WHAT is understood to be a race-winning Newman-Haas Racing IndyCar has popped up in Norton, Ohio and looks set to find a new home in the United States – and possibly for a bargain price!
Recently listed here on American site Bring a Trailer with no reserve price in place, the 1992 Lola T92/00 carries Michael Andretti’s #1 livery from that season among with the familiar Kmart and Texaco sponsorship that the Paul Newman and Carl Haas-owned team carried at the time.
At time of publishing this story the highest bid was only US$8750!
Minus engine and gearbox, the ’92 Lola features a United States Auto Club (USAC) registered serial number of 3024 inside its tub and has what is described as a ‘reproduction chassis tag displaying serial number HU20.’
USAC was the sanctioning body of the Indianapolis 500 in 1992 (CART sanctioned all over IndyCar World Series races at the time) and the presence of a USAC serial number usually means a chassis has competed at the Indianapolis 500 in practice, qualifying, the race or a combination of either.
Our Indy Sleuth records suggest that HU20 was Andretti’s spare car at Indianapolis and therefore wasn’t the car he was driving in the race that failed while he was leading with just 11 laps to go, having led 163 laps prior to that point.
However, Andretti’s Indy 500 spare car did compete in a range of CART races in 1992, qualifying on pole the first time it was understood to have been used a fortnight later in Detroit.
It’s understood the American used the car to win at Portland and Toronto and, uniquely, it led in all five races that Andretti drove it in that year.
He left IndyCar racing at the end of the year bound for Formula 1 with McLaren and his seat at Newman-Haas Racing was taken by 1992 World Champion Nigel Mansell.
Andretti these days runs Andretti Global and is a part-owner of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercars team.
The 1992 Lola IndyCar auction runs until later this week, view more details here.
