Race Car Of The Day: April 24, 2012

Today's car of the day is Racing Champions' 1995 Ford-Cosworth Indy Car (Scott Pruett).

Scott Donald Pruett (born March 24, 1960 in Roseville, California) is an American race car driver who has competed in NASCAR, Champ Car, IMSA, Trans-Am and Grand-Am. He and his wife Judy have three children, and are children's book authors.

Pruett started racing go karts at the age of eight, and went on to win ten professional karting championships. In the 1980s, he established himself as a top American sports car racer, eventually winning two IMSA GTO Championships and three Trans-Am Series Championships.

In the 1990s, Pruett was a regular in the CART series. From 1988 to 1999, he made 145 starts with two wins, five poles and fifteen podiums (top three finishes). In a pre-season testing in 1990, Pruett was involved in a serious crash at West Palm Beach, Florida, where he seriously injured both his legs. Pruett spent the 1990 season recovering & on certain occasions calling ESPN Indycar telecasts as color commentator with Paul Page doing the play by play.

In 1994 he joined the reformed Pat Patrick team in CART series testing Firestone tires. Later that same year he won the Trans-Am Series Championship. In 1995 he drove full time for Patrick racing using Firestone tires in Firestone's return to the CART series & finally won his first race in a thrilling last lap duel with Al Unser Jr. at the Michigan 500. In 1997 he won his final CART series race at Surfers Paradise Australia (Nikon Indy 300).

Following his Champ Car career, Pruett raced the 2000 season in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series with PPI Motorsports, although with little success, achieving just 1 top-10 and finishing 37th in the points standings. He then moved back to sports car racing and won his third Trans-Am Series Championship in 2003. Since 2004, he has raced in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series for Chip Ganassi Racing. Pruett is still a regular starter at NASCAR road course races and he is often referred to as a Road Course Ringer. Pruett has won nine American sports car championships, three in Grand-Am (2004, 2008, 2010), to go along with previous championships in IMSA GTO (1986, 1988), Trans-Am Series (1987, 1994, 2003) and IMSA GT Endurance (1986).

Pruett also worked for several years as a commentator for Champ Car races on Speed Channel.

He is rumored as a candidate to replace Brian Barnhart as INDYCAR Chief Steward.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Scott Pruett

Yes, an Indy Car.  I don't have a lot of these in my collection but two joined my collection at the CARnival this year (including this one).

Pruett won the opening round of the 1991 IROC series season at Daytona. In 1994, Pruett joined Patrick Racing as a test driver for Firestone tires. The same year, he also won the IMSA 24 Hours at Daytona, and also won a second Trans-Am Series championship.

For the next 4 years, Pruett continued driving Indy Cars for Patrick Racing and usually made the top ten in the series championship. In 1995 he won his first CART race at the Michigan 500. His best CART career championship finish was in 1998 finishing sixth in points with three podium finishes and one pole position.
In 1999, Pruett changed to Arciero-Wells and participated in the Toyota engine program development. He also earned Toyota's first pole on an oval (California Speedway) and earned Toyota's best qualifying effort on a road course at the current time (third at the Australian Grand Prix).