The 2000 Michigan 500 was the eleventh round of the twenty-round

2000 CART season The 2000 FedEx Championship Series season was the twenty-second in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) era of American open-wheel car racing. It consisted of 20 races, beginning in Homestead, Florida on March 26, 2000 and concluding in F ...

. It happened at the

Michigan International Speedway Michigan International Speedway (formerly named as the Michigan Speedway from 1997 to 2000) is a D-shaped oval superspeedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. It has hosted various major auto racing series throughout its existence, including NASCAR, Cham ...

Qualifying

The

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

driver

Paul Tracy Paul Anthony Tracy (born December 17, 1968) is a Canadian professional auto racing driver who participated in Champ Car World Series, the IndyCar Series, and the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). He started kart racing at age five and quick ...

, from Team Green, set the pole, followed by

Michael Andretti Michael Mario Andretti (born October 5, 1962) is an American former racing driver, and current team owner. Statistically one of the most successful drivers in the history of American open-wheel car racing, Andretti won the 1991 CART champions ...

and

Christian Fittipaldi Christian Fittipaldi (born 18 January 1971) is a Brazilian former racing driver who has competed in various forms of motorsport including Formula One, Champ Car, and NASCAR. He was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, and parti ...

. * Eligible for Rookie of the Year

Race

Eventual winner

Juan Pablo Montoya Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán (; born 20 September 1975) is a Colombian racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to , IndyCar between 1999 and 2022, and the NASCAR Cup Series between 2006 and 2024. Montoya won seven Formula One Grand ...

led the race at the end of the first lap through to lap 16, where he was overtaken by eventual runner up

. Across the 250 laps, the race saw nine different leaders, with 52 lead changes. There were five cautions over the course of the race, taking 38 laps in total. Thirteen cars did not finish the race, and only seven cars completed the full 500-mile distance. The race culminated in a battle between Montoya and Andretti, with seven lead changes in the final twenty laps. Montoya set the race's fastest lap on lap 232 of 250. Andretti led lap 249, but was passed by Montoya on the final lap. Montoya's margin of victory was just 0.040s. Montoya's victory was

Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...

's second in ChampCar, and he became the first driver since

Rick Mears Richard Ravon Mears (born December 3, 1951) is an American former race car driver. He is one of four men to win the Indianapolis 500 four times (1979, 1984, 1988, 1991) and is the current record-holder for pole positions in the race with six (197 ...

in 1991 to win both the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly shortened to Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indian ...

and

Michigan 500 The Michigan 500 was an IndyCar Series race held at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. Held from 1981 to 2001, the event was held in high prestige, constituting part of Indy car racing's 500-mile "Triple Crown". Between 19 ...

in the same year.

Championship Battle

Michael Andretti became the new leader of the championship with 100 points. The previous leader, Roberto Moreno was in 2nd with 90 points. Race winner Juan Pablo Montoya moved up to 5th in the Championship standings with 74 points.

Broadcasting

The Michigan 500 was broadcast by ABC.

Paul Page Paul Page (born November 25, 1945) is an American motorsports broadcaster who is best known for serving as the play-by-play commentator for the Indianapolis 500 for a total of 50 years across radio and television. Page was the radio ''Voice of th ...

was the lead announcer and was joined by

Parker Johnstone Parker Johnstone III (born March 27, 1961) is a former race car driver and motorsports announcer from Redmond, Oregon. An accomplished musician, he was the principal trumpet of the International Youth Orchestra, touring Europe, playing with Herb ...

as color commentator.2000 Michigan 500 Telecast: ABC-TV, July 23, 2000 The race had a lead-in audience from the

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won his first Open Championship. In the United States, the race had a 2.5 overnight rating. The race had a final rating of 2.0 with 2.058 million households watching. It was the most-watched CART race of 2000. Qualifying for the race was broadcast tape-delayed on

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially ...

on the morning of Sunday, July 23. The qualifying broadcast had a rating of 0.1 and watched by 45,000 households.

Standings after the race

*Note: Only the top five positions are included for the drivers' standings.

References

{{CART World Series race report, Name_of_race = Marlboro 500 , Year_of_race = 2000 , Previous_race_in_season = 2000 Molson Indy Toronto , Next_race_in_season = 2000 TARGET Grand Prix , Previous_year's_race = 1999 U.S. 500 Presented by Toyota , Next_year's_race = 2001 Harrah's 500 , Michigan 500, 2000 Michigan Indy 400