Menards Infiniti Pro Series

The Indy Pro Series is a developmental racing series sanctioned by the Indy Racing League. It was founded in 2002 as a way to introduce new talent to the IRL and coincided with Infiniti's departure from the IRL's premier Indycar series. It is a spec series using a modified 3.5L version of the V8 engine used in the Infiniti Q45 combined with Dallara chassis. The series initially struggled to attract drivers and some races have had fewer than 10 entrants. However, with the introduction of a number of road-course races to the schedule in 2005, many of America's top prospects like Marco Andretti and Phil Giebler were attracted to the series to run part-time schedules on the road courses. In 2006, a boost in prize money even further increased car counts to 16 or more, with an even six ovals, six road course mix, with selected races being double races, and a stand-alone race (independent of the IndyCar Series) on the USGP weekend. The series was called the Menards Infiniti Pro Series until 2006 when both Menards and Nissan dropped their sponsorship of the series. 2007 car counts have improved further with 20 or more cars in every race.
See more at Wikipedia.org...