Background
Defending Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal went on to win the 1986 CART championship. During the offseason, his Truesports racing team made a highly-publicised switch from the March chassis to the up and coming Lola chassis. Truesports, however, stayed with the proven Cosworth engine. Rahal was a strong favorite to repeat as winner.
For 1987, the Ilmor Chevrolet Indy V-8 began expanding its participation into Indy car racing. Penske Racing fielded a three-car effort with the powerplant, while resuming its in-house chassis program. The PC-16 chassis was the primary car for the team, but as a backup, three 1986 March chassis were also entered. Newman Haas Racing joined the Ilmor Chevrolet program, and Mario Andretti scored the engine's first victory a month earlier at Long Beach. Patrick Racing (Fittipaldi & Cogan) was the third team to utilize the Ilmor Chevrolet.
Roberto Guerrero won the second race of the season, held at Phoenix. Guerrero was coming to his own as a driver on the circuit, and the impressive at Phoenix made him an favorite for Indy. For 1987, his Vince Granatelli team was sporting a special paint job, a "throwback" day-glow orange which resembled Andy Granatelli entries from the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A new powerplant arrived at Indy in 1987. The Judd AV V-8 was badged as the Brabham-Honda, and was fielded by Galles Racing.
During the offseason at Penske Racing, three-time Indy winner (1970, 1971, 1978), and three-time national champion (1970, 1983, 1985) Al Unser, Sr. was released. Businessman and media mogul Ted Field arranged a deal with Roger Penske to field Indy veteran Danny Ongais in the third Penske entry. Unser, Sr. was unable to secure a ride before the month of May, and arrived at the track unemployed.
Goodyear arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time with a new radial tire. After a few years of development in the CART series, the radials were ready for competition in the Indy 500.
The most noticeable construction project completed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a series of electronic dot matrix scoreboards installed around the track.
Read more about this topic: 1987 Indianapolis 500
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