Probably the most successful Scandinavian driver in American open wheel racing, few drivers were as able to
effortlessly cross series between CART and the IRL as Kenny Brack. Rising through the racing ladder, he competed in various junior formulae in Britain, Sweden, and the United States, most notably winning
the Swedish junior Formula Ford championship in 1986 and the Barber Saab Pro Series in the United States in 1993. Also in 1993, he was a test-driver for the Williams F1 team, then clearly the best team in
the series, with Alain Prost and Damon Hill finishing first and third in the World Drivers Championship in 1993. David Coulthard, one of the biggest Formula One stars of the 1990s and early 2000s, was the
other Williams test driver. Prost retired after the 1993 season upon learning that Ayrton Senna signed with the team for 1994, and he did not want Senna as a teammate. Senna was tragically killed at the
1994 San Marino Grand Prix in the third race of the season, and Coulthard was named as a replacement. Coulthard had little competition as Brack was no longer a Williams test driver in 1994. It would have
been a very lucky break for Brack as Williams was still arguably the best team in the paddock, but Brack had decided to race in the F3000 championship in 1994, where he finished 11th in points and scored a
podium at Spa-Francorchamps. The following season, Brack won his first F3000 race in the last event of the year at Magny-Cours, and finished tied for third in the championship with Marc Goossens, but
Goossens won the tiebreaker. The following season, Brack was perhaps the most dominant driver in the series winning three races from pole and setting three fastest laps in F3000, but despite winning more
races than any other driver, Jörg Müller edged him out for the 1996 F3000 championship by a mere three points thanks to two wins and five second place finishes. Brack was the winner on the track
in the season finale at Hockenheim, but was controversially disqualified from the event. That victory would have been enough to clinch the championship for him. There was great talent in the F1 feeder
series at this time, which included future Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen and future CART champion and Formula One driver Cristiano da Matta, and future F1 driver Ricardo Zonta, among many other noted road
racers. However, neither of the season principals, Müller or Brack were able to find a ride in Formula One, even though Brack had been a test driver for Williams in 1993 and for Footwork Arrows in
1996 (before resigning that position to focus on the F3000 championship).
Although his Formula One aspirations remained unfulfilled,
Brack resurfaced in the United States in 1997, where he signed with Galles Racing to drive in the Indy Racing League. With virtually no oval experience at that time, he had a bit of a learning curve, but
he led several races, qualified third twice, and scored two top fives. Galles was not the top team it had been in the early '90s when Al Unser, Jr., Bobby Rahal, and Danny Sullivan had driven for the
team. His results and high-level open-wheel experience impressed many owners, and A.J. Foyt was impressed by the Swede. Most of the traditional dominant CART teams boycotted the IRL completely in the
1990s, so the teams that had had any significant CART experience, like Foyt's and John Menard's Team Menard, tended to dominate. Brack and Menard driver Tony Stewart had much more talent than the other
drivers in the field, and those two pretty much controlled the 1998 season. Stewart, the defending champion, had a fantastic start to the year, dominating the first two races, and finishing first and
second, winning at New Hampshire after that, winning a total of four poles, and leading every race but one. Although Brack was not quite as strong in the races as Stewart was, he was much more consistent
at getting the results. While Brack had only three finishes outside the top ten in the eleven-race season, Stewart had five, including a dismal last-place finish at Indianapolis. Brack led at
Indianapolis but finished sixth, and was generally under-the-radar at that point. That changed when he won three straight races at Charlotte, Pikes Peak, and Atlanta, becoming the first driver to win
three straight races in the series. With his Atlanta win, he took the points lead from Scott Sharp who had taken it from Stewart. Brack was much more consistent in the final two races than Sharp and
Stewart, and Davey Hamilton sneaked into second place in the standings. It did not take long for Brack to become acquainted to oval racing. All he needed to do was win Indianapolis, which he did the
following season in 1999. Although Greg Ray, who replaced Stewart at Menard after Stewart switched to NASCAR, was the dominant driver on the IRL circuit, Brack claimed the big prize winning at
Indianapolis and leading 66 laps, his only win of the season, and last in the IRL, tying Arie Luyendyk for the most all-time wins in the IRL. Robby Gordon was poised to win but ran out of fuel with less
than two laps remaining, handing the lead and the win to Brack. Brack won in only his third Indianapolis start. He was more consistent than Ray for the rest of the season, but Ray got bonus points from
dominating races, scoring more wins, and qualifying better than Brack did. Strong runs at Las Vegas and Texas to close the season were not enough, and Ray won the title fairly easily.
Having achieved all the major accomplishments in the IRL in his short time in that series, he crossed over to the CART series for 2000, which
had stronger drivers and teams and larger salaries than the IRL at that time, to drive for Rahal's operation. The CART series seemed to be a better fit for a driver like Brack at the time given his road
course experience. He had a fantastic rookie season for the Rahal team, finishing fourth in points, and beating many of CART's greatest heavy-hitters including Paul Tracy, Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser,
Juan Pablo Montoya, da Matta, Dario Franchitti, and his teammate Max Papis who finished only 14th in points despite winning the series debut at Homestead. He didn't lead many races, but did score three
podiums at Nazareth, Cleveland, and Surfer's Paradise, showing strength both on ovals and road courses. For 2001, he was ready to compete for the CART championship in an attempt to be the only driver to
win both the CART and IRL titles during the split. Nobody ever achieved this, but Brack, Franchitti, and Gil de Ferran all came close.
de Ferran, also a former F3000 star, was Brack's main rival in 2001. Despite both drivers having a road course background, de Ferran was
the dominant driver on road and street courses, while Brack proved to be an oval master, leading large portions of the races at Nazareth, Motegi, and Milwaukee, the last two of which he won, and winning
the pole at Texas with an incredible speed of 233.785 mph before the race was cancelled, taking a massive one-race points lead. He added later wins at Chicago and the Lausitzring, the German track that
held the first CART oval race in Europe and the first race after the September 11 attacks. Brack took the lead from Alex Zanardi after Zanardi had a savage crash while leading that led to the loss of both
of his legs. Between the Chicago and Lausitzring wins, Brack had been relatively inconsistent, and the two Brazilian Penske drivers, Castroneves and de Ferran, each led the points for one race before
Brack resumed the points lead with his win on the German oval. One week later at Rockingham in England, Brack won the pole and he and de Ferran had a classic duel. They were the only two drivers to lead
the race, and de Ferran dominated. However, Brack made a slick move on the next to last lap to pass de Ferran while de Ferran was caught in traffic. Amazingly, de Ferran made a very similar move on the
last lap to retake the lead and the win. Although Brack continued to lead the points narrowly over de Ferran, thanks to four wins to de Ferran's one at that point, the last-lap pass was a stunning blow to
Brack and de Ferran effectively took control of the title chase there, and took a points lead that he would not relinquish with a win two weeks later at Houston, while Brack finished seventh. Still, Brack
had a fantastic season with four wins and four poles and was held to be a likely contender for the 2002 CART title, perhaps the likely contender. Surprisingly, despite his success with Rahal, where he
scored what remains the team's best season since Rahal himself won four races and the CART championship in 1992 in his debut season as an owner, he left the team for 2002 to sign for Chip Ganassi, the
dominant CART owner of the late '90s. Most expected the Ganassi/Brack pairing to be fairly dominant but they were surprisingly mediocre. There weren't many ovals on the schedule, as many of them, such as
Michigan and Nazareth, had switched to the IRL, while others like the Lausitzring and Chicago had fallen off the schedule. Nonetheless, Brack was not the dominant force on ovals as he was in 2001, and
finally ran better on road courses than he did on ovals, scoring all three of his podiums on road/street courses, Laguna Seca, Toronto, and Mexico City. The Mexico City result was his first win of the
season and ultimately the final win of his American open wheel career in his final CART start. He had a few other good runs at Milwaukee, Portland, and Rockingham, where he led many laps, but he was
unable to finish better than eighth in those races. Nine finishes outside the top ten were not good in a series that had around twenty cars, and he only finished sixth in points (which was a better points
position than where he had been for most of the season). Brack also returned to Indianapolis with Ganassi, but the performance was a surprisingly forgettable eleventh place finish.
In 2003, CART was in turmoil as many teams moved their operations to the IRL, and Brack reunited with Rahal in the IRL. Although he dominated
the IRL in his first stint in 1998 and 1999, the Rahal team was new to the series, and it seemed likely that it would not adapt as quickly to the switch as teams like Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti Green
Racing, the former Team Green, did. Brack did not lead very often that season, leading more than five laps in a race only once at Motegi. Nonetheless, he was very consistent, scoring seven top tens in
his first nine races, including a second at Motegi, to sit fifth in points. The second half of his season was mediocre, however, as he scored only one top ten in the last seven races of the schedule.
Sadly, 2003 would effectively be the end of his career as he was injured in a horrific crash at Texas in the season finale, where his car went airborne, hit the catchfence, and shredded into myriad pieces
leaving only the cockpit enclosing Brack. He suffered fractures of his spinal vertebra, his femur, both of his ankles, and his sternum. Buddy Rice was named as his substitute in 2004 and had a fantastic
IRL season, winning the Indy 500 and two other races, the last Rahal would win until 2008 with Ryan Hunter-Reay. After a long and successful recovery, Brack returned to IRL action in the 2005 Indianapolis
500, coincidentally substituting for Rice who was injured in Indianapolis practice. Although Brack scored the fastest qualifying lap, he did not win the pole because it did not come in the first
qualifying session. He did not run well in the race, and suffered a mechanical problem, but between his versatility in open-wheel, his miraculous survival and successful comeback, he remains one of the
greatest, most popular, and most respected drivers of his era.
