Indy 500

Jim Nabors may be best known for playing Gomer Pyle, but he's been part of Indy 500 for over four decades. Now that he's retiring, though, the race organizers have nominated an Indiana-based a cappella group to uphold the tradition.

Roger Penske stands among the most successful team owners in motorsports history. The man seems to have the Midas touch in racing no matter what the discipline with victories in Trans Am, IndyCar, NASCAR and endurance racing over his illustrious career. Plus, he has built a fortune from businesses like car dealers and truck rentals over the years and even nearly bought Saturn from General Motors at one point.

Racing drivers live the fast life, but it's not all glory and fame. That's especially true of Randy Lanier – the former professional racing driver was sentenced in 1988 to life without parole on drug trafficking charges. But now he's being released.

Anyone that's been to a race at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway knows this to be true: The scoring pylon, which sat at the start-finish line and showed the positions of drivers as they lapped the oval has been horribly, terribly outdated, making it quite difficult to read. Considering this, the new, 92-foot-tall, $1-million, LED-adorned scoring tower that's just been erected is a huge improvement. Just compare the above image of the new tower with the inset image of the older model to

Like many of you, I spent my pre-Memorial Day Sunday sitting on the couch, watching racing. It started early, with the 7:00 AM kick off of Monaco Grand Prix coverage. There was a break in between, for things like bathroom stops, walking the dog and acknowledging that my loving girlfriend hadn't abandoned me for lack of attention. That was quickly followed up by a belter of an Indianapolis 500, which featured the second closest finish in race history.

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This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend, folks, and you know what that means: racing. There was the Monaco Grand Prix for Formula One fans, and back Stateside there was the Indianapolis 500. You might expect to see a name like Maserati pop up at the former more than the latter, but that wasn't always the case.

Sunday marked the 98th running of the Indy 500 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The weather was absolutely beautiful (76 degrees Fahrenheit, not a cloud in the sky), and for the first three-quarters of the race, it was business as usual. Despite the absolutely insane speeds (in excess of 200 miles per hour, constantly), some find it easy to write off a race on an oval track as being less exciting as events that involve both left and right turns, as well as elevation changes. But Sunday's rac

Fourteen years ago, Sam Schmidt was lapping the Walt Disney World Speedway while preparing for the upcoming Indy Racing League season when he crashed. He spent five weeks on a respirator, and when he did come off, he discovered that he'd lost the use of his arms and legs.

The Indianapolis 500 has lost one of its great competitors just weeks before the 2014 running of the famous race. A.J. Watson (pictured above left) competed multiple times from 1948 to 1984 as a designer, crew chief and mechanic, scoring six wins in his career with his own chassis at the Yard of Bricks. Watson died shortly after his 90th birthday.

The 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 25 will feature at least one rather blinding blast from the past. Team Penske and Pennzoil have teamed up to bring back their iconic "Yellow Submarine" livery for the 2014 race with a bright yellow body, red pinstripes and black graphics. Even at high speeds around the Indy oval, the car will surely stand out.

The 2014 Indianapolis 500 will mark the end of an era, as it will be the last year that Jim Nabors will sing "Back Home Again in Indiana" before the race. Nabors first belted it out ahead of the 500-mile race in 1972, and aside from two years, has sung before every race since 1987.

Dario Franchitti may no longer be up for racing in the wake of his crash in Houston five months ago, but the three-time Indy 500 winner and four-time IndyCar Series champion won't be left out of the action altogether. To start with, he'll be helping the Chip Ganassi Racing team with driver development, and now Chevrolet has announced that Franchitti will be driving the pace car when the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 kicks off on May 25.

Bobby Unser is one of the great American racing drivers of his generation, having won the Indianapolis 500 in 1968, '75 and '81 and belonging to the Unser racing dynasty. But he might be getting the oddest tribute of his life at the 2014 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. Infiniti has created a tribute to his Indy-winning 1968 car out of a Q60 Convertible (previously the G37), and he will be driving it around the event.

Indy racing legend Andy Granatelli passed away on Sunday in Santa Barbara, CA, due to congestive heart failure. He was 90. Granatelli was famous for his innovation in American open-wheel racing, kicking off his Indy career with an entry in the 1946 race. His creative streak didn't really kick off until the 1960s, though, when the Dallas, TX-born Granatelli began entering a series of wildly powerful supercharged Novi V8s in the Indianapolis 500. This was followed by the arrival of the (in)famous

The 100th running of the Indy 500 will happen in 2016, and in anticipation of the centenary celebrations, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has begun Project 100. As part of a request the track made for state funding to assist with the plan (which is expected to cost from $70 million to $100 million), track officials have announced plans to upgrade infrastructure, add more video boards and better grandstands. Fan experiences and promotional venues are also part of the plan, and better lighting cou

While it may not be touting the old "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" axiom we all know and love, Mazda recognizes that racing can only improve its cars. And so it's no surprise that the Japanese automaker is testing and refining its Skyactiv-D diesel engine by sending it out on various race tracks around the country – notably being the first diesel ever to compete at Daytona and the first to notch a Grand Am win at Road Atlanta.

If the 2013 Indy 500 were a movie it would be the one expected to win all the little statues come awards season, and if it were an athlete it would have made spectators watch in awe as it broke record after record. And this kind of talk comes after last year's race was considered one of the best ever – the last lap hijinks in 2012 and Takuma Sato's crash leading to a podium ceremony straight out of a Golden Globes tearjerker.

He didn't get the trophy, but he did get the girl pace car. San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh – who quarterbacked the Indianapolis Colts from 1994 to 1997 – will lead the 33-car Indianapolis 500 field around The Brickyard in a 2014 Corvette Stingray pace car.

Just a couple days ago, we saw spy shots of a C7 Corvette testing for what we assumed was pace car duty for the Indianapolis 500, and now General Motors has confirmed that the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will, in fact, lead the field to the green flag for the 97th running of the Indy 500. Not only will this be the 17th consecutive year a GM vehicle has paced the race and the 12th straight time a Chevy has handled pace car duty, but it will also mark the 12th time a Corvette has held this di

Although the C7 Corvette may have gotten snubbed at this year's Super Bowl, it looks like the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will be front and center for some of the brightest lights in automotive racing. These spy shots show Chevrolet engineers testing a Stingray coupe with safety lights added to the front and rear of the car as we normally see on a pace car, and judging by the timing and the history of General Motors pacing the Indianapolis 500, it looks like this Corvette could be getting r