2006 Indy Pro Series

2006 Indy Pro Series season
Indy Pro Series
Season
Races	12
Start date	March 26
End date	September 9
Awards
Drivers' champion	Jay Howard
Teams' champion	Sam Schmidt Motorsports
Rookie of the Year	Jay Howard

The 2006 IRL Indy Pro Series, was the fifth season of the developmental open-wheel racing series under the Indy Racing League ownership, and the 21st in Indy NXT combined history, as officially recognized by IndyCar. Both Menards and Nissan dropped their sponsorship of the series, which was renamed to Indy Pro Series for the following two years. It was the first season to include double-header races in road course races. All teams used Dallara IL-02 chassis, now with the unbranded TWR engines, as they would remain until the end of its use in 2014.

English rookie Jay Howard, driving for Sam Schmidt Motorsports narrowly won the championship by four points over American rookie Jonathan Klein of Andretti Green Racing, in a four-way battle for the title at the last round in Chicagoland Speedway that included the defending series champion Wade Cunningham and Bobby Wilson.

Following in the footsteps of Cunningham, Howard prevailed through sheer consistency rather than outright brilliance, with seven podium finishes and two wins at Nashville and Kentucky. All of his wins and pole positions came at oval events, which only comprised half of the schedule.

Klein didn't manage to win a race, and only led a handful of laps during the year, but six podium finishes over the last seven races kept him in contention until the end. Cunningham, driving for Brian Stewart Racing, was also in contention at the final round despite missing the doubleheader at St. Petersburg due to an appendix removal. Cunningham won three races, including the first of his three Freedom 100 victories, scored four pole positions and led the most laps in seven of the 10 races he contested, but couldn't overcome the 93-point deficit to Howard after St. Petersburg and fell 11 points short. Besides, his win over at Chicagoland over Klein allowed Howard to win the championship. An early crash took Bobby Wilson out of contention, finishing fourth in the standings with a win at Watkins Glen.

Seven different drivers won a race during the year, including Jeff Simmons, who left the series as the points leader after three races to drive in IndyCar, and rookie Alex Lloyd, with two road course wins at Indianapolis and Sonoma. Lloyd would miss three races due to funding issues, and finished seventh in points.

Two competitors from the Atlantic Championship made successful cameos during the year, with Brazilian rookie Raphael Matos sweeping the race weekend at St. Petersburg and Graham Rahal getting the pole position at the Liberty Challenge to finish second behind Lloyd, coming two laps short of winning in his only Indy Pro Series start.

Vision Racing disbanded their Indy Pro Series programme after one year, but the series was bolstered by an increase of price money and a host of new teams, led by the expansion of the Andretti Green Racing programme and the debut of Cheever Racing and Guthrie Racing.

Other teams that expanded to a full-time effort were Michael Crawford Racing, AFS Racing and Dave McMillan Racing, although the latter scaled back during the year. The series had 16 to 18 cars at most of his rounds, with 19 starters at the Freedom 100, but only 11 at Milwaukee and 14 at the Sonoma races. 41 different drivers competed during the year, tying the all-time record from 1996 at the time, but only six drivers started all twelve races, with three others missing two or less events. Former Indy 500 starters Jon Herb and Tyce Carlson competed at the Freedom 100.

Drivers and teams

Team	No.	Drivers	Rounds
Brian Stewart Racing	1	Wade Cunningham	1, 4–12
		Geoff Dodge	2–3
	33		1, 4, 7
	3	Brett Van Blankers	1–9
		Daniel Gaunt	10–11
		Veronica McCann	12
Dave McMillan Racing	2	Matthew Hamilton	1–5
		C. R. Crews	12
	22	Éric Paradis	6
Roth Racing	4	Marty Roth	1–3
Guthrie Racing	4	Phil Giebler	4
		Logan Gomez	6
		C. R. Crews	9
		Micky Gilbert	10–11
		Tom Wieringa	12
		Sean Guthrie	5
	41		4, 7, 9, 12
		Travis Gregg	1
		Raphael Matos	2–3, 5–6
		Scott Mansell	10–11
Racing Professionals	6	Jon Herb	1–6
Sam Schmidt Motorsports	7	Jay Howard	All
	38	Ryan Justice	10–11
	77	Travis Gregg	9
		Akihira Okamoto	12
Michael Crawford Motorsports	8	Mishael Abbott	1, 4–5
		Rocco DeSimone	2–3
		C. R. Crews	6
		Scott Mansell	7
		P. J. Abbott	8, 10–11
		Ben Petter	9, 12
	9	Bobby Wilson	1–3
		Tom Wieringa	4
		C. R. Crews	5
		Scott Mansell	6
		Travis Gregg	7
		Michael Crawford	8
		Shinji Kashima	9–12
Andretti Green Racing	11	Jaime Camara	All
	27	Jonathan Klein	All
Kenn Hardley Racing	24	Jeff Simmons	1–3
		Bobby Wilson	4–12
	42	Tom Wood	4, 7–9, 12
		Phil Giebler	5
		Graham Rahal	6
AFS Racing	25	Arie Luyendyk Jr.	1–3, 5, 7, 12
		Tyce Carlson	4
		Phil Giebler	6
	26	Alex Lloyd	2–7, 9–12
		Thiago Medeiros	8
Cheever Racing	51	Chris Festa	1–7, 9, 12
		Hoover Orsi	8
	52	Nick Bussell	All
Part Sourcing International	76	James Chesson	4, 7
		Mike Potekhen	6, 9–12

Schedule

The schedule downsized from 14 to 12 races, as the series moved to a 50-50 proportion on ovals and road courses in terms of races. Three ovals were dropped, as Phoenix, Pikes Peak and Fontana were removed after their IndyCar events were discontinued, along with Texas Motor Speedway. In turn, the races at St. Petersburg and Sonoma were turned into doubleheaders, the first of their kind in the combined history of Indy Lights. Homestead-Miami continued as the venue for the season opener, while Chicagoland inherited the season finale slot from California Speedway.

Rd.	Date	Race name	Track	Location
1	March 26	Miami 100	O  Homestead–Miami Speedway	Homestead, Florida
2	April 1–2	Grand Prix of St. Petersburg	R  Streets of St. Petersburg	St. Petersburg, Florida
3
4	May 26	Freedom 100	O  Indianapolis Motor Speedway	Speedway, Indiana
5	June 4	Corning 100	R  Watkins Glen International	Watkins Glen, New York
6	July 1	Liberty Challenge	R  Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course	Speedway, Indiana
7	July 15	Sun Belt Rentals 100	O  Nashville Superspeedway	Lebanon, Tennessee
8	July 22	Milwaukee 100	O  Milwaukee Mile	West Allis, Wisconsin
9	August 13	Kentucky 100	O  Kentucky Speedway	Sparta, Kentucky
10	August 26–27	Carneros 100	R  Infineon Raceway	Sonoma, California
11		Valley of the Moon 100
12	September 9	Chicagoland 100	O  Chicagoland Speedway	Joliet, Illinois

O Oval/Speedway

R Road/Street course

Race results

Round	Race	Pole position	Fastest lap	Most laps led	Race Winner
					Driver	Team
1	Homestead–Miami Speedway	Jay Howard	Jon Herb	Jay Howard	Jeff Simmons	Kenn Hardley Racing
2	Streets of St. Petersburg	Raphael Matos	Raphael Matos	Raphael Matos	Raphael Matos	Guthrie Racing
3		Chris Festa	Raphael Matos	Raphael Matos	Raphael Matos	Guthrie Racing
4	Indianapolis Motor Speedway	Wade Cunningham	Jay Howard	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Brian Stewart Racing
5	Watkins Glen International	Bobby Wilson	Bobby Wilson	Wade Cunningham	Bobby Wilson	Kenn Hardley Racing
6	Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course	Graham Rahal	Alex Lloyd	Graham Rahal	Alex Lloyd	AFS Racing
7	Nashville Superspeedway	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Jay Howard	Sam Schmidt Motorsports
8	Milwaukee Mile	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Jaime Camara	Andretti Green Racing
9	Kentucky Speedway	Jonathan Klein	Bobby Wilson	Wade Cunningham	Jay Howard	Sam Schmidt Motorsports
10	Infineon Raceway	Wade Cunningham	Alex Lloyd	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Brian Stewart Racing
11		Mike Potekhen	Wade Cunningham	Alex Lloyd	Alex Lloyd	AFS Racing
12	Chicagoland Speedway	Jay Howard	Tom Wood	Wade Cunningham	Wade Cunningham	Brian Stewart Racing

Championship standings

Drivers' Championship

Scoring system

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	19th
Points	50	40	35	32	30	28	26	24	22	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11

• The driver who starts on pole is awarded one point (except for Race 2 of doubleheader weekends)
• The driver who leads the most laps in a race is awarded two additional points.

Pos Driver HMS STP INDY WGL IMS NAS MIL KTY SNM CHI Points 1 Jay Howard  RY  3* 3 2 2 6 18 1 7 1 10 5 3 390 2 Jonathan Klein  R  15 5 5 6 5 3 3 3 2 4 3 2 386 3 Wade Cunningham 10 1* 2* 16 5* 2* 3* 1* 4 1* 379 4 Bobby Wilson  R  5 8 6 7 1 9 7 4 7 5 2 17 343 5 Nick Bussell 2 4 10 10 15 5 6 5 6 3 13 8 319 6 Jaime Camara 11 12 13 3 4 13 2 1 14 7 14 16 298 7 Alex Lloyd  R  10 3 5 17 1 DNS 16 2 1* 4 294 8 Chris Festa 16 6 8i 4 14 15 9 8 5 205 9 Brett Van Blankers  R  8 9 11 14 7 17 10 8 15 179 10 Raphael Matos  R  1* 1* 13 4 154 11 Jon Herb 6 13 9 19 8 8 126 12 Jeff Simmons 1 2 4 122 13 Mike Potekhen  R  11 10 6 6i 7 121 14 Tom Wood 9 4 9 12 9 116 15 Arie Luyendyk Jr. 4 DNS 11 11 6 105 16 Matthew Hamilton  R  14 7 7 13 10 105 17 Geoff Dodge  R  7 11 13 8 12 104 18 Sean Guthrie  R  11 16 8 5 18 99 19 C. R. Crews  R  9 6 11 13 86 20 Scott Mansell  R  14 14 11 7 77 21 Phil Giebler 16 3 7 75 22 Shinji Kashima  R  13 12 11 12 72 23 Travis Gregg 12 13 4 67 24 Marty Roth 9 14 12 56 25 P. J. Abbott 11 13 12 54 26 Ryan Justice  R  8 8 48 26 Mishael Abbott 13 17 12 48 28 Graham Rahal  R  2* 43 29 Micky Gilbert  R  9 10 42 29 Ben Petter  R  9 10 42 31 Daniel Gaunt  R  14 9 38 32 Tom Wieringa 12 15 33 33 Rocco DeSimone  R  15 14 31 34 Thiago Medeiros 6 28 35 Michael Crawford  R  10 20 35 Logan Gomez  R  10 20 37 Veronica McCann  R  11 19 37 James Chesson 18 DNS 19 39 Éric Paradis  R  12 18 40 Akihira Okamoto  R  14 16 41 Tyce Carlson 15 15 Hoover Orsi DNS Wth Pos Driver HMS STP INDY WGL IMS NAS MIL KTY SNM CHI Points

Color Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green 4th & 5th place Light Blue 6th–10th place Dark Blue Finished (Outside Top 10) Purple Did not finish Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Brown Withdrawn (Wth) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Blank Did not participate (DNP) Not competing In-line notation Bold Pole position (1 point) Italics Ran fastest race lap * Led most race laps (2 points) i Partially-inverted field no bonus point awarded Rookie of the Year Rookie Ties in points broken by number of wins, or best finishes.

External links

• IndyCar official site