Borg-Warner Trophy
Trophy of the Indianapolis 500 race
The Borg-Warner Trophy is the trophy presented to the winner of the Indianapolis 500. It is named for and was commissioned by automotive supplier BorgWarner. It is permanently housed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in Speedway, Indiana. Unveiled at a 1936 dinner hosted by then-Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker, the trophy was officially declared the annual prize for Indianapolis 500 victors. It was first presented at the 24th annual 500-mile race, where Louis Meyer, that year's champion and its first recipient, soon thereafter remarked, "Winning the Borg-Warner Trophy is like winning an Olympic medal."
Felix Rosenqvist won the 2026 Indianapolis 500, and is the current reigning champion. Each year, the winning driver is presented with a miniature replica ("Baby Borg") during a reception, which for the 2019 race was presented in early September, about three months after the race. Prior to the trophy's inception, the Strauss Trophy (first awarded in 1919) was once presented to the winner. The Wheeler-Schebler Trophy was awarded to the leader at the 400-mile mark, but was retired when car owner Harry Hartz claimed it three times.
History
The trophy, which has been presented in the winner's circle after every race since 1936, is a very large, multi-tiered item which bears the high relief sculpture of the likeness of each driver to have won the race since its inception in 1911. Inscribed are the winner's name, year of victory, and average speed.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Borg-Warner Trophy” is trophy of the Indianapolis 500 race. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Borg-Warner, Trophy and Indianapolis, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2195908. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2026, 2019 and 1919.
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This entry incorporates text from “Borg-Warner Trophy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.