Expert: Adam - 6/27/2005

Question
Hello there, you stated that your interest was F1, but I thought maybe you could help me with my question. I have recently become interested in Indy car racing. Can you explain the history and current controversy between the two series, Champ and IRL? What are the real issues behind this and what is at stake? What do real racing fans think about this--is one or the other considered the "true" Indy car racing series? Any information about this or a reference to an information source would be helpful. Thanks! Tim

Answer
Thanks for the question Tim and apologies for the delay in responding. I can only give you a short answer for now alas (work commitments) but broadly, the current war (it's not the first one) goes back about 12 years. CART at the time was the premier US single seater open wheel racing series. It was once dominated by US teams and US drivers, but gradually came to be dominated by international entrants, first drivers, then engine manufacturers. At the same time it reached out to international markets and races started to appear in Australia, Brazil and Japan. With few oval tracks outside the States, more and more races were held on city street courses or purpose built race tracks. There was a backlash from the grassroots who wanted a more American, more oval-dominated single seater series, and with Tony George holding the trump card (i.e. the jewel in the crown Indy 500), a new series, the IRL was announced, effectively as a breakaway series to the then huge and successful CART series.
The IRL cars had different specifications to CART entries, and were based on a more restricted, slower, shared spec to make the racing close (like NASCAR) and enable teams to go racing for big spectacle at lower costs. It took about 2-5 years at first to grow, on the way whether it would survive was in doubt, but has prospered and now is probably ahead of CART (since renamed Champ) in terms of pedigree, again largely due to the Indy 500 and the gravitation of better-known drivers into the series (often from the old CART series). Both however are miles behind NASCAR.

You asked what the fans think about the split. Of course most people hate it, they want to see the best drivers and teams racing each other. Single seater racing in the States isn't big enough for there to be 2 sustainable competing series, as TV audience numbers reveal. Getting the 2 parties to agree though on a combined engine spec has proved impossible so far and the 2 sides remain far apart. As well as engines, the other main issues to resolve are the track types and locations and how much freedom of specs there should be (single chassis used bu all or lots of competing designs as seen in F1).  

Hope this helps you,
Adam