IRL Glory Years
With the founding of the Indy Racing League in 1996, the team was eager to return to full time racing and re-signed former Hemelgarn stalwart Buddy Lazier to pilot their full-time entry and fielded additional cars for Brad Murphey and Stephan Gregoire in the Indy 500. Lazier scored the first win of his IndyCar career and Hemelgarn's first as a team in a gutsy drive while recovering from a back injury in the 1996 Indianapolis 500. This win solidified Lazier and Delta Faucet with the team for years to come. Lazier was one of the top drivers in the league, consistently scoring top-tens and finishing in the top-ten in points every year. In 2000, Lazier and Hemelgarn put together a dream season, capturing the IRL championship and finishing second in the Indy 500 behind the dominant "500" rookie Juan Pablo Montoya. The team nearly repeated their championship ways in 2001, with Lazier capturing 4 wins and finishing 2nd in points, albeit well back from champion Sam Hornish, Jr..
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Famous quotes containing the words glory and/or years:
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another...”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 3:18.
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)