Gold Coast Indy 300

Gold Coast Indy 300

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 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.