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Gregory Ray (born August 3, 1966) is an American former race car driver.
After winning the SCCA national Formula Atlantic championship in 1993, Ray moved up to the Champ Car-sanctioned Toyota Atlantic series in 1994.
In 1997, Ray made his Indy Racing League debut driving for Thomas Knapp in an unsponsored black No. 97 car. He made his mark on the series a year later during qualifying for the 1998 Indianapolis 500. Driving the same, plain, black No. 97, he qualified second behind A. J. Foyt's driver Billy Boat. The car attracted sponsorship from local businesses and the national anti-tobacco campaign, and became known as Ash Kicker Racing. Though he failed to finish that race, he scored several good results in subsequent races and caught the eye of successful businessman and team owner John Menard Jr.
In 1999, Ray won the IRL championship on the strength of three victories. However, 2000 was a difficult season with only one victory. He qualified on pole for the Indianapolis 500 but subsequently finished last (33rd). In 2001, Ray and Menard had split, and his replacement Jaques Lazier won his first victory at the Chicagoland Speedway.
Things continued to go downhill from there, as Ray bounced around three separate cars in 2002 before starting his own team in 2003, Access Motorsports, the lone team utilizing a Panoz chassis with Honda engines. He gained sponsorship from TrimSpa but failed to light up the scoreboard and in 2004, he ran a few races before giving his seat to former Infiniti Pro Series champion Mark Taylor. The team closed at the end of the year from a lack of sponsorship.
Ray had five wins in his 74 IRL starts.
For 1998, Ray would continue to drive Knapp's No. 97 Dallara-Oldsmobile Aurora with sponsorship from Mercury Outboards and Mercury Marine for the opening rounds of the season. However, during practice for the Indianapolis 500 Knapp's team was without a sponsor. Ray would manage to qualify second between A. J. Foyt Enterprises teammates Billy Boat and Kenny Brack and would gain race day sponsorship from Justice Brothers, Inc., True Value, The Nashville Network, and Ray's hometown track Texas Motor Speedway. In the race, Ray led for eighteen laps before retiring on lap 167 due to a gearbox failure. Ray would follow up his 500 performance with a second place finish at the True Value 500 at Texas Motor Speedway where Ray acquired sponsorship from AT&T but Knapp's team skipped races due to a lack of sponsorship. Ray then drove a two-race stint for A. J. Foyt Enterprises in the No. 11 Conseco Dallara-Oldsmobile Aurora as a replacement to the injured Billy Boat (who beat Ray to the pole position at Indianapolis and the win at Texas) at the Pep Boys 400K at Dover Downs International Speedway where Ray would set the fastest lap before getting taken out in a crash and the VisionAire 500K at Lowe's Motor Speedway where Ray retired with gearbox failure. Knapp then reopened his team for the final three races of the season with sponsorship from Genoa Racing and Best Access Systems but would retire from each race.
In 2001, Ray would continue to drive for Menard in the No. 2 Johns Manville/Menards Dallara-Oldsmobile Aurora. Ray continued to be an excellent qualifier with four poles in the series' first ten races but had trouble finishing races with a win at the zMax Atlanta 500 Classic at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Ray's relationship with Menard got even worse after the Indianapolis 500 where Ray qualified second and would lead forty laps before finishing seventeenth, eight laps down. Ray split from Menard after the Belterra Resort Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway while Ray's replacement, Jaques Lazier won in his second race in the car at the Delphi Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway. Ray would drive the season ending Chevy 500 at Texas Motor Speedway returning to A. J. Foyt's team in the No. 11 A. J. Foyt Racing Dallara-Nissan Infiniti where Ray would start 13th and finish 8th in his only other top 10 of the year besides his Atlanta win.
Starting off 2002 without a ride, Ray was hired to drive the No. 11 Harrah's Dallara-Chevrolet for A. J. Foyt Enterprises in place of the injured Eliseo Salazar. Ray made his 2002 debut at the Indianapolis 500 starting 31st and crashing after 28 laps and finishing in 33rd, last, place again. Ray continued to drive Foyt's #11 (later #41 when Salazar returned) through the Gateway Indy 250 at Gateway International Speedway. Ray would then drive for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in the No. 20 Dallara-Chevrolet with sponsorship from Empress Casino and Young Chevrolet in the final two races of the season. Ray's best finish of 2002 was a 12th at the Boomtown 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Foyt's No. 11 car. This led to a 23rd-place finish in points.
In 2004, Ray looked to be in good shape after a respectable 2003 season. Ray acquired sponsorship from Renovac for the opening rounds on his No. 13 Panoz-Honda and would have a second place start at the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi. But prior to the Indianapolis 500 the team was without sponsorship but Ray was able to get sponsorship from Rent-A-Center due to the company being based in Ray's home town of Plano, Texas. After Indianapolis Ray fielded his own cars without sponsorship at the Bombardier 500 at Texas Motor Speedway and the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway getting a seventh place finish at Texas. But soon a lack of sponsorship caught up to Ray as he had to withdraw from the following race, the Argent Mortgage Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway. Ray would quietly finish 23rd in points and the team closed up shop at the end of the season.
Ray soon afterwards retired from racing after being unable to find a drive for the 2005 season.
In 1993, Ray moved up to the Formula Atlantic series and would take the championship in series in dominating fashion.
By 1996, Ray was competing in the PPG/ Firestone Indy Lights Championship Powered by Buick driving for Team KOOL Green in the No. 27 KOOL Lola Cars-Buick V6. Ray's best race of the season came at the race at the Milwaukee Mile where Ray started fourth and finished in second place. Ray would finish in twelfth place in the overall championship.
| Running |
| 1992 ! nowrap | Primus Racing | FIR 3 | MOS 3 | IOW 2 | WGI 4 | LRP 2 | TRR 11 | Infineon Raceway 1 | Infineon Raceway 3 | 1st | 111 |
| 1992 ! | MIA | PIR | LBH | LRP | MTL | WGI | TOR | TRR | VAN | MOH | Mosport Park | NAZ | LS1 24 | LS2 15 | 52nd | 1 | ||
| 1993 ! nowrap | Genoa Racing | PIR | LBH | Road Atlanta | Milwaukee Mile 16 | MTL | Mosport Park | HAL | TOR | NHS | TRR | VAN | MOH | NAZ | LS1 | LS2 | 52nd | 1 |
| 1994 ! | PIR 1 | LBH 14 | Mosport Park 1 | Milwaukee Mile 1 | MTL 5 | TOR 10 | TRR 5 | MOH 3 | VAN 2 | NAZ 13 | LS 2 | 3rd | 148 | |||||
| 1996 ! nowrap | Team Green | MIA 7 | LBH 11 | NAZ 18 | MIS 15 | MIL 2 | DET 8 | POR 6 | CLE 10 | TOR 16 | TRO 6 | VAN 17 | LS 16 | 12th | 48 |
| 1996–1997 ! rowspan=3 nowrap | Knapp Motorsports ! 97 ! rowspan=2 nowrap | Dallara IR7 ! rowspan=7 nowrap | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | NHM | LVS | WDW | PHX | INDY 25 | TXS 8 | PPIR 17 | NH2 Wth | LV2 30 | 29th | 73 ! rowspan=2 | ||||||||
| 1998 ! 97 !rowspan=2 nowrap | Dallara IR8 | WDW 25 | PHX 11 | INDY 18 | TXS 2 | NHM | ATL 24 | TX2 21 | LVS 25 | 21st | 128 ! rowspan=2 | |||||||||||
| 1999 ! rowspan=3 nowrap | Team Menard ! 2 ! nowrap | Dallara IR9 | WDW 21 | PHX 21 | CLT C1 | INDY 21 | TXS 2 | PPIR 1 | ATL 23 | DOV 1 | PPI2 1 | LVS 21 | TX2 3 | 1st | 293 ! | |||||||
| 2000 ! 1 ! nowrap | Dallara IR-00 | WDW 17 | PHX 19 | LVS 9 | INDY 33 | TXS 15 | PPIR 20 | ATL 1 | KTY 7 | TX2 26 | 13th | 172 ! | ||||||||||
| 2001 ! 2 !rowspan=2 nowrap | Dallara IR-01 | PHX 22 | HMS 21 | ATL 1 | INDY 17 | TXS 11 | PPIR 18 | RIR DNS | KAN 14 | NSH 18 | KTY 13 | STL | CHI | 18th | 193 ! rowspan=2 | |||||||
| 2002 !rowspan=3 nowrap | Dallara IR-02 !rowspan=3 nowrap | Chevrolet Indy V8 | HMS | PHX | FON | NZR | INDY 33 | TXS 12 | PPIR 18 | RIR 12 | KAN 19 | 23rd | 128 ! rowspan=3 | |||||||||
| 2003 ! rowspan=2 nowrap | Access Motorsports ! rowspan=2 | 13 ! nowrap | G-Force GF09 ! nowrap | Honda HI3R V8 | HMS | PHX | MOT 9 | INDY 8 | TXS 11 | PPIR 18 | RIR 12 | KAN 8 | NSH 16 | MIS 10 | STL 8 | KTY 15 | NZR 17 | CHI DNS | FON 14 | TX2 8 | 15th | 253 ! |
| 2004 ! nowrap | G-Force GF09B ! nowrap | Honda HI4R V8 | HMS 14 | PHX 10 | MOT 20 | INDY 27 | TXS 7 | RIR 15 | KAN | NSH | MIL | MIS | KTY | PPIR | NZR | CHI | FON | TX2 | 23rd | 99 ! | ||
| 1997 | Dallara IR7 | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | 30 | 25 | Knapp Motorsports |
| 1998 | Dallara IR8 | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | 2 | 18 | Knapp Motorsports |
| 1999 | Dallara IR9 | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | 2 | 21 | Team Menard |
| 2000 | Dallara IR-00 | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | 1 | 33 | Team Menard |
| 2001 | Dallara IR-01 | Oldsmobile Aurora V8 | 2 | 17 | Team Menard |
| 2002 | Dallara IR-02 | Chevrolet Indy V8 | 31 | 33 | A. J. Foyt Enterprises |
| 2003 | G-Force GF09 | Honda HI3R V8 | 14 | 8 | Access Motorsports |
| 2004 | G-Force GF09B | Honda HI4R V8 | 27 | 27 | Access Motorsports |
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