2008 Indy Lights


The 2008 IRL Firestone Indy Lights Series, formerly the Indy Pro Series, was the seventh season of the developmental open-wheel racing series under the Indy Racing League ownership, and the 23rd in Indy NXT combined history.
As part of the unification with Champ Car in February 2008, all previous seasons of the Indy Pro Series from its inaugural season in 2002 were combined with the historical records of the old Indy Lights development series, which ran under CART management from 1986 to 2001. On March 22, 2008, Firestone signed on to be the title sponsor, and thus the Indy Pro Series was retitled into Firestone Indy Lights Series. The link between both series was further established within the Firestone Firehawk Cup, which was awarded to the champion between 2002 and 2013.
After passing on his scholarship for winning the Atlantic Championship before the IndyCar-Champ Car unification, Raphael Matos won the Indy Lights championship driving for Andretti Green/AFS Racing. Matos reached the finale at Chicagoland Speedway with a three point lead over Richard Antinucci, who was racing for Sam Schmidt Motorsports and lost all chances after crashing halfway through the race. Matos scored three wins against Antinucci's two, all of them on road courses, with both drivers splitting the St. Petersburg and Watkins Glen doubleheaders.
Rookie of the Year honors went to one of Antinucci's teammates, Ana Beatriz, who finished third in points and won in Nashville, becoming the first woman in history to win an Indy Lights race. She finished 21 points clear of series veteran Arie Luyendyk Jr, Matos' teammate for his first full season since 2004, who finally got his first win at the final round in Chicagoland in his 62nd attempt.
Despite his complete lack of oval background, British driver Dillon Battistini surprised by being the class of the field on this discipline for Panther Racing. He won in his first race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and at the Freedom 100, for a total of four oval wins. However, his lack of pace on the road courses and multiple issues during the year dropped Battistini to 6th in the points behind rookie J. R. Hildebrand, the winner at Kansas. Wins were also achieved by Pablo Donoso, James Davison, Bobby Wilson and demoted IndyCar driver Franck Perera for a total of 10 different winners during the season, which as of 2023 stands as the all-time Indy NXT record.
After one year with an in-house operation, Chip Ganassi Racing partnered for the 2008 season with Apex Racing, which would run the operation under the new name of Integra Motorsports with CGRT. The alliance between American Spirit Racing and Atlantic Racing Team that gave birth to Team KMA was dissolved, as American Spirit kept on running the rebranded team. Kenn Hardley Racing left the series and sold their equipment to new team Alliance Motorsports, while Team E also entered the series in place of departing teams Cheever Racing and SpeedWorks. A new venture called FuZion Autosports by former team owner Dave McMillan registered an entry for driver Adam Andretti, but neither the team or the driver made an appearance during the year, after McMillan joined Integra Motorsports as team manager.
Strong grids continued for the second year in a row, with 20 drivers at least in each round, up to 23-24 drivers at most rounds and 27 starters for the Freedom 100, which stands as the all-time record for the event. This would filter into the start of the 2009 season, right before the economic downturn in auto racing. 12 drivers contested all sixteen races, and a total of 40 drivers competed during the season.

Drivers and teams

TeamNoDriversRounds

Schedule

The biggest change within the schedule came with the discontinuation of the Liberty Challenge at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, after the United States Grand Prix entered into a hiatus. Its two races were replaced with a return to Kansas Speedway, where the series had not raced since 2004, and a second race at Mid-Ohio, which meant that all road course events had been turned into doubleheaders. With the return of Kansas, most IndyCar races on U.S. ovals were supported by Indy Lights, with the exception of Texas and Richmond.
Rd.DateRace nameTrackLocation
1March 29Miami 100 Homestead–Miami SpeedwayHomestead, Florida
2April 5–6Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Streets of St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg, Florida
3April 5–6Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Streets of St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg, Florida
4April 27Hard Rock 100 Kansas SpeedwayKansas City, Kansas
5May 23Firestone Freedom 100 Indianapolis Motor SpeedwaySpeedway, Indiana
6June 1Milwaukee 100 Milwaukee MileWest Allis, Wisconsin
7June 21Jeld-Wen 100 Iowa SpeedwayNewton, Iowa
8July 5Corning Duels at Watkins Glen Watkins Glen InternationalWatkins Glen, New York
9July 5Corning Duels at Watkins Glen Watkins Glen InternationalWatkins Glen, New York
10July 12Sun Belt Rentals 100 Nashville SuperspeedwayLebanon, Tennessee
11July 19–20Mid-Ohio 100 Mid-Ohio Sports Car CourseLexington, Ohio
12July 19–20Mid-Ohio 100 Mid-Ohio Sports Car CourseLexington, Ohio
13August 9Kentucky 100 Kentucky SpeedwaySparta, Kentucky
14August 23–24Carneros 100 Infineon RacewaySonoma, California
15August 23–24Valley of the Moon 100 Infineon RacewaySonoma, California
16September 7SunRichGourmet.com 100 Chicagoland SpeedwayJoliet, Illinois

Race results

Race summaries

Miami 100

  • Saturday March 29, 2008
  • Homestead-Miami Speedway, Homestead, Florida
  • Race weather: 82 °F, fair skies
  • Pole position winner: #27 Raphael Matos 57.2075 sec 186.899 mph
  • Race Summary: As opposed to the previous year's race which was repeatedly slowed by major incidents, the 2008 season opener ran free of any major incidents. Polesitter Raphael Matos was passed in the opening laps by a hard-charging Richard Antinucci who started fifth. Antinucci dominated the middle portion of the race, but when he started to reach lapped traffic, rookie Dillon Battistini was able to catch him and the two battled for the remainder of the race. Following a caution flag with less than 10 laps to go, Battistini was able to find his way around Antinucci to take his first series win in his first race, which was also his first race on an oval track. The 23 cars running at the finish is a series record.

    St. Pete 100 Race 1

  • Saturday April 5, 2008
  • Streets of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Florida
  • Race weather: 84 °F, fair skies
  • Pole position winner: #27 Raphael Matos 1:06.4669 sec, 97.492 mph
  • Race Summary: Raphael Matos dominated the race and captured his third win at St. Pete in 3 races. The race was slowed 3 times early in the race by caution flags caused by two spins by Bobby Wilson and Mitchell Cunningham going off course, but the final 26 laps were run without a full-course caution. Matos drew the number four following the race, meaning that the top four positions would be inverted and Jeff Simmons would start race 2 from the pole.

    St. Pete 100 Race 2

  • Sunday April 6, 2008
  • Streets of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Florida
  • Race weather: 79 °F, overcast
  • Pole position winner: #2 Jeff Simmons
  • Race Summary: Jeff Simmons led the first half of the race from the pole, which was slowed many times by caution flags. On a restart on lap 25, the fastest car on the track Raphael Matos tried to pass Simmons, but the two banged wheels and Ana Beatriz passed both of them and took the lead. Simmons would eventually retire from the race due to the damage incurred and Matos had to pit to replace a flattened tire. Beatriz would lead until a restart on lap 30 when she and her teammate came together in the middle of turn 1. Beatriz spun and attempted to rejoin the race right in front of the car of Pablo Donoso. The two made heavy contact and were out of the race. Antinucci continued on to the victory. He was later penalized 10 points for making avoidable contact with Beatriz.

    [Kansas Lottery] 100

  • Sunday April 27, 2008
  • Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, Kansas
  • Race weather: 56 °F, sunny
  • Pole position winner: #7 Richard Antinucci
  • Race Summary: Qualifying was scheduled for the morning of the race but low temperatures caused it to be canceled and the field lined up based on entrant points, giving points leader Richard Antinucci the pole.

    [Firestone Freedom 100]

  • Friday May 23, 2008
  • Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway, Indiana
  • Race weather:
  • Pole position winner: #15 Dillon Battistini 188.397 mph
  • Race Summary: Dillon Battistini led at the start and was consistently hounded by the cars of James Davison and Wade Cunningham throughout the race. The most spectacular moment of the race came when Davison and J. R. Hildebrand's cars came together on the backstretch, forcing nearby cars to go four-wide and Jeff Simmons to drop two tires into the grass to avoid the slowing pair of cars that sustained slight damage. During the final ten laps of the race, Richard Antinucci was able to catch a draft behind Battistini, but reported that when he pulled out of the draft to pass, he was unable to maintain enough speed to complete the maneuver and Battistini was able to cruise to his second win of the season.