During the 54 years the award has been presented, there have been a total of 99 recipients. The inaugural winner was Andy Granatelli, who developed the gas-turbine run STP-Paxton Turbocar for the 1967 event. The award has been presented for two concepts in a single year just once: in 1977, to Bob Bubenik and Bruce Crower for developing the automatic clutch and flat-eight engine, respectively. Two years later, John Barnard and Jim Hall were the first team to be recognized for designing the Chaparal 2K chassis for that year's Indianapolis 500. Since then, another 24 teams have been recognized. Firestone tire engineer Cara Adams became the first female recipient in the 2019 edition. The award has been presented posthumously once, to Don Burgoon in the 2017 race. The 2020 winners were Tino Belli, Marco Bertolini, Ed Collings, Craig McCarthy, Antonio Montanari, Bill Pappas, Stefan Seidel and Brent Wright, who developed the IndyCar Aeroscreen cockpit protection device. Terry Trammell is the current winner of the award, having been honored for his work in biomedical engineering at the 2021 event.