Indy Racing League or IRL


The Indy Racing League, better known as IRL, is the sanctioning body of a predominantly American based open-wheel racing series. Its centerpiece is the Indianapolis 500. The IRL is owned by Hulman and Co., which also owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway complex. The IRL was brought about in 1994 by Tony George and was created with a breakaway group of drivers from CART, which had coordinated Indy car racing since 1979, when CART broke away from the United States Auto Club (USAC). George designed IRL as a lower-cost open-wheel alternative to CART, which had come to be technology-driven and dominated by a few wealthy multi-car teams much like in Formula One. The IRL developed a consistent engine package and chassis rules which have produced some of the closest finishes in any racing series. Ironically, the series is now dominated by many of the same wealthy multi-car teams that once dominated CART.

The series originally raced exclusively on oval tracks, as the league was founded partly in response to the increasing prominence of road courses in the CART schedule. However, in the fall of 2004 the IRL announced three road-racing events including a street race in St. Petersburg, Florida and two road courses, at Watkins Glen International in New York and Infineon Raceway in California for 2005.

In the beginning George was widely ridiculed; IRL's early seasons consisted of few races and mostly unknown drivers, even in the Indy 500. Later the caliber of drivers improved and IRL began to draw teams from CART, contributing to the latter's 2003 bankruptcy.

The League consists of two series, the IndyCar Series (usually considered synonymous with the Indy Racing League) and the Indy Pro Series, which is the developmental series for IndyCar.