Race History
For the first two years, the race was held during the second weekend of Indianapolis 500 Time Trials, scheduled for Saturday, which was, at the time, used only for Indy 500 practice. The date proved to be unpopular and saw small crowds. In 2005, Carb Day, the final day of practice for the Indy 500, was moved from Thursday before the Indy 500 to Friday. Series officials moved the Freedom 100 to Carb Day, immediately following the Indy 500 practice session. The move proved popular with fans and competitors.
In 2008, in the wake of the merger between IRL and Champ Car, the series was renamed from Indy Pro Series to the Firestone Indy Lights Series. The new sponsorship extended to this race, renaming it the Firestone Freedom 100.
In the first nine runnings, the race was won 6 times from the pole and 3 times from second starting position. Therefore, the race had always been won from the front row until Esteban Guerrieri won in 2012 from the 18th starting position.
Read more about this topic: Firestone Freedom 100
Famous quotes containing the words race and/or history:
“These battles sound incredible to us. I think that posterity will doubt if such things ever were,—if our bold ancestors who settled this land were not struggling rather with the forest shadows, and not with a copper-colored race of men. They were vapors, fever and ague of the unsettled woods. Now, only a few arrowheads are turned up by the plow. In the Pelasgic, the Etruscan, or the British story, there is nothing so shadowy and unreal.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)