Marco Andretti and Zach Veach (26) at Portland International Raceway in 2018

The circuit: A 12-turn, 1.964-mile permanent road course on the city’s north side.

Key information: In 2020, the NTT IndyCar Series will stage its third race at Portland International Raceway, but the event’s open-wheel history stretches to 1984 when Al Unser Jr. won the first of his three CART races there. The next event will be Sept. 4-6, 2020.

Tickets on sale: Tickets go on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT. Get all the information here.

Race of champions: It seems this event is usually won by one of the best drivers of the sport. The first seven to win there either were or became Indy car series champions (Unser Jr., Mario Andretti, Bobby Rahal, Danny Sullivan, Emerson Fittipaldi, Michael Andretti and Alex Zanardi). In all, 11 series champions have captured at least one race win at the track, including Gil de Ferran, Cristiano da Matta, Sebastien Bourdais and Will Power. The winner of the race went on to win that year’s season championship 10 times in 25 opportunities.

One three-time winner, but several two-timers: Michael Andretti is the only driver to have won three Indy car races at PIR – he won three in a row from 1990-92 -- but his father, Mario, is among those who have won two. The others are Fittipaldi, Unser Jr., Zanardi, de Ferran, da Matta and Bourdais.

Will Power and Alexander Rossi

A close finish: Mark Blundell’s 1997 victory was by only 0.027 seconds over de Ferran. That’s a big difference from the inaugural race, which Unser Jr. won by 39.61 seconds over Geoff Brabham. Watch that race here.

The track's hot spot: The front straightaway chicane is the adventurous part of any lap at this track, something Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Jack Harvey, among others, experienced in this year's race. In the 2018 race, the bunched field had trouble getting through that chicane, with Marco Andretti's car getting up in the air (see above) after multi-car contact. Notice in the photo at the bottom of this page the congestion that occurs in the starts of these races. The shot below is the start of this year's race.

Racing diversity: In addition to the NTT IndyCar Series race, the weekend’s action includes the Road to Indy, Stadium Super Trucks, Mazda Global MX-5 Cup and new for 2020, USAC .25 Midgets.

PAST WINNERS:

1984 (CART): Al Unser Jr.

1985 (CART): Mario Andretti

1986 (CART): Mario Andretti

1987 (CART): Bobby Rahal

1988 (CART): Danny Sullivan

1989 (CART): Emerson Fittipaldi

1990 (CART): Michael Andretti

1991 (CART): Michael Andretti

1992 (CART): Michael Andretti

1993 (CART): Emerson Fittipaldi

1994 (CART): Al Unser Jr.

1995 (CART): Al Unser Jr.

1996 (CART): Alex Zanardi

1997 (CART): Mark Blundell

1998 (CART): Alex Zanardi

1999 (CART): Gil de Ferran

2000 (CART): Gil de Ferran

2001 (CART): Max Papis

2002 (CART): Cristiano da Matta

2003 (CART): Adrian Fernandez

2004 (Champ Car): Sebastien Bourdais

2005 (Champ Car): Cristiano da Matta

2006 (Champ Car): A.J. Allmendinger

2007 (Champ Car): Sebastien Bourdais

2018 (INDYCAR): Takuma Sato

2019 (INDYCAR): Will Power

The start of the 2019 race at Portland International Raceway