Chevrolet Wins 99th Running of Indy 500

Apple Chevrolet, your Chicago Chevy dealer, is celebrating a fantastic victory in the Indy racing circuit. Last month, the 99th Indy Car 500 race was won by driver Juan Pablo Montoya. He was driving a car decked out in Chevrolet’s finest racing technology.

If you are not familiar, the Indy 500 is a race held every year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Appropriately named, the race is 500 miles long and has four turns on its asphalt track. The track is 2.5 miles long and each driver makes 200 laps. The race is always the last Sunday in May and race-day attendance is estimated to be an average of 300,000 people.

The first race was won by Ray Harroun in 1911, with the most successful drivers being A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, and Rick Mears (each won the race four times). The record speed was achieved by Arie Luyendyk at an astonishing 237.498 mph. In comparison, NASCAR restricts their drivers to a maximum of 200 mph.

The cars running this prestigious race have a few things in common.  All the cars are outfitted in Firestone tires and that is a tradition set back to the very first Indy 500.  The cars are also all single-seat, open cockpit and open-wheeled vehicles.   All of the cars use similar engines, which are 2.2 L V6 twin turbo-charged machines that can produce upwards of 700 hp. Those engines are all either produced by Honda or Chevrolet.

This year’s race won by Montoya featured a car equipped with both a Chevrolet engine and Chevrolet aerodynamic kit.  This is the fifth victory out of six for the first segment of the Verizon Indy Car series.  It is a close battle between Chevy and Honda, with Chevy currently standing at 586 points and Honda at 573 points, but Chevrolet has been taking notes and is constantly working on plans to dominate the Indy 500 by an even greater margin.

The race serves multiple purposes for Chevrolet — marketing and advertising being only a part of them.  Engineers take the information from the racing runs and use those to improve engines all across the Chevrolet line. While most of us will probably never experience driving in an open car at over 230 miles-per-hour, the average vehicle also needs the best performing engine possible.

From Apple Chevrolet, congratulations to Juan Pablo Montoya and the Chevrolet Race Team for their fantastic win and we look forward to more spectacular performances in the future. Unfortunately, we don’t have Indy cars for you to take home, but we do have new Chevrolet models for you to test drive!