The 2006 IRL Indy Pro Series, was the fifth season of the developmental open-wheel racing series under the Indy Racing League ownership, and the 21st in Indy NXT combined history, as officially recognized by IndyCar. Both Menards and Nissan dropped their sponsorship of the series, which was renamed to Indy Pro Series for the following two years. It was the first season to include double-header races in road course races. All teams used Dallara IL-02 chassis, now with the unbranded TWR engines, as they would remain until the end of its use in 2014.
English rookie Jay Howard, driving for Sam Schmidt Motorsports narrowly won the championship by four points over American rookie Jonathan Klein of Andretti Green Racing, in a four-way battle for the title at the last round in Chicagoland Speedway that included the defending series champion Wade Cunningham and Bobby Wilson.
Following in the footsteps of Cunningham, Howard prevailed through sheer consistency rather than outright brilliance, with seven podium finishes and two wins at Nashville and Kentucky. All of his wins and pole positions came at oval events, which only comprised half of the schedule.[1]
Klein didn't manage to win a race, and only led a handful of laps during the year, but six podium finishes over the last seven races kept him in contention until the end. Cunningham, driving for Brian Stewart Racing, was also in contention at the final round despite missing the doubleheader at St. Petersburg due to an appendix removal.[2] Cunningham won three races, including the first of his three Freedom 100 victories, scored four pole positions and led the most laps in seven of the 10 races he contested, but couldn't overcome the 93-point deficit to Howard after St. Petersburg and fell 11 points short. Besides, his win over at Chicagoland over Klein allowed Howard to win the championship. An early crash took Bobby Wilson out of contention, finishing fourth in the standings with a win at Watkins Glen.
Seven different drivers won a race during the year, including Jeff Simmons, who left the series as the points leader after three races to drive in IndyCar, and rookie Alex Lloyd, with two road course wins at Indianapolis and Sonoma. Lloyd would miss three races due to funding issues, and finished seventh in points.
Two competitors from the Atlantic Championship made successful cameos during the year, with Brazilian rookie Raphael Matos sweeping the race weekend at St. Petersburg and Graham Rahal getting the pole position at the Liberty Challenge to finish second behind Lloyd, coming two laps short of winning in his only Indy Pro Series start.[3]
Vision Racing disbanded their Indy Pro Series programme after one year, but the series was bolstered by an increase of price money and a host of new teams, led by the expansion of the Andretti Green Racing programme and the debut of Cheever Racing and Guthrie Racing.
Other teams that expanded to a full-time effort were Michael Crawford Racing, AFS Racing and Dave McMillan Racing, although the latter scaled back during the year. The series had 16 to 18 cars at most of his rounds, with 19 starters at the Freedom 100, but only 11 at Milwaukee and 14 at the Sonoma races. 41 different drivers competed during the year, tying the all-time record from 1996 at the time, but only six drivers started all twelve races, with three others missing two or less events. Former Indy 500 starters Jon Herb and Tyce Carlson competed at the Freedom 100.
The schedule downsized from 14 to 12 races, as the series moved to a 50-50 proportion on ovals and road courses. The ovals at Phoenix, Pikes Peak and Fontana were removed after their IndyCar events were discontinued, along with Texas Motor Speedway. In turn, the races at St. Petersburg and Sonoma were turned into doubleheaders, the first of their kind in the combined history of Indy Lights. Homestead-Miami continued as the venue for the season opener, while Chicagoland inherited the season finale slot from California Speedway.
| Rd. | Date | Race name | Track | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | March 26 | Miami 100 | Homestead–Miami Speedway | Homestead, Florida | |
| 2 | April 1–2 | Grand Prix of St. Petersburg | Streets of St. Petersburg | St. Petersburg, Florida | |
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | May 26 | Freedom 100 | Indianapolis Motor Speedway | Speedway, Indiana | |
| 5 | June 4 | Corning 100 | Watkins Glen International | Watkins Glen, New York | |
| 6 | July 1 | Liberty Challenge | Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course | Speedway, Indiana | |
| 7 | July 15 | Sun Belt Rentals 100 | Nashville Superspeedway | Lebanon, Tennessee | |
| 8 | July 22 | Milwaukee 100 | Milwaukee Mile | West Allis, Wisconsin | |
| 9 | August 13 | Kentucky 100 | Kentucky Speedway | Sparta, Kentucky | |
| 10 | August 26–27 | Carneros 100 | Infineon Raceway | Sonoma, California | |
| 11 | Valley of the Moon 100 | ||||
| 12 | September 9 | Chicagoland 100 | Chicagoland Speedway | Joliet, Illinois |
| Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | 13th | 14th | 15th | 16th | 17th | 18th | 19th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 50 | 40 | 35 | 32 | 30 | 28 | 26 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 |
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Geoff Dodge
Akihira Okamoto