Hot Wheels reveals special car trophy for 100th Indy 500 - MotorSportsTalk

You know the Borg-Warner Trophy as it is. However, could you imagine the Borg-Warner Trophy with diecast cars rather than faces on it?

Hot Wheels, in the run up to the 100th Indianapolis 500, revealed its own version of the custom trophy on Tuesday.

The release and a video with further details is below:

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On Tuesday, Hot Wheels unveiled its take on the Indy 500 Championship Trophy. The custom trophy will be unveiled by 2014 Indy 500 Champion Ryan Hunter-Reay at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and will celebrate the past 99 epic Indy races with 99 Hot Wheels cars.

“All 99 cars featured on this trophy have an authentic Indy 500 story,” said Chris Down, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Hot Wheels. “Most of them are about the journey, not the win. For kids and adults that is exactly what Hot Wheels play is about. Everyone has a Hot Wheels story!”

Standing approximately nine feet tall, the Hot Wheels Indy 500 Championship Trophy will feature 99, 1:64 cars, with each car drawing inspiration from the stories, colors and numbers of the winning Indianapolis 500 drivers and cars. From Wilbur Shaw capturing the 1937 checkered flag with his mechanic riding shotgun to Bobby Unser who slept in his car his rookie year in 1963 – each epic victory is represented. The base of the trophy is wrapped with the famed Hot Wheels orange track representing the competition that runs through every car.

“My first experience with racing was with Hot Wheels cars, I remember zipping cars down the orange track, and now I watch my two sons do the same,” said Ryan Hunter-Reay. “Sharing stories from past races with my kids opens up a conversation about hard work, competition and my passion for racing.”

The trophy will be on display starting May 31, 2016, at The Hot Wheels Race to Win™ Exhibit, which runs May 14, August 13 at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. The Race to Win Exhibit is a family-friendly immersive experience filled with hands-on activities designed to demonstrate what makes real race cars go fast. On select days, some visitors will even get to zip race cars down Hot Wheels iconic orange track with famous race car drivers from IndyCar, stock car, or the NHRA drag racing circuit.

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