2000 Indy Racing League season

The 2000 Indy Racing Northern Light Series season was another season that saw a high level of parity, as only one driver, champion Buddy Lazier, won more than a single race. It also saw the beginning of the jump from CART as Al Unser Jr. moved to the series full-time and Chip Ganassi Racing came over to run the Indy 500, which it won with driver Juan Pablo Montoya. It was also the final season for the Riley & Scott chassis, which also saw its first series win in 2000.

A planned race at Cleveland was cancelled on September 9, 2000, and reverted to a CART event.

2000 Indy Racing League schedule

All races running on Oval/Speedway.

Team and Driver Chart

Race summaries

Delphi Indy 200

This race was held January 29 at Walt Disney World Speedway. Greg Ray won the pole.

Top ten results

MCI WorldCom Indy 200

This race was held March 19 at Phoenix International Raceway. Greg Ray won the pole.

2000

2000 (MM) was a century leap year starting on Saturday (dominical letter BA) of the Gregorian calendar, the 2000th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1000th and last year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 2000s decade.

2000 was designated as:

Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium due to a tendency of grouping the years according to decimal values, as if year zero were counted. According to the Gregorian Calendar, these distinctions fall to the year 2001 because the 1st century was retroactively said to start with year AD 1. Since the calendar does not have year zero, its first millennium spanned from years 1 to 1000 inclusively and its second millennium from years 1001 to 2000 (See more at Millennium).

The year 2000 is sometimes abbreviated as "Y2K" (the "Y" stands for "year", and the "K" stands for "kilo" which means "thousand"). The year 2000 was the subject of Y2K concerns, which are fears that computers would not shift from 1999 to 2000 correctly. However, by the end of 1999, many companies had already converted to new, or upgraded, existing software. Some even obtained Y2K certification. As a result of massive effort, relatively few problems occurred.

IRL

IRL may refer to:

Gold Coast Indy 300

The Gold Coast Indy 300 was an open-wheel motor race event that took place at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in south east Queensland, Australia from 1991 to 2008. The challenging 4.47-kilometre (2.78 mi) track had several fast sections and four chicanes. The event had various names during its history for sponsorship reasons; in its final year it was known as the Nikon Indy 300.

The race had been an annual event since 1991 originally as part of the CART IndyCar World Series. Then, following the split between CART and the newly formed Indy Racing League (IRL) in 1996 and the subsequent dissolution of CART in 2003, as part of the Champ Car World Series.

Following the merger of the Indy Racing League and Champ Car World Series in February 2008 the future of race had been secured until 2013 as an IRL IndyCar Series event, however the race was omitted from the 2009 IndyCar Series season calendar, and subsequently dropped by the IRL completely.

In the first sixteen years of the event, there were sixteen different winners. In 2007 Sébastien Bourdais became the first driver to win the race twice, adding to his 2005 victory.

Texas Motor Speedway

Texas Motor Speedway is a speedway located in the northernmost portion of the U.S. city of Fort Worth, Texas – the portion located in Denton County, Texas. The track measures 1.5 miles (2.4 km) around and is banked 24 degrees in the turns, and is of the oval design, where the front straightaway juts outward slightly. The track layout is similar to Atlanta Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway (formerly Lowe's Motor Speedway). The track is owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc., the same company that owns Atlanta and Charlotte Motor Speedways, as well as the short-track Bristol Motor Speedway.

History

The speedway has been managed since its inception by racing promoter Eddie Gossage.

Based on qualifying speeds in 2004, 2005, and 2006 (with Brian Vickers shattering the qualifying record at Texas with a speed of 196.235 mph (315.810 km/h) in the 2006 Dickies 500 qualifying), the Texas Motor Speedway was once considered the fastest non-restrictor plate track on the NASCAR circuit, with qualifying speeds in excess of 192 mph (309 km/h) and corner entry speeds over 200 mph (320 km/h). However, as the tracks' respective racing surfaces continue to wear, qualifying speeds at Atlanta have become consistently faster than at Texas (2005 and 2006). Brian Vickers holds the qualifying record at TMS. In 2006, he posted a 196.235 mph (315.810 km/h) speed. Elliott Sadler beat the record before Brian, qualifying in the 49/50th spot. Being the last person out on the track, Brian nipped Elliott Sadler's qualifying time. The NASCAR records still fall short of the all-time TMS qualifying record though. Driving a Lola Ford Champ Car, Kenny Brack took pole for the aborted Firestone Firehawk 600, with an average speed of 233.447 mph in 2001.