Starworks’ Hartley, Mayer win GRAND-AM at Road America

By Aug 10, 2013, 8:35 PM EDT
1 Comment

Although their Rolex Series championship-leading duo of Ryan Dalziel and Alex Popow failed to finish due to a loss of engine power, Starworks Motorsport was still victorious this evening at Road America as Brendon Hartley took their No. 8 BMW/Riley to the checkered flag in the GRAND-AM VisitFlorida.com Sports Car 250.

As the race stretched into its final hour, it appeared that the No. 42 Team Sahlen entry of Dane Cameron would be set for a win in Wisconsin. Unfortunately for Cameron, his car suffered a terminal gearbox problem with 42 minutes remaining to end his run. Shortly afterwards, Sahlen’s sister car, the No. 43, went into the tire barrier at Turn 3 to bring out a full-course yellow.

That brought the leaders to pit road for fuel-only stops, but Hartley stayed out to assume the lead for the final restart with 24 minutes left. He managed to keep the point and go on to the win for both himself and co-driver Scott Mayer.

Action Express Racing collected the other spots on the podium, with Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi taking second in the No. 5 AXR Corvette and Brian and Burt Frisselle taking third in the No. 9 AXR Corvette.

“The car was really, really good today,” Hartley said to SPEED in Victory Lane. “This is quite an emotional win. We lost a win back in [March at Austin], so this one really meant a lot to me. It’s been a while since I’ve won a race, and it means so much.”

Hartley was referring to a potential win at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas that went away because of suspension damage following late contact with a GT car.

As for Starworks’ Dalziel/Popow combo, they were still able to maintain the Rolex Series Daytona Prototype championship lead despite finishing 28th on Saturday. Their lead, however, is down to four points on the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing duo of Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney, who finished eighth.

In GT, Bill Auberlen was able to stretch out the fuel load on the No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW M3 and hang on for a narrow class win over Patrick Long in the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche GT3. Auberlen took the lead from Long in Turn 5 with 17 minutes left in the race, but still needed every last drop in the tank to pick up the win for himself and co-driver Paul Dalla Lana.

Joel Miller and Tristan Nunez earned top honors in GX with a win in the No. 00 SpeedSource Mazda 6.

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million

By May 29, 2023, 6:01 PM EDT
0 Comments

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33.  Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports