Indianapolis 500, 100th annerversary 1911-2011, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, North America

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• published: 31 May 2011
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The IZOD IndyCar Series is the premier level of American open wheel racing. The current championship, founded by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, began in 1996 as a competitor to CART known as the Indy Racing League (IRL). Citing CART's increasing reliance on expensive machinery and overseas drivers, George aimed to create a lower-cost alternative. In 2008, the IndyCar Series merged with the Champ Car World Series (formerly CART). The series is sanctioned by IndyCar. Due to the legal settlement with CART, the Indy Racing League was unable to utilize the name IndyCar until the beginning of the 2003 season. For 1996-1997, the series was simply referred to as the USAC Indy Racing League, with no genre designation. For 1998-1999, the series garnered its first title sponsor, and was advertised as the Pep Boys Indy Racing League. The contract was not renewed after the second year. In 2000, the series sold its naming rights to Internet search engine Northern Light for five seasons, and the series was named the Indy Racing Northern Light Series. After only two seasons, however, the sponsorship agreement ended when Northern Light reevaluated its business plan and ended all sponsorships. The league reverted back to the Indy Racing League name for the 2002 season, with no title sponsor. The IndyCar Series name was officially adopted beginning in 2003, as the series was now legally entitled to use it. In 2006, IndyCar forged an alliance with Simmons-Abramson Marketing (headed by Gene Simmons of the hard rock band Kiss), promising to be "actively engaged in the league's marketing, event, public relations, sponsorship, merchandising and branding efforts from its IndyCar Series to the venerable Indianapolis 500". Simmons also co-authored the new IndyCar theme song, "I Am Indy". For the 2008 season, DirecTV served as a presenting sponsor, and the series was briefly advertised as the IndyCar Series in DIRECTV HD. IZOD was announced as the series title sponsor beginning on November 5, 2009. Exact financial terms were not disclosed but the deal is worth at least $10 million per year and runs for at least 5 years. Starting in 2012 the series moved to using a common chassis supplied by Dallara. Using a single supplier to supply chassis was introduced as a cost control method, IndyCar has negotiated a fixed cost of $349,000 per chassis. The new specification of chassis also improved safety, the most obvious feature being the partial enclosure around the rear wheels. This chassis is intended to support multiple aerodynamic kits, but the introduction of these has been delayed until 2014 with teams citing costs. After the events of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championships the chassis was named DW12 in honour of Dan Wheldon. On July 14, 2010, the series announced that Dallara had been chosen over four other bids to replace the current Dallara chassis in 2012. Dallara will provide a rolling chassis that will serve as the base of the car. Teams will choose an aero kit (sidepods, engine covers, front/rear wings) built by any manufacturer (including the teams themselves) to complete the chassis. Aero kits must be approved by the IndyCar Series, undergo safety testing, be available to all teams, and will have a maximum price of $70,000. Cars will be badged based on their aero kit manufacturers and not the chassis manufacturer. The Dallara name will not be a part of the car's name (e.g. if Team Penske produces their own aero kit, they will drive a "Penske IndyCar", not a "Penske Dallara"). A team will not be able to run more than 2 aero kits in a season. As part of the deal, Dallara will create a manufacturing facility in the town of Speedway, Indiana to build the new cars (part of the deal includes tax breaks from the state and local governments). Dallara's rolling chassis will be sold to teams for $345,000 each (45% less than what is charged for the current chassis). The Governor of Indiana also indicated that the first 28 chassis purchased by Indiana-based teams will be sold for $195,000 each. The new chassis will be 1380 lbs; 185-lbs. (84 kg) lighter than the current model. The new chassis will include an anti-interlocking design which is intended to prevent tire-on-tire contact with the potential to launch a car into the air. The new open engine formula will use 2.2 liter twin-turbocharged V6 Engines to run provided it can be tuned to produce the full range of 550-750 HP. The formula would allow hybrid systems, KERS system similar to Formula 1, and other engine enhancements. The "push to pass" feature in 2012 will allow a limited horsepower gain up to 100 HP as opposed to the current "overtake assist" which only provides 20 HP.