1997 SpeedCenter CART Trivia Results

First of all, much thanks to all 113 people who participated in the Trivia Quiz, and thanks for your patience in the intervening months while the entries were painstakingly graded. It was my intent from the outset to produce a contest that would be fun but extremely challenging and educational at the same time, hence many questions inherently could only be of the fill-in-the-blank variety for manual grading. Those who had the working knowledge to answer more of the questions correctly benefited from this knowledge, while those who didn’t know the right answers can become properly enlightened by reviewing the answers below.

Our initial intent called for 100 questions worth one point/one percent each, but programming errors resulted in anywhere from one to three of these questions not appearing on the user screen, depending on one’s individual monitor resolution setup. Those affected were Questions #71, 77, and 79, and these would not appear within the submitted form if invisible, or in the case of #71, misplaced as #79. Therefore, depending on which of the problematic questions appeared or did not appear on each individual submittal, we graded each one out of a total of 97-99 questions, so that the maximum score for any given player would now no longer be 100 questions/100 percents, but just 100 percent.

Surprisingly, only one contestant brought the glitch to our attention in a subsequent letter (and manually submitted answers for the missing questions thusly); these questions were thus added to that one contestant’s available total.

The mean for all 113 scores came out to 48% - low for an academic setting. The range fluctuated from a lofty 82% way down to several at 9%; no one fell into the A or B+ area, unfortunately. It makes you wonder what Donald Davidson could have done to inflate the curve all by himself.

Another interesting trend is that while the contest ran for five and a half months, the vast majority of the high scorers made their submittals within the final two weeks - implying they took their time and did their research. Very, very few contestants made more than one submittal over time to supercede one’s previous answers.

Many people lost points unnecessarily, simply by overlooking the fact that except where stated, all drivers were those who competed in the 1996 PPG IndyCar World Series - not CART in a previous season, not IRL, not NASCAR, etc. We shall point out some of the typical mistakes made along these lines below.

Our Winners:

Grand Prize

Martha Jermy


Choice between signed and remarqued proofs of the Gordon, Pruett or Unser designs on the left, plus a cap with either "Apex" or "Blue" embroidered design. Also available is a signed print or the "Give no Quarter" painting of Nigel Mansell seen on the left, but not remarqued, plus one of the two cap designs.

Runner-Up Prize

Jill Lyon


Choice between signed prints of the Gordon, Pruett or Unser designs on the left, plus a cap with either "Apex" or "Blue" design.

Third Prize

J.D. Ellis


A Sweatshirt in either "Apex," "Blue," or "Johnstone" design, plus a cap with either "Apex" or "Blue" embroidered design.

These prizes are donated by Bill Patterson Racing Art; please visit his website for more information.

Random Drawing Winners:

6 pairs of original CART racing mirrors (glass only) by MultiVex Mirror Co., the company who manufactures all the CART mirror glass, as well as Jacque Villeneuve's Forumla One mirrors. These sets of mirrors are customized to be attached to your existing vehicle. We will contact winners for vehicle information.

Galmarini, Louis
Menendez, Angel
Plantholt, Daniel
Fitzwater, Tammie
Flanders, Michael
Painter, Charlie


6 original 1997 CART competition mirrors as used on all cars in the 1997 and coming 1998 series (glass only) - great to get autographed at the track!

White, Larry
Fossett, Tony
Deledda, John
Waggoner, Chad Lee
Krock, Steve
Gregory, Andrew

1. True

2. Andretti finished 2nd and Zanardi 3rd; the tiebreaker was Michael scoring more wins (5 to 3).

3. Michael Andretti

4. Al Unser, Jr.

5. Five

6. 1976

7. 1987

8. 1984

A few people indicated "1996" as the correct answer for Questions 6-8; technically that is accurate, but remember, this quiz deals with events as they occured during the course of the 1996 season, so 1996 would be the current year in which Penske failed to win a race, etc., but not the most recent year PRIOR to it.

9. d) Marco Greco

Several contestants seemed to think Danny Sullivan did indeed race during the 1996 season. Villeneuve ran F1 only; Johnny Unser ran in IRL but not CART, while Greco did both.

10. One (Zanardi)

11. Three (Vasser, Zanardi, Fernandez)

12. Four (Unser Jr., E. Fittipaldi, Pruett, Tracy)

13. d) Stefan Johansson

14. c) Jimmy Vasser

15. b) Jimmy Vasser

16. a) Gil de Ferran

17. c) Robby Gordon

He has tested an F3 car, though. Unser tested with Williams at Estoril in 1991 (and had a seat fitting with Benetton the following year), Tracy with Benetton at Estoril in 1993, and Jones with Brabham in 1983.

18. b) Michael Andretti

Rahal has one career Winston Cup start - Riverside in 1984.

19. c) Bettenhausen Motorsports

20. John Della Penna

21. Rick Galles

22. c) Paul Newman

A surprising number of people have completely forgotten about Chip Ganassi’s not-too-shabby career as an Indycar driver.

23. Ten

24. Robby Gordon

25. Gil de Ferran

26. Mike Groff at Nazareth, Fredrik Ekblom at the US 500

27. Teo Fabi

28. Nobody - the car was not entered.

Yes, this was a trick question! As expected, many people mis-remembered Jan Magnussen driving, when in fact he drove Tracy’s Team Penske #3 that weekend and only switched to Hogan’s #9 in place of Emmo thereafter.

29. Federal Express cargo plane

Correct answers referred to FedEx, a cargo plane, or both; "transport plane" is too vague.

30. Richie Hearn, Michel Jourdain, Jr.

31. Greg Moore

32. Mark Blundell

33. a) "Who needs milk?"

34. False

Hector Rebaque won the inaugural Elkhart Lake race in 1982 - his last Indycar start.

35. Seven (Boesel, Christian, Emerson, Greco, Gugelmin, Moreno, Ribeiro)

36. France

37. True

38. He and Josele Garza are both Mexican, and Garza was Jourdain’s car owner in the 1995 Mexican Formula 3 series.

Many people thought the relevant connection was between Michel Jr. and his uncle Bernard, or possibly his dad Michel Sr. Others thought it had to do with Al Unser Jr. being the previous record holder, but this was not the case, contrary to CART’s own press releases. Garza was 19 years, one week old when he made his first CART start at Phoenix in 1981, whereas Little Al was 20 years, 4 months, 10 days old when he debuted at Riverside the following year. Part of the controversy lies in the fact that Garza claimed to be 21 when he first came stateside. Compared to Jourdain’s being 19 years, 6 months, and 12 days old at the ‘96 Long Beach GP, his former car owner still holds the record by a substantial margin.

39. c) Tulsa, OK

After all that time in California, and then in the Orient, many people forgot he came from the Oil Capital.

40. Jimmy Vasser

41. P.J. Jones

42. Greg Moore

43. Eddie Lawson

Lake Havasu, AZ, not NV as indicated.

44. Davy Jones

45. Brazil

46. "Little Leaf," "Steve Johnson"

47. Teodorico

48. Massimilano

49. Alessandro

Generally speaking, I did not mark off for spelling - if I could easily tell which name was intended, credit was given for the answer. But correct spelling for the above three questions did count - if the spelling was reasonably close if not 100% exact, it earned a point. Bad phonetic spelling or those with missing, added, or badly botched syllables (except for "Massimiliano") did not.

50. Mario

51. Scott Pruett

52. Hiro Matsushita

More than one person thought the correct answer had to be King Richard Petty. That is correct, of course - but this isn’t a NASCAR trivia quiz!

53. Eddie Lawson

Some people thought this referred to Eddie Cheever - which would not have been correct even if that was his given nickname - no CART races in 1996, remember? Another person just put down "Hiro" for Question 52 and "Eddie" for this one; the former is self-explanatory, but the latter is not.

54. Eliseo Salazar

55. Mauricio Gugelmin

56. a) an informal family name

That’s right, not a nickname. That would be "Baixinho" or "Shorty."

57. True

Only two people got this one wrong - the highest percentage for all the questions. What if we had asked if Robby Gordon and Jeff Gordon were related?

58. a) Juan Manuel Fangio II

c) Alex Zanardi

The indended sole correct answer was Fangio - then Zanardi had to announce late in 1996 that he did get married in the off-season.

59. True

60. John Mecom

One of the more obscure questions, but four people actually got it right! Common responses included Pat Patrick, Jim Gilmore, and A.J. Foyt.

61. his grandfather

62. sea horse earrings

Just "earrings" or "sea horses" were also acceptable.

63. put on his "race face"

Answers like "go to the bathroom" may be technically correct, but we were looking for the specific one mentioned in the Nancy Pruett article.

64. False

He is his nephew, hence not being named Juan Manuel Fangio, Jr.

65. a pineapple

66. Speed Racer

This lasted (mercifully!) for just a few races.

67. Mark Blundell

This slogan has appeared at least since his F1 debut, back when he wasn’t winning anything.

68. Parker Johnstone

69. c) trucking

70. "Health, Humor, & Happiness"

Only two people got this one right - the lowest of all the non-botched questions!

71. c) soda bottling company

72. drums

73. history

74. Julliard

Specifically the music school.

75. go-cart track

References to his Indy Lights or IRL teams were not correct, as neither of these is a "consumer business enterprise."

76. UCLA

77. c) Swift

78. Team Advisor

Here we looked for this very specific job title, as opposed to just "advisor," "technical advisor," or "team manager."

79. b) Mercedes-Firestone

80. Parker Johnstone

81. Cosworth

82. Ganassi

Specifically for Zanardi.

83. 40 inches of boost vs. 45

Some contestants also specified 55 inches in reference to the added boost being granted to the Menard engines; if they at least got the other two numbers correct, this earned a point.

84. Milwaukee

85. Brazilian - ice cream/dairy products

86. American - generators

References to Cummins Diesel and related parts of the conglomerate were also acceptable.

87. Brazilian - tobacco

88. American - supermarket chain

89. American - prepaid phone cards

Only three people knew this one - a lot of good those sponsorship dollars are doing, huh?

90. American - power equipment & energy services

91. Valvoline

92. Jimmy Vasser won a Mercedes

93. Brahma Sports Team - Team Kool Green

We looked for these specific names, rather than just "Brahma," "Kool," "Brahma Sports," or "Team Kool."

94. Hiro Matsushita

95. Japan

96. Emerson Fittipaldi International Speedway; no

The overall facility is Autodromo Nelson Piquet.

97. Five

98. Milwaukee

The first points-paying race was in 1933.

99. walk the track on foot

100. Homestead

And for the person who reminded us that Rio is an "American" track, that’s correct! That’s the same loophole that made it acceptable for Greco to drive for Foyt as an "American" driver...