1996 and 1997

[marcus]

Hi folks , call me an annorak , but i Love stats

but at the moment I am trying to update my own personal stats that I keep on the Indycar series but for some reason the official Indycar site has taken the results from 1996 and 1997 off their webpage , which is annoying because I want to check some figures for those seasons.

does anyone know any other sites where I can get full qualifying and race details for 96 and 97 from?

please help me I need to calculate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[racer69]

Try www.motorsportsalmanac.com

it all should be in there.

[marcus]

oh yeahhh , and thats sitting in my favorites.

Cheers mate

[drdisque]

the '96 and '97 Indy 500, IRL Season, or CART Season?

[marcus]

IRL 96 and 97 seasons and mate I love your sig cause Im in the same boat

I love Coloni , Osella, AGS and the like

[drdisque]

ya, motorsports almanac (URL above) has all of that

Personally, I'm a big fan of Dennis Vitolo's joke of a 1997 Indy 500 effort (the last year that you got a free pass into the field if you ran the entire season), Team Scandia entering 8 billion cars in the '96 and '97 indy 500's, the Riley & Scott IRL chassis, and Franck Freon trying to qualify a '92 chassis into the '95 Indy 500 (got overshadowed by the Penske issue, which I'm also a big fan of remembering stupid things about such as what team they bought their Lola from, which car and driver was the last to go out, and every engine and chassis combination that they had tried over the month. I guess I'm a Penske hater.)

[marcus]

oh yeah sorry , my mind instantly jumped to f1 when I read your sig , funny ow that happens.

now the almanac site , it seems fine for 97 but it only has 3 races listed for 96 , Im positive there were more races than that ?

anybody know where I can find any more results ?

[marcus]

maybe I was wrong , I guess there was only 3 races in 96 , could have sworn there was more though

[StuiE]

I'm pretty sure there was only 3 races for IRL's first season, plus the Indy 500.

[drdisque]

yes, there were only 3 races in the first season.

Anyone know why they don't run at Disney world anymore or what the condition of that track is?

[Down F0rce]

In 1996 there was more races. The first season had only three races, but the next season started later that year.

This was because the Indy 500 was supposed to be the last race of the year, but keep it's May spot so the seasons would start in August or something and end the following May. Sponsors didn't like this as it didnt fit in with thier calanders (For example, they would sponsor a team for one year, which to them would be Jan-Dec etc)

So it was changed to the current system - Season starts in Februry/March, and it ends in October.

As for the Disney Speedway, I'm not sure it hosts anymore races these days but is open for track days for the public.

[racer69]

It's last IRL would have been 2000 i think.

On the motorsportsalmanac.com site, the late-96 races are listed in the 1997 part of the website.

Makes for interesting stats. The early races won by 'CART-spec' cars, but the '1997' part of the 1997 Championship, being run to the new-for-1997 'IRL-spec- cars.

[marcus]

yep thats right it was basically a 96-97 season , its cool I got the stats I need now , thanks guys

as a side note anybody remember those early races ?

I think I have the 96 Indy 500 on tape which was an awesome win by Buddy Lazier

[drdisque]

I remember watching the first IRL race from disney world on TV. I didn't know who most of the drivers were other than cheever and luyendyk. I also remember that it was on a rather chilly murky day and that there was a very small crowd even though they advertised the heck out of the race during the '95 Indy 500.

Looking back though, I'm amazed how high the car counts were that season. The reason had to have been the incredibly cheap chassis and no established competition in the series. It makes me think that if the IRL would freeze chassis and engine changes for next year (run every chassis for 2 years) that they'd see their car counts go up.

[Down F0rce]

I've seen a clip fron the Disney 200. I'd really like to see some full races though, such as Lazier's win at Indy.

[mcurtis26]

Disney was a curious track really, each corner was different, so an optimum setup was very hard to achieve. I may be wrong, but I think it fell out of favour after Sam Schmidt's accident?

[rustyfan]

Didn't Jacques Lazier break his back there as well?

[mcurtis26]

I thought it was Nazereth in 2002 after a smash with Schekter?

[rustyfan]

Originally posted by mcurtis26
I thought it was Nazereth in 2002 after a smash with Schekter?

Yes, he broke his back in that crash as well.

[racer69]

Buddy Lazier broke his back in 1996, but at practice at Phoenix (the round after Disney that year).

[rustyfan]

Originally posted by racer69
Buddy Lazier broke his back in 1996, but at practice at Phoenix (the round after Disney that year).

Yes, in this crash;



I think Lyn St. James was the driver of the other car.

As for Jacques Lazier, he had his back-injuring accident at Walt Disney in 2000 (just found out what year it was).