooden, oval race track), the Fulford-Miami Speedway in Fulford. The outstanding features of the track were the 50 degree banked turns. Turns banked this steep required a speed of at least 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) to keep the race car from sliding down into the infield. The turns at today's Daytona International Speedway are banked at only 31 degrees. On February 22, 1926, the first championship car race in South Florida took place. Ralph Hepburn, started second with a time of 141.9 miles per hour (228.4 km/h) A crowd of 20,000 spectators saw Peter DePaolo win the 300-mile (480-km) race, the only race ever held at the speedway. The track was destroyed in the hurricane of September 17, 1926. The site of the oval is now occupied by the Presidential Country Club.^[1]

CART events

Modern American open wheel racing in the Miami area dates back to 1985. In that year, the CART series began racing on a temporary street circuit in Tamiami Park, the Miami Indy Challenge. The event lasted until 1988.

In 1995, race promoter Ralph Sanchez brought open wheel racing back to Miami. In the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, Sanchez began redeveloping a devastated area of Homestead, Florida, into the Homestead Motorsports Complex. From 1983–1993, Sanchez had promoted very successful IMSA street circuit races at Bayfront Park and Bicentennial Park on Biscayne Bay. Sanchez revived the Bicentennial Park circuit for one season as a CART race, while Homestead was still under construction.

In 1996, after construction was complete, CART debuted at the Homestead oval with a 200-mile (320 km) event. In 1997, the race was lengthened to 225 miles (362 km).

For each of its years through 2000, the race served as the CART series season opener. CART also used the facility as their venue for "spring training" (offseason testing).

Indy Racing League

In 2001, the event switched to an Indycar Series event and was again lengthened, to 300 miles (480 km).

From 2002–2008, the race served as the IndyCar Series season opener. In 2007–2008, the race was held at night. After a schedule reorganization, the race was moved to become the season ending race for 2009. The 2010 race was the last IndyCar event at the track in the foreseeable future; all International Speedway Corporation tracks have been removed from the schedule in 2011.

Since 2007, the event has been part of the Speed Jam, a twin race combo weekend with the Rolex Sports Car Series along with concert festivities. The event proved to be successful in the predominantly Latino city of Miami & Homestead. The Rolex series race was moved to the spring starting in 2010.

Past winners

Atlantics/Indy Lights winners

See also

• Grand Prix of Miami

References

• http://www.indycar.com
• http://www.champcarstats.com