Champ car: the days before Indycar

In the beginning

We begin after the 1955 Le Mans disaster. The American Automobile Association (or AAA) withdrew from all Motor racing. Indianapolis motor speedway owner Tony Hulman created the United States Auto Club (USAC) to fill the gap that the AAA created when they left. The USAC created the championship car series and governed most of dirt track series today. In 1979 many teams disagreed on the direction the USAC was going causing them to create The Championship Auto Racing Teams or CART for short.

The 80s the beginning

Dan Gurney, who was the head of CART at the time, was inspired by Bernie Ecclestone and his improvements on Formula 1. Big team leaders like Rogers’s Penske, A. J. Foyt, and Pat Patrick joined Dan Gurney, causing many USAC teams to join CART as well. Since the racing league was so new that the series wasn’t recognized by ACCUS or the American version of the FIA. Instead the league was recognized by SCCA causing them to reach the international Motorsports calendar. Also drivers like Mario Andretti, Bobby Rahal, and Danny Sullivan, who all where American drivers, dominated Cart in the 1980s. the series quickly gain momentum and that popularity peaked in the 1990s

The 90s the peak

In the 1990’s Drivers like F1 world champions Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi joined cart which paved the way for more international drivers to join the sport. Also CART took over street courses like the Grand Prix of Long Beach and the Grand Prix of Detroit from formula 1. The where offered 5 different Championship winning chassis/engine setups

• Penske/Chevrolet 1990
• Lola/Chevrolet
• Lola/Cosworth
• Raynard/ cosworth
• Raynard/Honda

CART raced at a combination of oval and street/road course tracks on the calendar. There where two different chassis setups for each track. At road courses/street courses the cars ran more downforce setup which aided cornering. At super speedways they ran a low drag setup. Things where looking good for CART until a new series was formed around the Indy 500 IRL.

IRL: Indy racing league

CART had one disadvantage, they couldn’t get the Indy 500 on their schedule. The Indy 500 was still owned by USAC, but both series used very similar rules. Tony George created the Indy racing league (IRL) in 1994. The IRL built their league around the Indy 500 which brought more popularity to the IRL. The CART tried to counter the Indy 500’s popularity by creating their own 500 mile race, the US 500 at Michigan. CART couldn’t get enough get enough publicity to the race and a 10 car pileup at the beginning of the race made interest wane for the series. CART filed a lawsuit against Indianapolis for using the name “Indycar” but IRL filed a countersuit against CART. CART finally released the name, but IRL couldn’t use the name until 2002. CART was on the downfall as the IRL gained momentum and turned the tides on CART in the 21st century.

The fall of CART

CART started its fall when IRL started to have more and more competitive and CART got less and less competitive. Things got worst for for CART when Juan Pablo Montoya won the US 500 by leading 162 of the 200 laps. CART started to have more mismanagement issues, so teams left CART for IRL for sponsorships and the Indy 500. In 2001 the tables turned on CART. CART tried to stage the firestone 600, but their cars where just too fast for Texas. The drivers suffered from disorientation because the ars where so fast on the 24 degrees of banking. CARR couldn’t slow the cars down causing the race to be canceled for safety concerns

Penske and Andretti finally left CART to be permanent entries for IRL. FedEx, who was the title sponsorship for CART at the time, left CART. The series ran out of money and in 2003 CART folded. The series was changed to Champ Car in 2004 after the OWRS took over. Some teams still stayed but in 2007 OWRS also went bankrupt ending champ car.

Indycar today

Indycar is now the leading open wheel racing series in America. Indycar is a series that runs two different manufacturers that create their own chassis and engines. These two manufacturers are Honda and Chevrolet. Indycar still races at Long Beach, Indianapolis,and Detroit today. Indycar was come a long way from it’s CART days and now is the American equivalent to Formula 1, but even through it started as a rival to CART it many not have existed without it