The race was won by Jimmy Vasser, the final Champ Car victory for the 1996 season champion.

The race was completed in 2 hours, 33 minutes, 42.9877 seconds, for an average speed of 195.185 MPH under the common 2.000 mile measuring standard used by NASCAR and INDYCAR.

Regardless, it was the record for the fastest 500 mile race ever contested until it was broken at the 2014 Pocono IndyCar 500 (2:28:13).

Both sanctioning bodies scheduled races in 2003, but the CART event was called off because of wildfires.

In 2012, the next open-wheel California 500 was held, again by the now-unified Indy Racing League, LLC (dba INDYCAR).