FORT WORTH, Texas – It was a momentous, contentious couple of weeks for Arie Luyendyk. Now, 16 years after the fact, Luyendyk returns to Texas Motor Speedway to help celebrate the 25th IZOD IndyCar Series race at the venue.

It all started with his victory in the 81st Indianapolis 500 Mile Race – his second, the 16th winner from the pole and the 50th Indy 500 win for Firestone – over teammate Scott Goodyear. The race, however, played on everyone's psyche as it was played out over three days. The originally scheduled 200-lap race was rained out and 15 laps were logged the next day before rain halted the actions. Finally, on Tuesday, May 27, 29 cars lined up for the single-file restart.

Luyendyk went on to win by .570 of a second in the No. 5 Wavephore/Sprint PCS/Miller Lite/Provimi G Force powered by an Oldsmobile Aurora engine. Jeff Ward finished third, followed by 1996 winner Buddy Lazier, Tony Stewart, Davey Hamilton and Billy Boat.

Nine days later, Luyendyk led the contingent to Texas Motor Speedway for the inaugural IndyCar race – the True Value 500 – under the lights at the 1.5-mile, high-banked Texas Motor Speedway oval.

“It was a whole new type of racetrack with the (24 degree) banking and mile and a half. I don’t think we had ever run on tracks like that before,” said Luyendyk, who qualified 11th to pole sitter Stewart. “After the first couple of laps you were like, ‘Wow, it’s quick here.’ We were running about 225 mph a lap on a mile-and-a-half track and it feels like you’re going 240. I liked it; I thought it was cool.”

During the June 8 race, a malfunction caused unexpected scoring errors, which created quite a stir in Victory Circle.

“With the race and everything that happened, it’s always going to be remembered by a lot of people who were watching it,” Luyendyk said. “The transponder in my car not working so each time I came into the pits I would drop from third to 19th and then drive to fifth or sixth and then come into the pits and drop to 18th or 19th again.

“It seemed like nobody was trying to fix the problem. While this was all going on I was getting more upset in the car and driving more aggressively than I probably would have done if I wasn’t so upset because we were so fast and leading the race but we are listed as whatever.”

Boat was scored as the race winner, and the agitated Luyendyk questioned the results in Victory Circle. That prompted a brief skirmish with Boat’s team owner, A.J. Foyt. The result was corrected the next day, but to this day Foyt has refused to return the trophy.

On June 5, 1998, Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage presented Luyendyk with a True Value 500 trophy in Victory Circle before the start of the race.

“It was too bad for our team, but in the end a lot of PR for Texas Motor Speedway and INDYCAR. But not the way I wanted PR,” said Luyendyk, a driver steward in Race Control.