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Unser got his revenge in 1989, when the CART season finale and Marlboro Challenge moved to Laguna Seca Raceway. The younger Andretti led the first 12 laps while Unser slashed his way forward from fifth on the grid, taking second place from Rick Mears in a jawdropping out-braking maneuver around the outside of Turn 2. Junior then took Andretti for the lead into The Corkscrew and gapped the field by 23 seconds before backing off to save fuel. He banked $250,000 for winning by 4.1sec over Sullivan, who inherited the position when Fittipaldi again ran dry.

The 1990 Marlboro Challenge relocated to Pennsylvania International Raceway, later known as Nazareth Speedway, marking the first time the event would be staged on an oval. Nazareth was tricky and fast, with minimal banking, three unique corners, and even a bit of elevation change baked into its 0.946-mile layout. Not surprisingly, it produced a classic Rick Mears victory. He started third, lost a place to Penske teammate Sullivan at the start, then came under fire from Fittipaldi (by then another Penske teammate). But the race came back to Mears as he picked off Sullivan, Unser, and Andretti in a series of decisive Turn 3 moves to eventually beat Fittipaldi and Unser.

“After the pit stop, I could lean on the car pretty good,” Mears said. “We’ve been close but no cigar this year trying to get a win, so this is a nice uplift for the team.”
Mears’s win in 1990 would be his only Indy car triumph at Nazareth. Photo: Dan R. Boyd

With his familiar Pennzoil livery exchanged for Marlboro red and white, Mears was again the man to beat in the 1991 Marlboro Challenge, back at Laguna Seca. He showcased his road racing skills from the start and was headed toward a well-judged victory over Michael Andretti until his Penske-Chevy suffered a fuel pick-up problem in the last corner of the final lap. Rick bumped it back to life, but by then, Andretti had steamed past to steal the $250,000 top prize. To add insult to injury, Mears would have collected the $150,000 Marlboro Million bonus, thanks to his earlier win in the 500-miler at Michigan.

“That little hiccup at Laguna really cost me a pretty good chunk,” Mears reflects with a chuckle. “I saw coming down the hill that I had a big enough gap to Michael so he couldn’t divebomb me in the hairpin, and I thought I had it pretty well made. When that thing coughed coming out of the corner, I about fell over.

“The Marlboro Challenge was always fun, and it paid a few bucks, too. The guys enjoyed it, and Marlboro did a good job putting it on. It was a good thing across the board.”

The sixth and final Marlboro Challenge shifted back to Nazareth in October 1992. “Marlboro Man” Fittipaldi finally claimed a Challenge win, over Andretti and newcomer Paul Tracy, but controversial penalties levied by chief steward Wally Dallenbach against Michael Andretti and Rahal killed their chances and any prospects for a competitive race. “This decision cost us at least $140,000,” fumed Rahal after finishing sixth.

PM USA put the Marlboro Challenge “on hiatus to refine the concept” prior to the ’93 season and replaced it with the Marlboro Pole Award, which paid $10k for each pole position and added a $15k bonus for winning from pole. The $15K would accumulate until the next win by the top qualifier. The Pole Award followed Marlboro from CART to the Indy Racing League and continued until 2006; Dario Franchitti’s pole-to-flag win at Vancouver in ’98 netted a $330k bonus, the largest in the history of the program.

A million bucks is no longer the startling figure it was in the ’80s or ’90s, but still grabs attention. Will IndyCar’s gamble on the $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club pay off like a winning lottery ticket? Stay tuned.


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RACER March/April 2024: The Season Preview Issue

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emailBy Laurence Foster | March 21, 2024 10:01 AM ET

Has Red Bull Racing changed the game again with its “controlled aggression” RB20 as Max Verstappen goes for a fourth straight Formula 1 World Championship, or can Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren or Aston Martin Martin close down the gap? The opening two grands prix showed Max taking up where he left off, but the chasers have all made progress, too. Question is, can they build on that, or are they just chasing a moving target?

In RACER’s 2024 Season Preview Issue that’s out now, we look for some answers on whether Red Bull’s rampage is unstoppable, run the ruler over the battles in the midfield and back of the grid, and check in with McLaren re-signee Lando Norris and F1 returnee Daniel Ricciardo on their big-picture plans.

In the NTT IndyCar Series, one won the 2023 Indy 500, but fell short in his quest to win a third championship. The other put on a season-long road- and street-course masterclass to clinch his second IndyCar title, but has yet to turn potential into a victory at the series’ most defining oval.

Call it unfinished business, but reigning Indy 500 winner and 2024 St. Petersburg victor Josef Newgarden and defending IndyCar Series champ Alex Palou are men on a mission in 2024, and possibly the guys to beat when it comes to picking favorites for the full-season championship and its centerpiece race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But with another dozen drivers — maybe more? — with the potential to fight for race wins at a minimum, it’s a season that’s set to be too close to call.

Check out our season guide that includes a look at a resized and refocused Andretti Global program, gets the lowdown on Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Linus Lundqvist, gets ready for an oval-heavy climax to the campaign, and sets the scene on the much anticipated, but oft delayed introduction of hybrid power (er, assuming that it does happen in 2024, of course…).

 

Elsewhere, we focus on the enduro-focused Risi Competizione, one of the teams to beat when it comes to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s long distance races, recap William Byron’s delayed, but deserved win in NASCAR’s Daytona 500, and find out why Boris Said still rates Trans Am as his go-to race series.

Add in an interview with Kawasaki’s World Superbike Championship team leader Alex Lowes on his return to winning ways, some good old speculation on who’ll take Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton’s seat in the Mercedes F1 team, and insight on the one-make action from the Mazda MX-5 Cup and we hope you enjoy RACER No. 327.

CLICK HERE to purchase the new issue of RACER. Interested in having RACER delivered to your mailbox? CLICK HERE to find out more about print and digital subscriptions.

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The dynamics of the 2024 IndyCar season will change significantly after this weekend's Sonsio Grand Prix at the IMS Road Course. Oval races will account for more than half of the remaining races, including a stretch of three to close the championship fight. RACER.com Editor Mark Glendenning detailed the unique side of the 2024 schedule in the latest issue of RACER Magazine (Mar/Apr) speaking with one driver looking to capitalize on the opportunity.


How’s this for an odd stat: None of the last three NTT IndyCar Series champions – Alex Palou in 2021, Will Power in ‘22, Palou again in ’23 – won an oval race during their title-earning seasons. Palou’s yet to win one at all. Meanwhile, Josef Newgarden won four out of five oval races last year and ended up fifth in points.

OK, nobody’s saying that ovals don’t matter, but it is a fact that their impact on the last few title campaigns has been limited.

That probably won’t be the case in 2024. This year, there will be seven oval races on the schedule, which is the most since 2011. That includes two-double header weekends (Iowa and series returnee Milwaukee) and, in a late twist, the season-finale, following the surprise news that the Nashville GP street race will be replaced by a trip out to Nashville Superspeedway for the first time since 2008.

Plus, when oval season hits the series this year, it will hit hard: of the seven left-turn-only events, six fall within the final eight races.



World Wide Technology Raceway sits between double-headers in Iowa and Milwaukee in an oval-heavy run-in to the season finale at...another oval, 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway. Photo: Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

SUBSCRIBE TO RACER"It’s extremely oval-heavy to end the season," says Arrow McLaren’s two-time oval winner and perennial title aspirant Pato O’Ward. "I wouldn’t be surprised if there are late charges in the points with drivers who are very strong on ovals.

"You don’t have a Joker card for ovals anymore. You have to perform and get the best out of everything that you’ve got for street courses and road courses, and you’ve got to do the exact same on the ovals. If you’re counting on the road and street courses to save your championship and you’re just kind of cruising on ovals…there’s too many points tied to ovals now."

From a purely points standpoint, the rising count of ovals on the schedule offsets the Indianapolis 500 reverting from a double-points to a regular points-paying race in 2023, although there’s plenty of scope for debate over how much the double-points era impacted the final outcome of the title. Palou’s second place at Indy in 2021 gave him an additional points buffer for the title fight, but he’d still have beaten Newgarden to the championship if the "500" had awarded single points, albeit much more narrowly. Same goes for Scott Dixon in 2020.

This year, instead of talking about double points, it’s all about the double-headers, both of which are on short tracks. Says O’Ward, a bad start to either event won’t necessarily mean the entire weekend is a write-off, but it will put a huge emphasis on rebounding for race two.

"It definitely puts some pressure on you to make sure that if you’ve had a bad first race, you don’t have that again, because it’s like having two bad weekends in a row," he says. "That’s pretty detrimental to a championship."

Pato O’Ward won his second IndyCar oval race at Iowa Speedway in’22. Photo: Chris Owens / IndyCar


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There’s a less obvious curveball hidden in IndyCar’s "oval season," too – hybrids. At time of writing, the series plans to roll its new hybrid engines out for Mid-Ohio, right before the schedule revs into oval mode. O’Ward says that changes the championship calcs completely.

"When you start a season, drivers and teams have got maybe one or two Joker cards, and that’s only if you’re very strong at other weekends," he says. "One DNF really is a very big blow to your championship.

"I feel like those Joker cards now can’t really be used up by the teams and drivers anymore. You have to leave those for the hybrid. You can be having a great season and then all of a sudden, if you’ve got trouble with the hybrid, it will absolutely turn your year upside down."

But the series is saving one of its biggest surprises until the very end. The recent decision to move the finale from the streets of Nashville to a 1.33-mile oval is one for the history books – the championship last ended on an oval a decade ago, when Will Power’s ninth at Fontana clinched the 2014 title. But it will also present a new kind of challenge for the title contenders. Assuming the championship goes down to the wire, they’ll head into the showdown without the benefit of years of track-specific experience and data to lean on. Even allowing for whatever testing at Nashville Superspeedway the series might lay on, it adds a new dimension to an already high-pressure weekend.

"You’ll need to have a strong car and a strong race," says O’Ward. "I have no idea how fast Nashville is, or how well it races. My hope is for the finale to be extremely exciting and for the series to crown the right champion. But I have no idea about the characteristics of the track. If it races like Indy, patience will be a virtue.

If it’s like Texas, well…get your balls out!"


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Vintage Motorsport Art Director and RACER's in-house artist extraordinaire, Paul Laguette, has released nine new prints ready to illuminate the walls of your sacred space.

 

Available in two sizes (12"x16" and 18"x24"), the posters are printed on museum-quality thick matte paper and feature original illustrations with famed drivers and cars as the stylized subjects.


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Despite crashing and bruising a wrist in practice for the 1993 Monaco Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna qualified third in the McLaren MP4/8 and went on to take his record-breaking sixth victory. Photo: Motorsport Images Archive
It’s been 30 years since Ayrton Senna lost his life at Imola’s San Marino Grand Prix, May 1, 1994.

Naturally, given such a milestone, Ayrton graces the cover of RACER No. 328, our annual Heroes Issue.

The Brazilian’s Formula 1 career stands among the all-time greatest, but accomplishments aside, he had a charisma and a complexity that continues to resonate not just with motorsports fans, but with a wider audience in a way that few sports stars attain.

Inside the issue, we explore two chapters from opposite ends of his F1 career: The bidding war for his F1 services that saw him test for four different teams in a frenetic few weeks in the summer and fall of 1983 — and choose a less than obvious destination for his ’84 rookie campaign — and his final McLaren season in 1993.

With McLaren on the back foot after losing factory engine partner Honda and forced to run customer-spec Ford HB V8s, it was touch and go if Senna would even drive for McLaren in 1993. But once committed, and taking on the role of underdog to a rampant Williams-Renault team, Ayrton delivered one of his finest F1 seasons.


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Our heroes are of a current nature, too, beginning with Kyle Larson.

In an era when so many of motorsports’ stars tend to “stay in their lane” and concentrate exclusively on their destination championship of choice, Larson is a refreshing throwback to a time when the top drivers of the day would shuttle between series as a matter of course.

Sure, 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champ Larson’s decision to run the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s longest race, Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600, on the same day is an extreme, yet not unprecedented example of old-school versatility, but keep in mind that this is a racer whose norm is to run a whirlwind schedule of sprint car races in between the Cup Series “day job.” Add in the 2015 Rolex 24 At Daytona win on his resume, and we’re impressed by his desire and his ability to switch disciplines and perform at the highest level. On May 26, it will be fascinating to see how Larson performs in his quest for “The Double.”



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Back In The Saddle

Emerson Fittipaldi, a Formula 1 hero of the 1970s, had a well-deserved career rebirth in Indy car racing.

Private Equity

Porsche privateers JOTA and Proton Competition could be fighting the factory Hypercar fleets for an overall 24 Hours of Le Mans win.

Rallying Trailblazer

More than four decades on, France’s Michèle Mouton remains the only woman to win rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship.





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Words by Stephen Kilby for RACER Magazine's May/June 2024 Issue

With 20 factory cars on the Hypercar entry list for the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, it would be easy to look past the trio of privately-run Porsche 963s that are part of the storied German marque’s six-car fleet tasked with earning it a 20th overall victory. But ignore them at your peril, as both HERTZ Team JOTA and Proton Competition are in it to win it, and both believe they have a shot.

Privateers have long been the bedrock of sports car racing. Through thick and thin they’ve been on hand, pushing hard to keep factory-funded outfits honest. The 963 customers are no different and have been threatening to win races since JOTA became the first to run one at the 6 Hours of Spa in May of 2023.





SUBSCRIBE TO RACEROffering customer 963s so early was a colossal task for Porsche, and significantly impacted its ability to deliver cars on time and focus on results in year one of the LMDh/Hypercar era. Now, though, the gamble is beginning to pay off and it heads to the year’s biggest race with six expertly-run challengers.

Since JOTA’s Hypercar debut, there have been real flashes of potential from the Porsche privateers. JOTA led the centenary Le Mans into the fifth hour before an off at the Porsche Curves, and came achingly close to winning the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship opener in Qatar. Proton, meanwhile, scored a ’23 podium at Petit Le Mans in IMSA’s GTP class and challenged the front runners in the final hour of the Twelve Hours of Sebring in March.

Of course, matching and beating the likes of Toyota, BMW, Ferrari, Peugeot, Cadillac and Porsche’s revitalized Penske factory effort will be a monumental task. But for the first time since the mid-2000s, it genuinely feels like a privateer could win Le Mans on merit, without relying on a wafer-thin entry or disaster striking the factory teams.

Previously, JOTA gained a reputation for operating at the highest level in LMP2, winning titles and Le Mans three times. Now in the top class, the feeling is that it’s taken a further step and is on par with the factories. That’s why it’s equipped to throw a cat among the pigeons with its pair of handsomely-liveried 963s, crack team of engineering staff, and suite of high-end commercial backers that includes HERTZ, Singer…and NFL legend Tom Brady.

The work behind the scenes to build up the team’s resources has been tireless and began long before the program was launched in March 2023. Looking back, the efforts of co-owners David Clarke and Sam Hignett were worth their weight in "HERTZ Racing Gold."

JOTA’s 963 started at the back in the 2023 24 Hours, but led into the fifth hour before a crash put it out of winning contention. Photo: Steffen Heise



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"It’s been a crazy journey going from zero cars, to surviving Spa last year, to now running two," says Hignett. "To do it, we’ve stuck to what we know. There’s a lot of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ in this paddock. We’re not in that game. To make this happen, all the money we have we invest in human talent, keeping our group together and giving them resources."

The commitment to pouring as much of its resources as possible into the personnel side is why JOTA’s been able to attract star drivers like Jenson Button, Will Stevens and Callum Ilott. Button, who drives the No. 38 963, has a unique perspective on this. Prior to the start of the 2024 WEC season, he drove an Acura ARX-06 for WTR with Andretti at the Rolex 24.

"Wayne Taylor Racing is probably the best team you’re going to find racing in the States," he tells RACER when asked for a comparison. "I’ve come from that, to a pure racing team that is probably the best I’ve ever been with. Factory teams are different; this is a true out-and-out race team. That’s what’s exciting for me.

"It’s what I’ve always loved about Formula 1. The privateer teams stay, while manufacturers dip in and out. Coming here has been fun, yet so professional; I was surprised. Stepping up to two cars in Hypercar is a big challenge, but it’s been so natural to them. They focus on the fine details, more than some F1 teams. I certainly have more meetings with them on a race weekend than I did when I was in F1!"
Jenson Button, the 2009 F1 World Champion, is among JOTA’s driver firepower. Photo: Porsche AG
Phil Hanson, who shares the No. 38 with Button and Oliver Rasmussen, raced against JOTA for years in the LMP2 class with United Autosports before signing for the team late last year. He feels the same.

"You’d be hard-pressed to find a team with a better Le Mans record," he says. "It’s their strongest circuit, which is great, because it’s the one we all care about the most."

The way a team operates is one thing. The capability of its car is another. The question, therefore, is if Porsche’s early-season wins in IMSA and WEC are a sign of things to come?