THE annual Gold Coast Indy race was always one of the most popular events on the Champ Car World Series calendar (or CART/IndyCar World Series as it was previously known) with fans lining the Surfers Paradise street circuit.
There were always plenty of surprises and none moreso than the 2002 win by Mexican Mario Dominguez in the rain-affected event.
His Herdez Competition Lola was damaged in a multi-car crash that prompted a full restart and, repaired, it was able to join the race – well, we use the term ‘race’ very loosely.
All bar a handful of laps were run behind the Safety Car, with CART officials electing to red flag the race after 40 of the scheduled 70 laps to hand the victory to first-time winner Dominguez.
But it’s what happened to his Lola in the aftermath of the Gold Coast race that’s really caught our attention.
A flick through our Indy Sleuth records files has revealed a pretty interesting part of this car’s racing history that hasn’t been highlighted before.
Dominguez’s Surfers Paradise-winning #55 Herdez chassis – a 2002-built Lola – had actually been the team’s spare chassis for that weekend, however was brought into play for Saturday and Sunday after he’d crashed his primary chassis on the Friday afternoon into a tyre barrier.
It returned to being the team’s spare for the final two rounds of 2002 at Fontana and Mexico City and then remained in his hands in 2003.
Our Indy Sleuth records show that he retired this chassis from the opening round in St. Petersburg and the team then withdrew it after Friday qualifying in Monterrey, Mexico and swapped to another chassis after Dominguez hit a kerb really hard and damaged the tub.
We presume that the tub was sent back to Lola for repairs and from there it didn’t appear again at a CART/Champ Car track for the remainder of 2003 or 2004.
However, a flick through the amazing records compiled by Champ Car commentator and journalist Jeremy Shaw show that chassis 09 next appeared in 2005 on the Gold Coast when Walker Racing’s Team Australia program added a third car for Will Power to its existing team of Alex Tagliani and Marcus Marshall.
The team had previously stepped up from Reynards to Lolas by acquiring Team Rahal’s chassis from its defunct Champ Car program (it had since moved to the Indy Racing League) and then also added this chassis to its fleet late in the season.
Power drove the #25 car in his Champ Car debut in Surfers Paradise – where he was punted out by teammate Tagliani – and then in the season finale in Mexico City.
He carried on with the chassis into the 2006 season and used it for the majority of that year, including taking his first Champ Car pole position on his home circuit on the Gold Coast.
So, the very same chassis that had won the crazy Gold Coast race in 2002 then went on to take pole position four years later with a different driver and team!
Power finished third in the final race of the season in Mexico City to record his first Champ Car podium result and seal sixth in the drivers’ championship points.
The Champ Car World Series moved to a new chassis – the Panoz DP01 – for the 2007 season and the fleet of Lolas were consigned to history.
Just where this ex-Dominguez and ex-Power chassis ended up post-2006 remains to be seen, but we look forward to reporting further news if any leads come our way …
Watch the 2006 Gold Coast Indy race here:
