Team Menard

Team Menard

Owner(s)	John Menard Jr.
Base	Indianapolis, Indiana
Series	NASCAR Cup Series NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series CART World Series IRL IndyCar Series
Manufacturer	Ford
Opened	1999 (NASCAR) 1980 (CART)
Closed	2001 (NASCAR) 2004 (IRL)
Career
Drivers' Championships	2 (1996-1997, 1999 IRL)
Race victories	10

Team Menard was an auto racing team that competed in the Indianapolis 500, CART, Indy Racing League, NASCAR Cup Series, and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The team was owned by Menards founder, John Menard Jr. Founded in 1980 to compete in CART, from 1991 to 1996 they modified their own Buick V6 engines for racing. This combination won pole for the 500 with Scott Brayton in 1995 and 1996; Tony Stewart used this combination for the first part of his 1996-1997 IRL Championship. With more stringent regulations, the team continued to shine winning the 1999 championship with Greg Ray. However, with the influx of former CART teams to the IRL in the early 2000s, Team Menard struggled to compete for wins and the team merged in 2004 with Panther Racing, although their car continued to carry Menard's colors and be driven first by Mark Taylor, who was then replaced by Townsend Bell. In 2005, Menard's was an associate sponsor for another team and the former Menard No. 2 car driven by Tomáš Enge carried no identification to its Menard lineage. For 2006, the No. 2 car was dropped by Panther and all vestiges of the once dominant Team Menard lineage disappeared until the spring of 2008 when Menards became a primary sponsor on the No. 20 Vision Racing Dallara driven by Ed Carpenter in the IndyCar Series.

The Team Menard name has also been used to refer to their sponsoring of various drivers throughout motorsports, including Paul Menard, Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, Brandon Jones and Matt Crafton in NASCAR, Simon Pagenaud in IndyCar and Frank Kimmel in ARCA, while TeamMenard.com was a portal to information on these drivers and their sponsor. However, Team Menard is not the name of any of their race teams and none of those cars are owned by John Menard. The URL currently redirects to the Menards home page.

Menard also had a NASCAR team running the No. 13 car. Robby Gordon ran 17 races in 2000, with P.J. Jones running an additional race.

Drivers

CART (1980-1995)

• Herm Johnson (1980–1986)
• Jim Crawford (1990)
• Gary Bettenhausen (1990–1993)
• Kevin Cogan (1991)
• Tom Sneva (1991–1992)
• Al Unser (1992)
• Nelson Piquet (1993)
• Eddie Cheever (1993, 1994)
• Geoff Brabham (1993–1994)
• Scott Brayton (1994–1995)
• Buddy Lazier (1995)
• Arie Luyendyk (1995)

IRL/IndyCar Series (1996-2003)

• Scott Brayton (1996)
• Eddie Cheever (1996)
• Danny Ongais (1996)
• Mark Dismore (1996–1997, 2002)
• Tony Stewart (1996–1998)
• Robbie Buhl (1997–1998)
• Robby Gordon (1999–2000, 2002)
• Greg Ray (1999–2001)
• Jaques Lazier (2001–2003)
• Raul Boesel (2002)
• Vítor Meira (2002–2003)
• P. J. Jones (2002)
• Richie Hearn (2003)

NASCAR Cup Series

• Robby Gordon (2000)
• P.J. Jones (2000)

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (2000-2001)

• Bryan Reffner (2000-2001)
• David Starr (2001)

Complete racing results

PPG CART Indycar World Series results

(key)

Year	Chassis	Engine	Tyres	Drivers	No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1980						ONT	INDY	MIL	POC	MDO	MCH	WGL	MIL	ONT	MCH	MXC	PHX
	Lightning Mk 1/77	Offy Drake L4t	G	Herm Johnson	28	14	DNQ	17	11				11	13	13	14	8
1981						PHX	MIL	ATL		MCH	RIV	MIL	MCH	WGL	MXC	PHX
	Lightning Mk 1/77	Chevrolet V8	G	Herm Johnson	28		22	22	17	33	7	13
	Eagle 81													9	8	9
1982						PHX	ATL	MIL	CLE	MCH	MIL	POC	RIV	ROA	MCH	PHX
	Eagle 81	Chevrolet V8	G	Herm Johnson	28	19	6	23	13	34	16		22	17
1983						ATL	INDY	MIL	CLE	MCH	ROA	POC	RIV	MDO	MCH	CPL	LAG	PHX
	Eagle 81	Chevrolet V8	G	Herm Johnson	27						DNQ
1984						LBH	PHX	INDY	MIL	POR	MEA	CLE	MCH	ROA	POC	MDO	SAN	MCH	PHX	LAG	CPL
	March 84C	Cosworth DFX V8t	G	Herm Johnson	28			8	18
1985						LBH	INDY	MIL	POR	MEA	CLE	MCH	ROA	POC	MDO	SAN	MCH	LAG	PHX	MIA
	March 85C	Cosworth DFX V8t	G	Herm Johnson	8		DNQ
1986						PHX	LBH	INDY	MIL	POR	MEA	CLE	TOR	MCH	POC	MDO	SAN	MCH	ROA	LAG	PHX	MIA
	March 86C	Cosworth DFX V8t	G	Herm Johnson	28			DNQ
				Derek Daly				DNQ
1989						PHX	LBH	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	MEA	TOR	MCH	POC	MDO	ROA	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T89/00	Cosworth DFX V8t	G	Johnny Rutherford	98			DNQ
1990						PHX	LBH	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	MEA	TOR	MCH	DEN	VAN	MDO	ROA	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T89/00	Buick 3300 V6t	G	Jim Crawford	15			15
					51	19
				Gary Bettenhausen				31
				Steve Barclay				DNQ
1991						SFR	LBH	PHX	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	MEA	TOR	MCH	DEN	VAN	MDO	ROA	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T91/00	Buick 3300 V6t	G	Gary Bettenhausen	51				22
				Kevin Cogan	9				29
	Lola T89/00			Tom Sneva	59				DNQ
1992						SFR	PHX	LBH	INDY	DET	POR	MIL	NHA	TOR	MCH	CLE	ROA	VAN	MDO	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T92/00	Buick 3300 V6t	G	Al Unser	27				3
				Nelson Piquet					DNQ
				Gary Bettenhausen	51				17
	Lola T91/00			Tom Sneva	59				31
				Rocky Moran					DNQ
1993						SFR	PHX	LBH	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MCH	NHA	ROA	VAN	MDO	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T93/00	Menard V6t	G	Geoff Brabham	27				26
				Gary Bettenhausen	51				17
				Nelson Piquet (R)	77				32
	Lola T92/00	Buick 3300 V6t		Eddie Cheever	59				16
1994						SFR	PHX	LBH	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MCH	MDO	NHA	VAN	ROA	NAZ	LAG
	Lola T93/00	Menard V6t	G	Eddie Cheever	27				8
				Scott Brayton	59				20
				Geoff Brabham					DNQ
1995						MIA	SFR	PHX	LBH	NAZ	INDY	MIL	DET	POR	ROA	TOR	CLE	MCH	MDO	NHA	VAN	LAG
	Lola T95/00	Menard V6t	G	Arie Luyendyk	40						7
				Scott Brayton	60						17
				Buddy Lazier	80						27
Source:

IRL IndyCar Series results

(key) (Results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Chassis	Engine	Tyres	Drivers	No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
1996						WDW	PHX	INDY
	Lola T95/00	Menard V6t	G F	Scott Brayton	2	15	18	DNS
				Eddie Cheever	3	10	Wth	11
				Tony Stewart	20	2	11	24
			F	Mark Dismore	30			19
				Danny Ongais	32			7
1996–97						NHA	LSV	WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	PPIR	CLT	NHA	LSV
	Lola T95/00	Menard V6t	F	Mark Dismore	3	20	17
				Tony Stewart	2	12*	21
	G-Force GF01	Oldsmobile Aurora V8						10*	2*	5*	5*	1*	7*	14	11
				Robbie Buhl	3				18	8	16			1	3
1998						WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	NHA	DOV	CLT	PPIR	ATL	TXS	LSV
	Dallara IR8	Oldsmobile Aurora V8	F	Tony Stewart	1			33	14	1*			3		20*	14
	G-Force GF01B					1*	2*				8	21		5
				Robbie Buhl	3	20								11
	Dallara IR8						12	31	6	10			2		7	7
1999						WDW	PHX	CLT	INDY	TXS	PPIR	ATL	DOV	PPIR	LSV	TXS
	Dallara IR9	Oldsmobile Aurora V8	F	Greg Ray	2	21	21	C1	21	2*	1*	23	1	1*	21	3
				Robby Gordon	32				4
2000						WDW	PHX	LSV	INDY	TXS	PPIR	ATL	KTY	TXS
	Dallara IR-00	Oldsmobile Aurora V8	F	Greg Ray	1	17	19	9	33	15	20	1*	7	26
				Robby Gordon	32				6
2001						PHX	HMS	ATL	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	KTY	GAT	CHI	TXS
	Dallara IR-01	Oldsmobile Aurora V8	F	Greg Ray	2	22	21	1*	17	11*	18	DNS	14	18	13
				Jaques Lazier												16	1*	20
2002						HMS	PHX	FON	NAZ	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	MCH	KTY	GAT	CHI	TXS
	Dallara IR-02	Chevrolet Indy V8	F	Jaques Lazier	2	18	6	2	20
				P. J. Jones						DNQ
				Raul Boesel						21	13
				Mark Dismore								11	11	20	18	18
				Vítor Meira													15	9	8	3
				Robby Gordon	31					8
2003						HMS	PHX	MOT	INDY	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	MCH	GAT	KTY	NAZ	CHI	FON	TXS
	Dallara IR-03	Chevrolet Indy V8	F	Jaques Lazier	2	20	6	12	29									DNS
				Richie Hearn															14
				Vítor Meira						12	16	22	20	19	21	9	DNS			11	4
					22				12
Sources:

1. ^ The 1999 VisionAire 500K at Charlotte was cancelled after 79 laps due to spectator fatalities.