Nikon Indy 300

Nikon Indy 300
Circuit	Surfers Paradise Street Circuit
Laps	60
Circuit length km	4.47
Circuit length mi	2.79
Race length km	269.88
Race length mi	167.70
Most wins driver	2 by Sébastien Bourdais
Most wins constructor	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing (6)
Current year	2008
Winning time	1:45:50.3868
Winner	Ryan Briscoe
Winning team	Team Penske
Second	Scott Dixon
Second team	Target Chip Ganassi Racing
Second time	+0.5019s
Third	Ryan Hunter-Reay
Third team	Rahal Letterman Racing
Third time	+9.1179s
Pole time	1:34.9451
Pole driver	Will Power
Pole team	KV Racing Technology
Fastest lap	1:35.1552
Fastest lap driver	Dario Franchitti
Fastest lap team	Target Chip Ganassi Racing

The Nikon Indy 300 was an open-wheel motor race event that took place at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in south east Queensland, Australia. Known generically as the Gold Coast Indy 300, Japanese camera giant Nikon was announced as new naming rights sponsor in early August, 2008. The challenging 4.47 kilometre track has several fast sections and four chicanes.

The race had been an annual event since 1991 originally as part of the CART PPG IndyCar World Series. Then, following the split between CART and the newly formed Indy Racing League (IRL) in 1996 and the subsequent dissolution of CART in 2003, as part of the Champ Car World Series.

Following the merger of the Indy Racing League and Champ Car World Series in February 2008 the future of race had been secured until 2013 as an IRL IndyCar Series event, however the race was omitted from the 2009 IndyCar Series season calendar, and subsequently dropped by the IRL completely.

In the first sixteen years of the event, there were sixteen different winners. In 2007 Sébastien Bourdais became the first driver to win the race twice, adding to his 2005 victory.

History

The races early years were dogged by controversy as Australia's motor sport governing body the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) initially refused to sanction the event. The Queensland State Government has been largely supportive of the event while the Gold Coast City Council support at local level has varied in its level of support, even occasionally openly hostile to the event. However by the late 1990's the race had become a well attended and popular event on the Gold Coast calendar with tens of thousands of spectators attending each of the four days of the IndyCarnival.

In the 2002 event there was a frightening incident when a 9 car pile-up occurred at the start in very wet conditions - however no significant injuries were sustained. In 2003 a massive hailstorm struck the area during the race leading to a red flag. Again no injuries were sustained.

The event lost much of its lustre from 2004 as the split between American open wheel racing series started to draw teams from the Champ Car World Series across to the IRL IndyCar Series whose calendar was considerably more domestic than the well travelled Champ Car World Series. The falling popularity of open wheel racing in America has further devalued the event in recent times with NASCAR dominating the U.S. racing scene to the point where the growing influence of support category V8 Supercar removed Champ Car from top billing of the event into an equal top billing not seen at any other Champ Car event. Traditionally the CART/Champ Car race was the final event of the programme but in recent years the final V8 race has held this place.

On March 5, 2008 it was announced that the IRL IndyCar Series would travel to Australia for the first time, but due to contractural issues the race would not count towards the 2008 IndyCar Series Championship and would be a stand-alone demonstration event, in light of the recent merger between Champ Car and the IRL.

On Tuesday, November 11, after extensive negotiations with the IRL broke down, the Queensland Government reached a new five year deal with A1 Grand Prix to stage a race at Surfers Paradise, severing its eighteen year history with American open wheel racing. On February 25, 2009 it was announced that the event which combine one of the first few rounds of the 2009/10 A1GP and the 11th round of V8 Supercar Series would be produced through a partnership between IMG and the Queensland's local government. The event which formally known as the Gold Coast Indy 300 will be renamed as the SuperGP.

Previous winners

File:Indy 2006 018.jpg

2006 Lexmark Indy 300

File:Indy 2006 009.jpg

2006 Lexmark Indy 300. Miss Indy and Runners-up being interviewed in the pits.

2006 Lexmark Indy 300

Season	Date	Winning Driver	Car	Team	Report
1991	March 17	John Andretti	Lola T91/00 Chevrolet-Ilmor A	Hall/VDS Racing	Report
1992	March 22	Emerson Fittipaldi	Penske PC21-92 Chevrolet-Ilmor B	Penske Racing	Report
1993	March 21	Nigel Mansell	Lola T93/06 Ford XB Cosworth	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
1994	March 20	Michael Andretti	Reynard 94I Ford XB Cosworth	Chip Ganassi Racing	Report
1995	March 19	Paul Tracy	Lola T95/00 Ford XB Cosworth	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
1996	March 31	Jimmy Vasser	Reynard 96I Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	Report
1997	April 6	Scott Pruett	Reynard 97I Ford XD Cosworth	Patrick Racing	Report
1998	October 18	Alex Zanardi	Reynard 98I Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing	Report
1999	October 17	Dario Franchitti	Reynard 99I Honda	Team Green	Report
2000	October 15	Adrian Fernandez	Reynard 2KI Ford-Cosworth	Patrick Racing	Report
2001	October 28	Cristiano da Matta	Lola B01/00 Toyota	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
2002	October 27	Mario Dominguez	Lola B02/00 Ford-Cosworth	Herdez Competition	Report
2003	October 26	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Reynard 02I Ford-Cosworth	American Spirit Team Johansson	Report
2004	October 24	Bruno Junqueira	Lola B02/00 Ford-Cosworth	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
2005	October 23	Sébastien Bourdais	Lola B02/00 Ford-Cosworth	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
2006	October 22	Nelson Philippe	Lola B02/00 Ford-Cosworth	CTE-HVM Racing	Report
2007	October 21	Sébastien Bourdais	Panoz DP01 Cosworth	Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing	Report
2008	October 26	Ryan Briscoe	Dallara IR8 Honda	Penske Racing	Report

External links

• Official Event Site