Think this deserves a new thread so as not to send the silly season thread too off track, but something Eagle eye posted got me thinking. With so much talk of car numbers about lately, might be interesting to see other peoples opinions on it.

Quote Originally Posted by EagleEye
Penske Racing Ran the 2, 3 in the early 90's when Newman Haas was running, 5, 6. They took 3 and 6 when the entered the IRL full time, when Menard/TG had #2.
Yeah 2 and 3 were the traditional numbers for Penske during the 90's. Although i'd say 6 and 11 were more traditional for Newman Haas. They only had the number 5 when Mansell went over in 1993. Then 5 became Walkers number from 94-07, along with 15 when he ran a second car.

And i dont think Kanaan should run the number 11. Vasser had the number 12 at Ganassi for all those years but then when he moved to Patrick in 2001 he switched to their number 20 (or was it 40?), then in 2002 when he went to Rahal he took their number 8.

Seems all the teams had their numbers and the only difference from season to season was that the champion had the number 1, which was Ganassi for a good few seasons!

In the late 90's and early 00's the teams generally had these numbers, and didnt move all that much.

1 - Champion
2,3 - Penske
4,12 - Ganassi
5,15 - Walker
6,11 - Newman/Haas
7,8 - Rahal (although PacWest/PWR took the number 7 for Dixon in the few races they did in 2002)
9,10 - Dont seem to remember these numbers being fixed to and specific team but they always seem to have been taken by somebody.
16 - Bettenhausen/HVM
17,18 - PacWest
19,34 - Dale Coyne
20,40 - Patrick
26,27 - Team Green, AA still has the 27 going back to 1995 when Villeneuve used it.
33,99 - Players Forsythe, Although 99 was Greg Moores number. Think he was the only driver that had claimed a number as such. Would of been interesting to see what number he used at Penske in 2000 as both Moore and Penske seemed tied into their numbers.

There were a few other teams around at the time that seemed to have numbers set, but they were the smaller teams that ive forgotten! Also i didnt really follow the IRL during that time so cant comment on what numbers were used there. All i know was that Penske used numbers in the 60's when they did Indy and those couple of races in 2001.