2005 Infiniti Pro Series

The 2005 Menards Infiniti Pro Series was the fourth season of the series under the Indy Racing League ownership, and the 20th in Indy NXT combined history, as officially recognized by IndyCar. All teams used Dallara IL-02 chassis and Infiniti engines, a combination that was raced for the first time on road courses.[1]

2005 Infiniti Pro Series season
Infiniti Pro Series
Season
Races14
Start dateMarch 6
End dateOctober 16
Awards
Drivers' championNew Zealand Wade Cunningham
Teams' championUnited States Brian Stewart Racing
Rookie of the YearNew Zealand Wade Cunningham
← 2004
2006 →
Champion Wade Cunningham at St. Petersburg
Infiniti Pro Series logo.

In a consistent, and almost winless, rookie year, Wade Cunningham became the champion by scoring his only win of the year in the final round at California Speedway. Driving for the storied Brian Stewart Racing, Cunningham led the championship from the sixth round, despite not scoring a win or a pole position in the first 12 races. At the end of the year, he had a total of 10 podium finishes, seven of those in second place.

Jeff Simmons returned to the series full-time, and recovered from a bad first half of the season to score four wins. He repeated his second place finish in the standings from 2003 by beating Travis Gregg, who scored a field-record six pole positions and won three races with defending champions Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Jaime Camara, also driving for Schmidt, won the Freedom 100 from pole position ahead of Cunningham, adding another win at Nashville to finish fifth behind fellow rookie Nick Bussell.

With the introduction of road course racing in the IRL IndyCar Series, the Infiniti Pro Series followed suit with four road course races, including his first race outside of the IndyCar bill, the Liberty Challenge held at the Indianapolis road course during the controversial U. S. Grand Prix weekend. Driving a partial schedule, 18-year old Marco Andretti set the standard at the road course races with three wins, being only beaten by Simmons at Watkins Glen. These results, along with a podium finish at Kentucky, were enough to finish 10th in the standings before his IndyCar promotion.

Five years after Team Green left Indy Lights, Andretti Green Racing entered the Infiniti Pro Series for the first time at selected rounds. Newly formed IndyCar team Vision Racing also entered the series, while Roth Racing and Racing Professionals went on to contest the full season. Genoa Racing returned and J. L. West Motorsports also entered from the beginning with both teams downsizing halfway through the year, while Michael Crawford Motorsports also debuted with a partial schedule. On the other hand, Mo Nunn Racing's Pro Series operation was disbanded along with the main team, and both Keith Duesenberg Racing and Roquin Motorsports left the series.

The series had at least 11 drivers at each round, with 15 competitors at Phoenix and 18 drivers in the Freedom 100. Eight drivers competed in every race, plus Jay Drake at all but one race. At Chicagoland, Sarah McCune became the first woman in series history to score a pole, this being the only start of her career. Marty Roth competed again in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Freedom 100, where he was one of three starters with previous IndyCar experience along with Simmons and Jon Herb, the winner at Phoenix earlier in the year.

Team and driver chart

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Team No. Drivers Rounds
Sam Schmidt Motorsports 1   Jaime Camara All
7   Travis Gregg All
8   Sarah McCune 12
11   Tom Wood 4
  P. J. Abbott 5, 14
  Rocco DeSimone 13
19   Chris Festa All
Brian Stewart Racing 3   Alfred Unser 1–4
  Arie Luyendyk Jr. 5–10
  Bobby Wilson 11–14
33   Wade Cunningham All
Roth Racing 4   Marty Roth All
AFS Racing 5   Arie Luyendyk Jr. 2–3
25 14
27   G. J. Mennen 2
  Rocky Moran Jr. 4
  Geoff Dodge 14
Racing Professionals 6   Jon Herb All
Vision Racing 9   Ed Carpenter 6
  Nick Bussell 7–14
20   Jay Drake 1–12, 14
  Phil Giebler 13
Michael Crawford Motorsports 11   Scott Mayer 2, 8, 11–12
J. L. West Motorsports 21   Nick Bussell 1–6
Dave McMillan Racing 22   Scott Mansell 11, 13
Bullet-Team Motorsports 23   Taylor Fletcher 4, 14
Kenn Hardley Racing 24   Jeff Simmons All
42   Germán Quiroga 4
  Tom Wood 7, 10
Andretti Green Racing 26   Marco Andretti 3–4, 6, 9, 11, 13
Genoa Racing 36   P. J. Chesson 1–3
  Imran Husain 4
  Larry Connor 6, 13
Hemelgarn Racing 42   Mishael Abbott 1
91 2, 4, 6
  Jerry Coons Jr. 7
American Revolution Racing 77   Cole Carter 4

Schedule

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Chris Festa, Arie Luyendyk Jr., and Marty Roth

The Infiniti Pro Series accompanied the new IndyCar road course events at St. Petersburg, Sonoma and Watkins Glen, while also adding a fourth road course event in Indianapolis as part of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix bill. The oval races at Kansas and Michigan were removed from the schedule, which grew from 12 events to 14. The Texas date was moved to June after the fall event was discontinued by IndyCar, with California Speedway serving as the venue for the season finale.

Rd. Date Race name Track Location
1 March 6 Homestead-Miami 100  O  Homestead–Miami Speedway Homestead, Florida
2 March 19 Phoenix 100  O  Phoenix International Raceway Avondale, Arizona
3 April 3 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg  R  Streets of St. Petersburg St. Petersburg, Florida
4 May 27 Futaba Freedom 100  O  Indianapolis Motor Speedway Speedway, Indiana
5 June 11 Firestone 100  O  Texas Motor Speedway Fort Worth, Texas
6 June 18 Liberty Challenge  R  Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course Speedway, Indiana
7 July 16 Cleanevent 100  O  Nashville Superspeedway Lebanon, Tennessee
8 July 24 Milwaukee 100  O  Milwaukee Mile West Allis, Wisconsin
9 August 13 Bluegrass 100  O  Kentucky Speedway Sparta, Kentucky
10 August 21 Pikes Peak 100  O  Pikes Peak International Raceway Fountain, Colorado
11 August 28 Sonoma 100  R  Infineon Raceway Sonoma, California
12 September 11 Chicagoland 100  O  Chicagoland Speedway Joliet, Illinois
13 September 25 Corning 100  R  Watkins Glen International Watkins Glen, New York
14 October 16 California 100  O  California Speedway Fontana, California
O Oval/Speedway
R Road/Street course

Race results

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Round Race Pole position Fastest lap Most laps led Race Winner
Driver Team
1 Homestead–Miami Speedway   Travis Gregg   Wade Cunningham   Travis Gregg   Travis Gregg Sam Schmidt Motorsports
2 Phoenix International Raceway   Travis Gregg   Chris Festa   Jon Herb   Jon Herb Racing Professionals
3 Streets of St. Petersburg   Marco Andretti   Wade Cunningham   Marco Andretti   Marco Andretti Andretti Green Racing
4 Indianapolis Motor Speedway   Jaime Camara   Jon Herb   Jaime Camara   Jaime Camara Sam Schmidt Motorsports
5 Texas Motor Speedway   Travis Gregg   Nick Bussell   Travis Gregg   Travis Gregg Sam Schmidt Motorsports
6 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course   Marco Andretti   Marco Andretti   Marco Andretti   Marco Andretti Andretti Green Racing
7 Nashville Superspeedway   Jaime Camara   Arie Luyendyk Jr.   Jaime Camara   Jaime Camara Sam Schmidt Motorsports
8 Milwaukee Mile   Jaime Camara   Jay Drake   Wade Cunningham   Jeff Simmons Kenn Hardley Racing
9 Kentucky Speedway   Travis Gregg   Jay Drake   Travis Gregg   Travis Gregg Sam Schmidt Motorsports
10 Pikes Peak International Raceway   Travis Gregg   Travis Gregg   Jeff Simmons   Jeff Simmons Kenn Hardley Racing
11 Infineon Raceway   Marco Andretti   Jeff Simmons   Marco Andretti   Marco Andretti Andretti Green Racing
12 Chicagoland Speedway   Sarah McCune   Jon Herb   Jeff Simmons   Jeff Simmons Kenn Hardley Racing
13 Watkins Glen International   Wade Cunningham   Wade Cunningham   Marco Andretti   Jeff Simmons Kenn Hardley Racing
14 California Speedway   Travis Gregg   Jeff Simmons   Wade Cunningham   Wade Cunningham Brian Stewart Racing

Championship standings

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Drivers' Championship

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Scoring system[2]
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 leads the most laps in a race is awarded two additional points.[2]
Pos Driver HOM PHX STP INDY TXS IMS NSH MIL KEN PIK SON CHI WGL FON Points
1   Wade Cunningham  RY  4 3 2 2 2 2 4 2* 2 5 2 10 3 1* 504[a]
2   Jeff Simmons 9 12 12 7 8 13 2 1 5 1* 3 1* 1 2 474
3   Travis Gregg  R  1* 6 6 6 1* 7 10 8 1* 3 6 5 12 3 462
4   Nick Bussell  R  6 5 3 15 5 4 5 3 6 2 4 3 5 5 430
5   Jaime Camara  R  2 11 13 1* 9 5 1* 5 8 9 12 6 7 10 403
6   Chris Festa 10 2 8 8 3 3 7 10 9 6 5 11 4 4 387
7   Jon Herb 3 1* 11 13 7 9 6 4 11 11 9 4 11 9 364
8   Marty Roth 7 10 9 5 6 8 11 9 7 7 7 2 10 7 355
9   Jay Drake  R  5 13 10 3 4 10 3 6 4 8 8 7 12 341
10   Marco Andretti  R  1* 16 1* 3 1* 2* 250
11   Arie Luyendyk Jr. 4 5 10 6 8 7 10 10 6 228
12   Alfred Unser 12 8 4 4 106
13   Mishael Abbott  R  8 9 11 12 83
14   Bobby Wilson  R  11 8 9 13 82
15   Scott Mayer  R  7 11 13 12 80
16   Tom Wood 12 12 4 68
17   P. J. Chesson 11 14 7 61
18   P. J. Abbott  R  11 8 43
19   Taylor Fletcher 9 11 41
20   Larry Connor  R  14 8 40
21   Scott Mansell  R  10 14 36
22   Phil Giebler 6 28
23   Sarah McCune  R  9 23
24   Jerry Coons Jr.  R  9 22
25   Germán Quiroga  R  10 20
26   Ed Carpenter 11 19
27   Rocco DeSimone  R  13 17
28   Imran Husain  R  14 16
29   Geoff Dodge  R  14 16
30   G. J. Mennen 15 15
31   Rocky Moran Jr. 17 13
32   Cole Carter  R  18 12
Pos Driver HOM PHX STP INDY TXS IMS NSH MIL KEN PIK SON CHI WGL FON 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
Italics Ran fastest race lap
* Led most race laps

(2 points)

1 Qualifying cancelled
  • Ties in points broken by number of wins, or best finishes.

Footnotes

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  1. ^ 15 point deduction for reckless and overly-aggressive driving at California

References

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  1. ^ Henry, N.; Angus, T.; Jenkins, M. (2007). Motorsport Going Global: The Challenges Facing the World's Motorsport Industry. p. 23. ISBN 978-0230593381.
  2. ^ a b "IRL Infiniti Pro Series – 2005: Point standings". Speedsport Magazine. Retrieved April 2, 2024.