The Indianapolis 500 is beginning to look more like the event that not so long ago was the most important auto race in the world.
Chip Ganassi signaled the turnaround last May, bringing his elite CART team to Indianapolis Motor Speedway and beating the best of the rival Indy Racing League with driver Juan Montoya.
Roger Penske, whose team has won a record 10 Indy 500s, will return for the 85th running of the race with reigning CART champion Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves.
Now, Michael Andretti will be back in the lineup for the first time since 1995.
"I feel like I have some unfinished business at this place," said Andretti, son of 1969 Indy winner Mario Andretti and the latest of the big names in American open-wheel racing to announce his return to the race.
The 38-year-old Andretti, a former series champion and the CART leader with 40 career wins, finally made his much-anticipated announcement last Tuesday.
"I can't tell you how empty I felt every May, knowing the cars were running at Indy and knowing I wasn't going to be there," Andretti said. "Now I'm going to have a chance to get an Indy win, which is something I've always dreamed about."
There have been a lot of people competitors and fans with the same empty feeling as Andretti since 1996, when speedway president Tony George founded the IRL. The top teams and drivers of the established CART series chose to stay away.
Although the IRL competition was close and exciting, the absence of big names quickly ate into what had been the biggest TV ratings in motorsports.
The race still sold out, with more than 400,000 people showing up on Memorial Day weekend, but attendance for practice and qualifying leading up to the big show was well off.
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