You need to learn a few new tricks to shoot races at night like this. High speed sync would be one. Your flash normally stops motion, but in this instance it's not going to be enough flash to stop the motion, so you will need to be using a shutter speed that is faster than your sync speed of 1/250. Hence the High Speed Sync or rear curtain sync flash.
Second would be panning-you are going to have to learn to move the camera with the focus in AI Servo and locked onto that car. Those cars come through so fast that there just plain isn't a chance for any lens to lock focus on it. You can pre-focus at the middle of the lane you will be shooting and that will work beautifully. Panning will give you the blurred effect of the side lines and give you more of a feeling of that very fast speed. If you get fairly good at panning you can shoot at a much slower shutter speed and won't need flash. That would probably be how I choose to shoot this particular event.
You obviously shoot Canon seeing how you have a 580EX II. What camera body are you working with?
Depending on how close you can get I'd guess a 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM II is going to be what you need. The lens doesn't need to react to the fast shutter speed, it needs to have a good, fast focus motor. Anything that says Macro on it is definitely out of the question. Macro lenses focus slower.
If you are able to be close-track side or infield on a circle track-you may want a 24-70 f/2.8L.