2005 Infiniti Pro Series

2005 Infiniti Pro Series season
2005 Infiniti Pro Series season
Infiniti Pro Series
Season
Races	14
Start date	March 6
End date	October 16
Awards
Drivers' champion	Wade Cunningham
Teams' champion	Brian Stewart Racing
Rookie of the Year	Wade Cunningham
	← 2004 2006 →

Last updated April 05, 2024

Champion Wade Cunningham at St. Petersburg WadeCunningham2005.jpg — Champion Wade Cunningham at St. Petersburg

Infiniti Pro Series logo.

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]

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

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	Arie Luyendyk Jr.	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
	9	Nick Bussell	7–14
	20	Jay Drake	1–12, 14
	20	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
	42	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	Mishael Abbott	2, 4, 6
	91	Jerry Coons Jr.	7
American Revolution Racing	77	Cole Carter	4

Schedule

Chris Festa, Arie Luyendyk Jr., and Marty Roth FestaLuyendykRoth2005.jpg — 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

Round	Race	Pole position	Fastest lap	Most laps led	Race Winner
Round	Race	Pole position	Fastest lap	Most laps led	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

Drivers' Championship

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^{[lower-alpha 1]}
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)
Blank	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

↑ 15 point deduction for reckless and overly-aggressive driving at California

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References

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

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[Cunningham_California-3] 15 point deduction for reckless and overly-aggressive driving at California

[1] Henry, N.; Angus, T.; Jenkins, M. (2007). Motorsport Going Global: The Challenges Facing the World's Motorsport Industry. p. 23. ISBN 978-0230593381.

[PointsSystem-2] 1 2 "IRL Infiniti Pro Series – 2005: Point standings". Speedsport Magazine. Retrieved April 2, 2024.

[1]

[2]

[lower-alpha 1]

v t e Indy NXT seasons
USAC Mini-Indy Series	1977 1978 1979 1980
CART American Racing Series	1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
CART Firestone/Dayton Indy Lights	1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
IRL Infiniti/Indy Pro Series	2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Firestone Indy Lights Series	2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Indy Lights Series presented by Cooper Tire	2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 ~~2020~~ 2021 2022
Firestone Indy NXT Series	2023 2024