The history of the Motor City that Indy Lights is returning to this weekend

Photo: Detroit GP / LAT Images

Indy Lights returns to Detroit this weekend for the first time since 2012. Here is a brief overview of the history of the junior single seaters in “Motor City”

IndyCar and its predecessors have been visiting Detroit for a century, with the first non-championship race taking place in 1905. The city starred in America’s top single-seater series from 1929 to 1933, then again from 1949 to 1953. It returned in 1957 but did not reappear until 1989, after which it became a mainstay until its aging facilities came to an end in 2001.

It made its big comeback in 2007, but the global financial crisis hit the city’s auto industry hard, losing the race until 2012 when it was reinstated on the IndyCar calendar and since then (aside from the 2020 pandemic cancellation) stayed.

The city also hosted Formula 1 between 1982 and 1988, and the World Championship gave junior single-seaters the chance to shine on the streets of Detroit when the Atlantics series (comparable to Indy Lights) ran in 1983.

Future IndyCar race winner Roberto Moreno took pole on the riverside street circuit located at General Motors headquarters and qualified 2.641 seconds faster than his front row colleague Victor Gonzalez.

That dominant form didn’t quite last when Moreno retired three-quarters after the 40-lap race, three laps after Gonzalez finished the procedure with a broken front wing, and it was Alan McCall Racing’s Josele Garza who ended up winning by 1.416 seconds . The future McLaren F1 driver Michael Andretti drove on this day.

When the Detroit track was used again by CART in 1989, Indy Lights joined in the fun and it stayed when racing moved to the current venue Belle Isle in 1992. For 12 years it was on the support list with New Zealand team Tasman Motorsports Motorsport making the bumpy, high-speed track their playground with five wins and the only two-time twins of the race: Double R Racing founder Steve Robertson and 2004 IndyCar champion Tony Can be.

Detroit Junior Single Winner

Indy Lights skipped the visit in 2001 when Belle Isle was unpopular due to the condition of the track and support paddock, and most recently traveled to Detroit in 2012 when Gustavo Yacaman led a Colombian one-two.

There are 13 riders looking to win not just once but twice this weekend, while the series returns with a one-two.

HMD Motorsports’ David Malukas is currently leading the points with three wins, while Linus Lundqvist has two and Kyle Kirkwood has one. The racetrack comes closest to the racetrack experience: Benjamin Pederson, Danial Frost, Nikita Lastochkin and Toby Sowery all rode a virtual version of Belle Isle in this year’s Road to Indy eSeries. They all made pretty disastrous track debuts in the esports world, despite Sowery climbing the rankings in race two.

St. Petersburg is as bumpy as Detroit, and this is where Kirkwood and Malukas stood out in April, while several drivers tested at Sebring to prepare for the mechanical brutality that street courses offer. But Detroit is definitely an unfamiliar style, and it could shake the series’ competitive order.

2021 Indy Lights news and analysis
Road to Indy loses Toronto round, adds Mid-Ohio as final
Why the return of Indy Lights looked like more than just a hype of anticipation
Halo doesn’t make much of a difference in auto setup for Indy Lights teams
The riders to see on the Road to Indy in 2021