With a variety of different tracks and world class drivers modern IndyCar closely resembles CART from the early 90s. The only thing The Split did for North American Open Wheel Racing is set it back 30 years in terms of popularity.
And sponsorship dollars which set back everything. CART was in F1's orbit in the mid 90's. Indycar will get there again in 10-15 years. There could very well be a split in F1 over greenwashing. Merc and Renault want to make it all about the environment. Red Bull and Ferrari prefer it a racing series.
Shame that the Hulman Georges wanted to act like they had the final say like they were some mafia bosses. CART and IMS should have had a agreement that half of the Indy 500 would involve CART in officiating the race instead of USAC people but still let some work at IMS for the Indy 500 only.
9:00 The death in testing was actually the pole sitter Scott Brayton. He’d qualified on the pole but he crashed in practice and passed away. So that definitely wasn’t a minor detail and carried into the race as a shadow of what *could* happen.
Pole was awarded to young teammate Tony Stewart who dominated early before equipment failure, despite having the pressure of winning for the entire Menard team on his shoulders. At least where I’m from (Columbus, Ind) this was covered more heavily than Braytons tragic death. If Stewart would have won, it would have proven George’s dream that a local American can develop their skills in Sprints and Midgets and win Indy. Stewart still turned out to be a decent serviceable driver…. (serviceable meaning one of the greatest racers of our generation).
@@3338MAN He would probably be more of a Sam Hornish. He was an IRL champion, but would probably fade as more CART drivers move over and have a decent NASCAR career.
I really miss the CART Series. It had something over IRL with the circuits CART used. Also, it was broadcast in Australia when IRL wasn't. Low point: Vale Greg Moore.
There was no comparison between CART and the IRL. CART had better drivers, cars, and tracks. The IRL had ... the Indy 500 and that was it. I went to an IRL Indy 500, being a lover of open-wheel racing and I only knew of about half the field. The death of CART was Penske and then the Andretti's leaving.
I'd go a little earlier and call CART dead after Andrew Craig left. When he left, CART managment started to make terrible and expensive mistakes (like Texas 2001) which led to a new CART president everyother month. Then the fight over the next engine pissed off Honda and Toyota ending with them jumping ship.
@@davidbarker8354 Very clever play on words, David. For the first time ever, I saw the Indianapolis 500 direct telecast on Fox and loved it. But I miss the CART Series with all the colorful, international driver's from South America, Canada, U.K. etc. I even have some races I recorded on DVD that I still play.
Pretty ironic that modern day Indycar is the irl rather than cart, but it bears much more of a resemblance to cart than the irl, just with a much smaller fan base.
Didn't just set them back 20 years, 26 years later they still haven't caught up to where they were. It's one of those sad things where everyobody was in the wrong.
Tony George was 100% in the wrong. He was the prime architect of this debacle, arrogant and ignorant in equal measure. Clown who had zero accomplishments in his corner other than having the right last name and his family's wealth. He single-handedly destroyed American top-tier racing, regardless of what other errors the CART crowd made along the way. TG set the entire fiasco in motion of his own volition. Without him, or even with him around had someone in his family had enough sense to keep him in his lane, the split never would have happened and IndyCar would have rivalled F1.
Funniest part about this (in a sadistic way) is that the IRL "won" the split and then became everything that it had said was wrong with CART. Its a road focused series that attracts international drivers and is controlled by a team owner rather than focus on ovals with local drivers. The CART/USAC split was recovered nicely from but I can't help but wonder where Indy would be if Tony George had just shut up and been content with a crowning event of Motorsport.
And even funnier? IRL ditched its oval/American driver focus within like 2 years. I’ve never forgiven Tony George for screwing up American open wheel, and never will.
@@AC_702 that was really because they couldn't justify keeping them after the death of Dan Wheldon (the ovals not the americans, there's still a few of my countrymen kicking it but most american kids end up in ovals of some sort). There aren't many ovals suitable to this type car, with the amount of downforce they have is to much and creates the las vegas racing that was so dangerous. They cant do races at short tracks because they cant beat and bang in the way stockcars can, places like auto club are still on 1997 pavement and are so bumpy that these cars would catch air. places like dover and bristol are to heavily banked sepite being the right length, Charlotte would be good but there's terrible history and texas despite being decent for indycars for a while (and also having a poor history with open wheelers) has been ruined by the PJ1 being death for these cars. Even with the switch to resin the permanent stain that overheats the track there's some very good reasons why Indy cant run Most ovals, it would require a dramatic unimaginable change to the car. Indycar doesn't have the F1 luxury of making tracks evolve to the cars but you cant change the car so much its just a b tier stock car
@@fastflowers8850 Indy's move away from ovals has a lot more to do with the lack of attendance at ovals and the closure of historic oval tracks, rather than Dan Wheldon's death. Dan's death prompted Indy to move away from pack racing (even then that's not entirely accurate; see Texas during the mid 2010s, or Pocono), but it's the lack of attendance that has caused a decrease in oval races generally.
This is what also killed off the UK racing car industry. Apart from Swift & Eagle, all Indycars including the Penskes were made in the UK. After the split, the IRL went down the spec chassis route while CART stuck to the tried & trusted Lola/Reynard mix. The collapse of CART in 2007 meant there was suddenly no market for Lola or Reynard, both companies folding within a year (while the Lola brand was reinstated later by Multimatic, the Huntingdon site was closed).
For Europeans, imagine the World Endurance Championship without Le Mans, whilst Le Mans stage their own endurance championship. That is the kind of split we are talking about.
But that "kinda" happened though lol The ALMS, AsianLMS (1 season) and ELMS were under Don Panoz's "control" (with ACO sanctioning (also "kinda", take the Maserati MC12's story as an example of how it actually wasn't really) ), but neither championship had the Le Mans race in its schedule because ACO wanted to keep control themselves. It got eventually added to a WC in 2010 with the ILMC but the ACO still kept all control until today. The FIA and WEC's promotor can control the FIA WEC, but ACO still controls the 24 hours.
This kind of corporate showmanship was common as McDonalds in America until the 2008 recession. Fragile white guys who can't handle tha another fragile white dude took a morsle of power away from them. See Microsoft and Apple's interactions around the release of the original iPhone as a good example of this.
I’m actually currently selling my E36 track car and a guy interested in it actually raced in the PPG CART Indy car 85/87 seasons, really cool stories and such a interesting guy. Whole different generation of Indy cars
You meet people in the wierdest places, on a much different note, I enjoy posting clips from Japanese pro baseball games on Reddit. And it was put me into contact with both an all-star closer from the turn of the millenium, and the daughter of a guy who won a Triple Crown in the 80s. Can you give us a name?
"they even raced at an airport" Cleveland Grand Prix!!!! Bring back burke! On a serious note if you've never drove the track, grab it in assetto corsa and give it a go. It's something else
I remember when this happened. It really destroyed its appeal at the time. I think it helped grow nascar attendance at that time. Well, that and the Jeff Gordon Dale Earnhardt rivalry. Or more appropriately, Jeff Gordon knocking the nascar world on its head. At that time it was thought that you had to be at least 40 to be good in the cup series.
No one ever seems to bring this up, and I have zero data to back this up but: It's my theory that Tony George didn't just ruin open wheel racing, but he ruined racing in the United States as a whole and the ramifications are still being deeply felt to this day. I grew up in Indy, and my family has some history at IMS, behind the scenes. As stated in this video, no one wanted to watch amateurs for the 500. But no one wanted to really watch CART without the 500 either. Open wheel racing here practically died over the next 6 to 8 years. That's fact, here is my opinion. In the meantime, hungry fans turned to NASCAR giving that series a monumental boost in ratings and NASCAR was flying high. But, let's face it: watching cars turn left all day gets monotonous and boring without Daytona style wrecks. And frankly, the "good ol' boy" schtick got real old real fast after that too, aside from it's original fan base who loved and still love it. So slowly, Indycar fans drifted away from the series causing a panic that instigated multiple changes to the series in an effort to bring those fans back who at this point, no longer cared at all. These changes only served to alienate the original fan base who also began to tune out causing ratings to tank, sponsors to leave in droves as well as ticket sales tanking. Nowadays, I'm honestly surprised NASCAR is even still alive. Indycar is finally gaining back some of the traction it had in the 90's but only time will tell if it can ever achieve those heights again. All of this, as far as I'm concerned, thanks to Tony George and his desperate need for attention regardless of being half an idiot who only married into the family anyway. Criminal...
@@3338MAN I live in Georgia and plenty of people I know know and talk about the Indy 500. It's also broadcasted on national television with a peak of 7 million American viewers. That's nothing to sneeze about. The average viewership is also 1.2 million people, despite many of the races being broadcast on MSNBC and Peacock, which you need cable and a subscription service for, respectfully. There's also the fact that F1's popularity is growing.
You're exactly right. NASCAR is trying to hold onto a viewer base that was - quite frankly speaking - never a fan of the series to begin with. Why do you think they implemented the playoff system, or stage racing? Why do you think they're next car is so heavily geared towards road racing, to the detriment of its ability to race on ovals? Why do you think they're adding so many oval races?
The split hurt for a long time, but indycar is strong again. Next year there will be 27-28 cars per race. Lots of veteran indycar talent, multiple ex f1, a nascar champ and a healthy crop of young fast guys. Grosjean was the show last year, can't wait to see him in a competitive car next year.
Excellent video Aidan! Fun fact about Buddy Lazier’s 1996 Indy 500 win: he did it with a broken back! Lazier suffered a pretty bad crash during practice at Phoenix in March.
I like the new design of the channel. And honestly it is interesting to hear more about the split because it is hard to understand from just reading wikipedia articles about it.
"Indy Spilt" by John Oreovicz does a great job with the history between CART vs USAC and later CART vs Tony George. Jade Gurst also hit the topic from oblique angles in his book "Beast," covering the Penske Illmor monster V8, and Al Unser Jr's biography "A Checkered Past."
@@danielhenderson8316 yeah, there will be people who can go into more detail and I’ll have to try and get hold of some of those books. What I like doing with these sorts of videos is making them simple for Euros to understand.
@@AidanMillward There is lots of fascinating angles about the split. More could be done on it in the future. While i have your attention , i was wondering if you could make an audio podcast version of your content. Bring Back V10's has no competition.
@@default123default2 I did have a brief podcast called That Racing History Podcast when I was trying to figure out what to do after the copyright saga, but then found talking head presentation with the odd image to illustrate worked better. Given all the esports, commentary and video stuff I do now, there’s just no time left in the week to sit down and put together a 20-30min podcast anymore.
As a teenager growing up during those days I remember vividly. John Oreowicz released a book on the subject called “The Split”. It’s been getting solid reviews, it’s on my shortlist of reads.
Sadly it's not coming back. It's currently being closed. The cool thing about those airport tracks you could get a fast 3 mile track while the crowd could see the whole track like an oval. I'd love to see another airport tracks instead of the airport/street course in St. Petersburg, FL.
@@danielhenderson8316 Makes sense. I used to drive past it several times a day when I worked in the city and nothing ever happens there outside of the airshow.
@@williamford9564IndyCar's popularity is stagnant at the moment, and the talks of implementing a charter system for the Indy 500 that would render Bump Day obsolete leads me to believe that we're heading towards a third split. I wouldn't be surprised if it coincided with an F1 split, with Andretti's recent rejection and how FOM and Liberty Media only want rich people attending their races and seemingly believe typical American racing fans are loud, boorish, drunk, white trash, redneck NASCAR fans.
Adrian Fernandez was the one who caused the crash at the start at Michigan, not Vasser. There was space between him and the car to his right, in fact more space than there was between cars on the following rows, but he chose to try to push Vasser to the inside line. (the race is on IndyCar's official TH-cam channel for those who want to have a look - search "1996 US 500")
I went to the CART races at Rockingham... what a show they put on, and the access was amazing for a £12 pitt access pass I chatted to Paul Tracey as he we ate sandwiches next to each other, listened to Michael andretti talk set up, sheltered from the rain with Tony Kannan and at his insistence sat on the wheel of his race car as he took my picture. There wasn't a diva amongst the lot of them and the interactions were a lesson to F1 that they never learned. Never mind having some Z list celebrities with no clue walking the Pitt lane it was all real fans
That's one of the great things about motorsports in the US, a lot more fan accessibility and it isn't silo'ed off for only the big-bucks folks. WEC is pretty good, too (I've been to the Bahrain races a few times).
I'd like to see modern Indycar have multiple chasis and engines again. I think it's time Indy moves away from the spec series route and starts setting its sights on the big boys again.
You touched on the frustration of American open wheel purists of how the old ways of driver development were being lost to Formula One drivers coming over to race Indy. For those purists, the biggest living argument for them was Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon wanted to race in Indy Cars but quickly realized that were very few, if any opportunities for Sprint Car Drivers like him to make it to the big time. So he turned his attention to Nascar instead and the rest is history. I believe it was Nascarman History that made a simliar series on the IRL CART split. Looking forward to watching your videos on the split
Not to call you out Aidan, but you left out Mid Ohio Sports Car Course and Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Two great sports car courses that run all sorts of different races but once a year would host CART. Those two courses have a great deal of racing history associated with them.
I'm relieved that you didn't lose the jazz when you made the updates. It's such a comfort to encounter the music outside of dedicated channels. It really distinguishes the channel.
Hey Aidan, Aidan again. I'm actually from Texas, and would love to hear more about the Cart-Texas fiasco. I know that they had issues due to blacking out in the corners, but I'm not sure about specifics. That'd be a good watch!
Looking back at it. I started following open wheel racing back in 96. And because of the split, I committed most of my focus towards F1. Thank you Mr George.
Same here, but 3 years prior: got interested in CART as Mansell went across the Pond. Didn't quite love it (turn left, 203rd safety car on the 20th lap), still, it grew on me and I became a regular until the IRL split. At which point I lost interest in both IRL/CART. I just can't understand how IRL won. At the start, to me it was just the sum of : no interesting drivers, no interesting teams, ovals, ovals, and there were fewer races overall...while CART had some great non-oval tracks, legacy teams/drivers and a full calendar. 'Muricans...What've you done?
When American Open Wheel racing was its best, Tony George killed it , Two generations of fans later, American Open Wheel racing is finally beginning to get back on it's feet. I will never forgive him for what he did.
Great summary! Everything you said is as I remember it, so [memory failures aside] I'd call it 100% spot on target! For those of us who loved open-wheel racing each weekend was exciting. We had personalities (PT), we had conflict (Unser vs Whinedretti), we had politics (Penske and Rahal and Gannassi), and we had huge amounts of cubic dollars from top sponsors and manufacturers. Can't wait for installment #2 and the debut of the Crapwagons ;-)
I had no idea about American motor racing until Nigel Mansell went there in 1993 and won the championship. I only watched his one season over there and then didn't bother after that. I'm actually learning a lot about the history of it due to this channel.
I was a Little Al fan growing up and this was the 1st Indy me and my dad missed because of the war. We started watching Nascar more often that was because of the TV schedule and how most of the Open Wheel races moved to ESPN and off the antenna stations. Since about 2011 I have been back to going to the Long Beach Grand Prix and watching the 500 with my Dad in May
Oooh the early 2000s were the dark days as far as I can remember when open wheel racing in US is concerned... CART was the absolute best in the 90s and I don't know if it'll be in the next video or if it was overlooked but it was definitely a international championship with races not only in USA and Canada and Mexico but also in Brasil and I seem to remember there was a race in Australia too and perhaps in Europe..? (from memory, not googling). And it was glorious!! Drivers were from all over the world and the races were exciting with no artificial gimmicks (though I remember there was some timed turbo boost per lap but I might be mistaking from a junior category) and championships that would usually go down to the wire - and even when it didn't you would watch the final races anyway as you knew it would have a lot of action from start to finish! Then it came IRL - the feeble unassuming underdog that ended up gobbling everything and it all went down the drain... I never ever seen a full IRL race - ever! - and it's not because I was mad or anything but just because it was incredibly boring... I miss the days of Alex Zanardi, André Ribeiro, Greg Moore actually racing in technically challenging tracks rather than going round and round and round... but then again the fact the names I listed none were US might be another reason it ended up failing as ultimately it was a US-based series so why would US companies pay for advertising in races that no US driver would win? There is a reason we never seen a successful US driver in F1 and it's not just money...
Slick presentation, and plenty informative… Love the metaphor about the Indy 500… The story is similar to what could have happened had FOTA left the Formula One World Championship in 2009…
Great video, It's nice to see people interested in Indycar, and are talking about the CART/IRL 'split' again. Interestingly enough, I just read an Autoweek article about the anniversary of the split, where a former CART boss says that (then) owner IMS Tony George did not leave the CART board of directors on his own, but was instead 'ousted'. This (at least to me) makes the ridiculousness of the split and the draconian measures taken by George against CART more understandable, as the split was no longer about making Open-Wheel Car Racing in the USA better, but rather to prove a point.
Tony was ousted for good reason. He hadn't really done anything aside from ride his family's coattails. The IRL and Speedway mismanagement in the ensuing decade and a half or so was a reminder of that. Roger Penske buying out the George's was one of the best things to happen, and had it happened years sooner the sport would have been better off.
Yes, the Indy 500 drives American open-wheel racing. Yes, Tony George was the worst person ever to have control of the track/race. And all this after the 1979 USAC/CART war. Thanks for the video.
Nice colour! Been looking forward to this "reboot", as it were. A series of all the subjects is a great idea. Thanks! Btw, "Garak"? DS9 fan? Can't blame you!
Aidan this is a fantastic video. Then again I’ve felt all of your videos I’ve watched are fantastic! I was a huge CART fan back in the days when this happened and I think you have done a magnificent job of setting the stage with this Part 1 video and really captured what it was like at that time just prior to the split and what led up to it and how devastating it was the US open wheel racing. I also like the fact that you decided to split it up into several different videos. Keep up the great work and thank you so very much for everything you do.
Aidan, your pic with the stanley cup, was it in toronto at the hall of fame? if so, didn't you find it odd how unprotected everything is in there?? I've been there a few times. It's a neat old building with its vault doors with the original cup cut into pieces. Love your vids!
It really was a ovals v everyone else thing - the big street circuit tracks were becoming the non-500 marquee events. Toronto and Long Beach in particular were up there with F1 in terms of corporate sponsorship / involvement. But George didn't care for those races because, well, right turns (and Toronto had the double whammy of being outside the US - never mind that it always drew good TV ratings because of the made-for-TV chaos at the Lakeshore hairpin). He simply thought that ovals in smaller midwest markets were a better bet than street circuits in major cities. And pretty much everyone outside Indiana just went "... wha?" I remember reading somewhere (ESPN?) that F1 was covertly backing IRL / George as well, because they were worried about CART honing in on their turf.
The smell of methanol and screaming engines, cool sponsors. I might be wrong, but it's the only place you could see a Honda V8 engine. was the CART series.
Have you looked into the book that was released last May called: 'Indy Split: The Big Money Battle that Nearly Destroyed Indy Racing' by John Oreovicz on this Said Split for more information?
I know that must be skilled to an oval track, but over tracks and rolling starts is just two things I can’t get my head around in terms of interest. There’s plenty of Formula One that I don’t love, but the difference of every single track and the intrigue of getting a good start are two of the mainstays for me.
So you got the events correct but flipped the order. the Indy 500 had it's usual noon start date and was a bit of a question mark early on, However afterwards the race went off without much issue and most of the early incidents were single cars either mechanical problems or spins. The race went on fairly well after the first 20 laps were over with while the US 500 started 2 hours after Indy had started. The Vasser crash basically turned the race into a sham due to the fact that a lot of people probably saw it as a power play after George's IRL announcement and the addition of the 25-8 Rule. Easiest thing CART teams should have done was just boycot the race entirely instead of creating a pissing match with George and the IRL. As far as the Indy 500 winner being Buddy Lazier, He really only cared about Indy and was never a CART guy. As seen when he basically ran Full Time in the IRL until around 2003 and even attempting the Indy 500 until 2017. While CART teams could try to claim he was a CART guy, I'd mark him down for the IRL due to his career after that Indy 500 run.
Glad they are out of Indycar. If it wasn’t for the Hulman family interference CART would maybe still be here but reduced and the late 90s would have had more memories of a good kind that the IRL all oval system and horrible stock block chassis.
"Indycar is just turning left" That's what I'm trying to explain to people. I think INDYCAR is a much stronger and healthier package than NASCAR, there's no competition cautions, no playoffs, strategy is an important factor, multiple pit stops per race, colourful grid filled with a really neat looking chassis and multiple different disciplines with road, street and ovals (Hell, Worldwide Technology Speedway is different than Texas, Indy and Iowa speedway as an oval track.)
CART/Indy would still be in F1's orbit if not for the split. Maybe in 10-15 years , Indycar will be back there. F1 has some politics of its own- mainly electric that might cause problems.
I really enjoy the variety of oval types on the indycar calendar, not the constant cookie-cutter ovals of NASCAR. NASCAR must be listening, they added the Charlotte road course, Indy road course, Daytona Road Course and Road America to the calendar, however because of the their gimmicks, its not the same. You cannot use the same caution/stage caution lap rules on a track where a caution lap takes 3+ minutes (Road America) that you can on a 1 mine oval. You end up with too many laps under yellow out of the total.
@@stephenbritton9297 I was hoping that Jim France was going to fix this like he hour he got IMSA squared away, but it's not looking like it. I will try to follow this year with the new car and see where it goes.
Nascar has done irreparable damage to motorsports in America. Trying to explain to Americans that the Indy 500 is not a nascar race is both frequent and painful
Basically Tony George had a temper tantrum because Cart wasn’t getting the attention from the crowd he wanted. Whenever I hear him talk I think of Baby Mario crying.
@@jsquared1013the first split happened in the 70's. The next one happened in 1996 for basically the same reason. Ask Tony George. Not enough American drivers
I think in Part 2 a look should be taken at the Hawaiian Super Prix - one of the biggest failures in American Open Wheel Racing history, a race that never took part and most likely signaled the beginning of the end for CART. Not long after this f*ck up teams like Ganassi, Penske and Andretti/Green, who BTW stuck with CART through thick and thin up until this point, began to jump ship, because sponsors like Target and Marlboro wanted their logos to be shown on the Indy 500 and not some non-championship CART race, held on an airfield than never materialized.
When all this happened my dad and family were all for CART and went to the US 500 till 98 because Indy was Indy. They still didn’t truly enjoy Indy for a few years because of how crap the cars sounded, looked and performed
I love these types of videos as a Brit who missed the split, I just have to say though it was CARTs fault that races collided in 1996, the IRL tried to make their schedule fit around CART but a late addition which I think was Rio I'm not 100% sure meant it wasn't possible which is why the CART teams started to play victim (even if I do think 25+8 was a dumb idea)
While i'm still gonna enjoy this series of videos, you should do (or point at, if you have done so) a prequel. Most good summarizations of the split would start sometime before 1979. The remainders and aftermaths of the 1979 split will have consequences on the 1996 split.
@@edward4828 I'd also mention the AAA-USAC split in the 1950s. IndyCar has had three splits with AAA having moved entirely from auto racing as the first one after the Le Mans disaster.
Just an added snip bit. Not to defend Tony George but he was upset that CART wasn’t pulling drivers from the US sprint car scene and felt that they were loosing out on world class drivers because of it. Jeff Gordon being the biggest example.
The irony in it all was that guys like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart would have probably never gotten a chance in CART because of there limited road racing experience. Later became two of the best road course racers in NASCAR during their careers.
The problem is by the late 80's, driving a mid engined formula car like a IndyCar/Champ Car required a different skill set than driving late models or midgets around dirt tracks. We kind of seeing that play out right now with Jimmy Johnson running the Indy road course schedule.
@@danielhenderson8316 I’m not sure Jimmie had any open wheel experience before this tho. He came from Baja trucks and motocross. I’m not the biggest fan of his so I’m no expert on his career but I think he went from that to late model stock cars, ARCA, to Busch, then Cup.
![[UNCUT] “บอสณวัฒน์” ลากไส้!! ใครหนุนหลัง "แม่ตั๊ก ป๋าเบียร์" I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 30 ก.ย. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QlD7mU2KKRk/mqdefault.jpg)
With a variety of different tracks and world class drivers modern IndyCar closely resembles CART from the early 90s. The only thing The Split did for North American Open Wheel Racing is set it back 30 years in terms of popularity.
And sponsorship dollars which set back everything. CART was in F1's orbit in the mid 90's. Indycar will get there again in 10-15 years. There could very well be a split in F1 over greenwashing. Merc and Renault want to make it all about the environment. Red Bull and Ferrari prefer it a racing series.
Except that CART was significantly faster in relation to its place as a Formula series.
CART would of likely overtaken F1 at this point, most people have trouble picturing this, but thats because the split has done so much damage.
Shame that the Hulman Georges wanted to act like they had the final say like they were some mafia bosses. CART and IMS should have had a agreement that half of the Indy 500 would involve CART in officiating the race instead of USAC people but still let some work at IMS for the Indy 500 only.
@Alex Irizarry I stood that reference.
9:00 The death in testing was actually the pole sitter Scott Brayton. He’d qualified on the pole but he crashed in practice and passed away. So that definitely wasn’t a minor detail and carried into the race as a shadow of what *could* happen.
Pole was awarded to young teammate Tony Stewart who dominated early before equipment failure, despite having the pressure of winning for the entire Menard team on his shoulders. At least where I’m from (Columbus, Ind) this was covered more heavily than Braytons tragic death. If Stewart would have won, it would have proven George’s dream that a local American can develop their skills in Sprints and Midgets and win Indy.
Stewart still turned out to be a decent serviceable driver…. (serviceable meaning one of the greatest racers of our generation).
That was so sad! That was pretty much all they talked in Indy when it happened.
@@3338MAN He would probably be more of a Sam Hornish. He was an IRL champion, but would probably fade as more CART drivers move over and have a decent NASCAR career.
I really miss the CART Series. It had something over IRL with the circuits CART used. Also, it was broadcast in Australia when IRL wasn't. Low point: Vale Greg Moore.
There was no comparison between CART and the IRL. CART had better drivers, cars, and tracks. The IRL had ... the Indy 500 and that was it. I went to an IRL Indy 500, being a lover of open-wheel racing and I only knew of about half the field. The death of CART was Penske and then the Andretti's leaving.
I'd go a little earlier and call CART dead after Andrew Craig left. When he left, CART managment started to make terrible and expensive mistakes (like Texas 2001) which led to a new CART president everyother month. Then the fight over the next engine pissed off Honda and Toyota ending with them jumping ship.
I'd say the nail in the coffin was Driven.
@@davidbarker8354 Very clever play on words, David.
For the first time ever, I saw the Indianapolis 500 direct telecast on Fox and loved it. But I miss the CART Series with all the colorful, international driver's from South America, Canada, U.K. etc. I even have some races I recorded on DVD that I still play.
Pretty ironic that modern day Indycar is the irl rather than cart, but it bears much more of a resemblance to cart than the irl, just with a much smaller fan base.
Didn't just set them back 20 years, 26 years later they still haven't caught up to where they were. It's one of those sad things where everyobody was in the wrong.
Tony George was 100% in the wrong. He was the prime architect of this debacle, arrogant and ignorant in equal measure. Clown who had zero accomplishments in his corner other than having the right last name and his family's wealth. He single-handedly destroyed American top-tier racing, regardless of what other errors the CART crowd made along the way. TG set the entire fiasco in motion of his own volition. Without him, or even with him around had someone in his family had enough sense to keep him in his lane, the split never would have happened and IndyCar would have rivalled F1.
I never knew how big cart was but it makes sense why so many old heads actually know the old drivers. My grandmother knows guys like Emerson
Funniest part about this (in a sadistic way) is that the IRL "won" the split and then became everything that it had said was wrong with CART. Its a road focused series that attracts international drivers and is controlled by a team owner rather than focus on ovals with local drivers. The CART/USAC split was recovered nicely from but I can't help but wonder where Indy would be if Tony George had just shut up and been content with a crowning event of Motorsport.
And even funnier? IRL ditched its oval/American driver focus within like 2 years. I’ve never forgiven Tony George for screwing up American open wheel, and never will.
@@AC_702 that was really because they couldn't justify keeping them after the death of Dan Wheldon (the ovals not the americans, there's still a few of my countrymen kicking it but most american kids end up in ovals of some sort). There aren't many ovals suitable to this type car, with the amount of downforce they have is to much and creates the las vegas racing that was so dangerous. They cant do races at short tracks because they cant beat and bang in the way stockcars can, places like auto club are still on 1997 pavement and are so bumpy that these cars would catch air. places like dover and bristol are to heavily banked sepite being the right length, Charlotte would be good but there's terrible history and texas despite being decent for indycars for a while (and also having a poor history with open wheelers) has been ruined by the PJ1 being death for these cars. Even with the switch to resin the permanent stain that overheats the track there's some very good reasons why Indy cant run Most ovals, it would require a dramatic unimaginable change to the car. Indycar doesn't have the F1 luxury of making tracks evolve to the cars but you cant change the car so much its just a b tier stock car
@@fastflowers8850 Indy's move away from ovals has a lot more to do with the lack of attendance at ovals and the closure of historic oval tracks, rather than Dan Wheldon's death. Dan's death prompted Indy to move away from pack racing (even then that's not entirely accurate; see Texas during the mid 2010s, or Pocono), but it's the lack of attendance that has caused a decrease in oval races generally.
This is what also killed off the UK racing car industry. Apart from Swift & Eagle, all Indycars including the Penskes were made in the UK. After the split, the IRL went down the spec chassis route while CART stuck to the tried & trusted Lola/Reynard mix. The collapse of CART in 2007 meant there was suddenly no market for Lola or Reynard, both companies folding within a year (while the Lola brand was reinstated later by Multimatic, the Huntingdon site was closed).
For Europeans, imagine the World Endurance Championship without Le Mans, whilst Le Mans stage their own endurance championship.
That is the kind of split we are talking about.
Supercars without the Bathurst 1000.
@@applecore4720 That did happen in 1997 when the 2L supertourers raced the Bathurst 1000 and the Supercars raced the 1000 classic
Silverstone Racing League confirmed for 2023
But that "kinda" happened though lol
The ALMS, AsianLMS (1 season) and ELMS were under Don Panoz's "control" (with ACO sanctioning (also "kinda", take the Maserati MC12's story as an example of how it actually wasn't really) ), but neither championship had the Le Mans race in its schedule because ACO wanted to keep control themselves.
It got eventually added to a WC in 2010 with the ILMC but the ACO still kept all control until today.
The FIA and WEC's promotor can control the FIA WEC, but ACO still controls the 24 hours.
This kind of corporate showmanship was common as McDonalds in America until the 2008 recession. Fragile white guys who can't handle tha another fragile white dude took a morsle of power away from them. See Microsoft and Apple's interactions around the release of the original iPhone as a good example of this.
I’m actually currently selling my E36 track car and a guy interested in it actually raced in the PPG CART Indy car 85/87 seasons, really cool stories and such a interesting guy. Whole different generation of Indy cars
You meet people in the wierdest places, on a much different note, I enjoy posting clips from Japanese pro baseball games on Reddit. And it was put me into contact with both an all-star closer from the turn of the millenium, and the daughter of a guy who won a Triple Crown in the 80s. Can you give us a name?
Out of curiosity, did you get his name? I am a nerd for this sort of history so I am wondering who it was
@@senorsoupe I second this
Is his name Danny, long hair, really laid back?
@@senorsoupe Jeff macpherson
"they even raced at an airport" Cleveland Grand Prix!!!! Bring back burke! On a serious note if you've never drove the track, grab it in assetto corsa and give it a go. It's something else
It produced some amazing races as well, the wide track gave multiple lines and the big runoff areas made the drivers less hesitant to #sendit !
I remember when this happened. It really destroyed its appeal at the time. I think it helped grow nascar attendance at that time. Well, that and the Jeff Gordon Dale Earnhardt rivalry. Or more appropriately, Jeff Gordon knocking the nascar world on its head. At that time it was thought that you had to be at least 40 to be good in the cup series.
Finishing 3rd and getting his first CART podium in the US 500? Roberto Moreno!
No one ever seems to bring this up, and I have zero data to back this up but: It's my theory that Tony George didn't just ruin open wheel racing, but he ruined racing in the United States as a whole and the ramifications are still being deeply felt to this day. I grew up in Indy, and my family has some history at IMS, behind the scenes. As stated in this video, no one wanted to watch amateurs for the 500. But no one wanted to really watch CART without the 500 either. Open wheel racing here practically died over the next 6 to 8 years. That's fact, here is my opinion. In the meantime, hungry fans turned to NASCAR giving that series a monumental boost in ratings and NASCAR was flying high. But, let's face it: watching cars turn left all day gets monotonous and boring without Daytona style wrecks. And frankly, the "good ol' boy" schtick got real old real fast after that too, aside from it's original fan base who loved and still love it. So slowly, Indycar fans drifted away from the series causing a panic that instigated multiple changes to the series in an effort to bring those fans back who at this point, no longer cared at all. These changes only served to alienate the original fan base who also began to tune out causing ratings to tank, sponsors to leave in droves as well as ticket sales tanking. Nowadays, I'm honestly surprised NASCAR is even still alive. Indycar is finally gaining back some of the traction it had in the 90's but only time will tell if it can ever achieve those heights again. All of this, as far as I'm concerned, thanks to Tony George and his desperate need for attention regardless of being half an idiot who only married into the family anyway. Criminal...
@@3338MAN I live in Georgia and plenty of people I know know and talk about the Indy 500. It's also broadcasted on national television with a peak of 7 million American viewers. That's nothing to sneeze about. The average viewership is also 1.2 million people, despite many of the races being broadcast on MSNBC and Peacock, which you need cable and a subscription service for, respectfully. There's also the fact that F1's popularity is growing.
You're exactly right. NASCAR is trying to hold onto a viewer base that was - quite frankly speaking - never a fan of the series to begin with. Why do you think they implemented the playoff system, or stage racing? Why do you think they're next car is so heavily geared towards road racing, to the detriment of its ability to race on ovals? Why do you think they're adding so many oval races?
Tony George is the grandson of Tony Hulman he did marry into the family. Mari Hulman was his mother and he sold Indy to Roger Penske after she died.
The split hurt for a long time, but indycar is strong again. Next year there will be 27-28 cars per race. Lots of veteran indycar talent, multiple ex f1, a nascar champ and a healthy crop of young fast guys. Grosjean was the show last year, can't wait to see him in a competitive car next year.
Just need to attract more engine OEMs and I'd give anything to have at least one other chassis
Excellent video Aidan! Fun fact about Buddy Lazier’s 1996 Indy 500 win: he did it with a broken back! Lazier suffered a pretty bad crash during practice at Phoenix in March.
I like the new design of the channel. And honestly it is interesting to hear more about the split because it is hard to understand from just reading wikipedia articles about it.
"Indy Spilt" by John Oreovicz does a great job with the history between CART vs USAC and later CART vs Tony George. Jade Gurst also hit the topic from oblique angles in his book "Beast," covering the Penske Illmor monster V8, and Al Unser Jr's biography "A Checkered Past."
@@danielhenderson8316 yeah, there will be people who can go into more detail and I’ll have to try and get hold of some of those books.
What I like doing with these sorts of videos is making them simple for Euros to understand.
@@AidanMillward There is lots of fascinating angles about the split. More could be done on it in the future. While i have your attention , i was wondering if you could make an audio podcast version of your content. Bring Back V10's has no competition.
@@default123default2 I did have a brief podcast called That Racing History Podcast when I was trying to figure out what to do after the copyright saga, but then found talking head presentation with the odd image to illustrate worked better.
Given all the esports, commentary and video stuff I do now, there’s just no time left in the week to sit down and put together a 20-30min podcast anymore.
@@AidanMillward If you only do one, Indy Spilt is worth it if you're doing more videos on this comedy of errors.
As a teenager growing up during those days I remember vividly. John Oreowicz released a book on the subject called “The Split”. It’s been getting solid reviews, it’s on my shortlist of reads.
The book is EXCELLENT.
I miss when they used to run the Cleveland Grand Prix at the airport.
Sadly it's not coming back. It's currently being closed. The cool thing about those airport tracks you could get a fast 3 mile track while the crowd could see the whole track like an oval. I'd love to see another airport tracks instead of the airport/street course in St. Petersburg, FL.
@@danielhenderson8316 They're closing Burke Lakefront Airport?
The city wants to repurpose it for something else since the last airline at the location has suspended operations.
@@danielhenderson8316 Makes sense. I used to drive past it several times a day when I worked in the city and nothing ever happens there outside of the airshow.
No other American open wheel series has ever touched CART.
Totally loved your "Revenge of the Sith" reference when discussing Tony George's lack of voting rights. "I see what you did there." 🤣
Digging the rebranded new look and top work on the story. As always, great insights and entertainment for us race fans
CART racing was amazing to watch too
Garak --- loved his re-interpretation on 'never cry wolf'.
"are you SURE, doctor?"
The IRL/CART split also helped ALMS and the Rolex Grand Am Series.
And in the modern day, the continuing implosion of NASCAR is helping Indy Car and IMSA.
@@williamford9564IndyCar's popularity is stagnant at the moment, and the talks of implementing a charter system for the Indy 500 that would render Bump Day obsolete leads me to believe that we're heading towards a third split. I wouldn't be surprised if it coincided with an F1 split, with Andretti's recent rejection and how FOM and Liberty Media only want rich people attending their races and seemingly believe typical American racing fans are loud, boorish, drunk, white trash, redneck NASCAR fans.
this is one of the best small channels i've ever seen, great audio quality, editing, fun and informative
Adrian Fernandez was the one who caused the crash at the start at Michigan, not Vasser.
There was space between him and the car to his right, in fact more space than there was between cars on the following rows, but he chose to try to push Vasser to the inside line.
(the race is on IndyCar's official TH-cam channel for those who want to have a look - search "1996 US 500")
I have a reminder of the 1996 Indy 500: the Micro Machines replicas of the entire field and the Viper pace car.
Very cool! I haven't seen my Micro Machines in years (all in a box somewhere in my mom's house's attic!), I imagine that was a very neat collection.
i really like the new style and format. glad you kept the Jazz, it wouldn't feel the same without it
I do chill. I don’t know how have of these channels keep it up 🤣
I went to the CART races at Rockingham... what a show they put on, and the access was amazing for a £12 pitt access pass I chatted to Paul Tracey as he we ate sandwiches next to each other, listened to Michael andretti talk set up, sheltered from the rain with Tony Kannan and at his insistence sat on the wheel of his race car as he took my picture. There wasn't a diva amongst the lot of them and the interactions were a lesson to F1 that they never learned. Never mind having some Z list celebrities with no clue walking the Pitt lane it was all real fans
That's one of the great things about motorsports in the US, a lot more fan accessibility and it isn't silo'ed off for only the big-bucks folks. WEC is pretty good, too (I've been to the Bahrain races a few times).
I'd like to see modern Indycar have multiple chasis and engines again. I think it's time Indy moves away from the spec series route and starts setting its sights on the big boys again.
You touched on the frustration of American open wheel purists of how the old ways of driver development were being lost to Formula One drivers coming over to race Indy. For those purists, the biggest living argument for them was Jeff Gordon. Jeff Gordon wanted to race in Indy Cars but quickly realized that were very few, if any opportunities for Sprint Car Drivers like him to make it to the big time. So he turned his attention to Nascar instead and the rest is history. I believe it was Nascarman History that made a simliar series on the IRL CART split. Looking forward to watching your videos on the split
Not to call you out Aidan, but you left out Mid Ohio Sports Car Course and Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Two great sports car courses that run all sorts of different races but once a year would host CART. Those two courses have a great deal of racing history associated with them.
I'm relieved that you didn't lose the jazz when you made the updates. It's such a comfort to encounter the music outside of dedicated channels. It really distinguishes the channel.
Hey Aidan, Aidan again. I'm actually from Texas, and would love to hear more about the Cart-Texas fiasco. I know that they had issues due to blacking out in the corners, but I'm not sure about specifics. That'd be a good watch!
Looking back at it. I started following open wheel racing back in 96. And because of the split, I committed most of my focus towards F1. Thank you Mr George.
Same here, but 3 years prior: got interested in CART as Mansell went across the Pond. Didn't quite love it (turn left, 203rd safety car on the 20th lap), still, it grew on me and I became a regular until the IRL split. At which point I lost interest in both IRL/CART. I just can't understand how IRL won. At the start, to me it was just the sum of : no interesting drivers, no interesting teams, ovals, ovals, and there were fewer races overall...while CART had some great non-oval tracks, legacy teams/drivers and a full calendar. 'Muricans...What've you done?
When American Open Wheel racing was its best, Tony George killed it , Two generations of fans later, American Open Wheel racing is finally beginning to get back on it's feet. I will never forgive him for what he did.
Great summary! Everything you said is as I remember it, so [memory failures aside] I'd call it 100% spot on target!
For those of us who loved open-wheel racing each weekend was exciting. We had personalities (PT), we had conflict (Unser vs Whinedretti), we had politics (Penske and Rahal and Gannassi), and we had huge amounts of cubic dollars from top sponsors and manufacturers.
Can't wait for installment #2 and the debut of the Crapwagons ;-)
I had no idea about American motor racing until Nigel Mansell went there in 1993 and won the championship. I only watched his one season over there and then didn't bother after that. I'm actually learning a lot about the history of it due to this channel.
He did two 😅
I was a Little Al fan growing up and this was the 1st Indy me and my dad missed because of the war. We started watching Nascar more often that was because of the TV schedule and how most of the Open Wheel races moved to ESPN and off the antenna stations. Since about 2011 I have been back to going to the Long Beach Grand Prix and watching the 500 with my Dad in May
Am I really the first person? I’ll drink to that.
But seriously,
The camera quality is incredible!
I'll have an upgraded camera for next week's videos as well XD
„He was on the council, but didn’t hold the rank of master“
How can they do that? It’s outrageous!
=D
Because he didn't have a racing team
@@kevinbarry71 I was just continuing the quote, mate =)
I appreciate the DS9 reference on your sweatshirt sir
CART was sooo damn good...
Did reference George as Anakin Skywalker 🤣🤣
Nice work on the update Aidan.
Oooh the early 2000s were the dark days as far as I can remember when open wheel racing in US is concerned...
CART was the absolute best in the 90s and I don't know if it'll be in the next video or if it was overlooked but it was definitely a international championship with races not only in USA and Canada and Mexico but also in Brasil and I seem to remember there was a race in Australia too and perhaps in Europe..? (from memory, not googling).
And it was glorious!! Drivers were from all over the world and the races were exciting with no artificial gimmicks (though I remember there was some timed turbo boost per lap but I might be mistaking from a junior category) and championships that would usually go down to the wire - and even when it didn't you would watch the final races anyway as you knew it would have a lot of action from start to finish!
Then it came IRL - the feeble unassuming underdog that ended up gobbling everything and it all went down the drain... I never ever seen a full IRL race - ever! - and it's not because I was mad or anything but just because it was incredibly boring...
I miss the days of Alex Zanardi, André Ribeiro, Greg Moore actually racing in technically challenging tracks rather than going round and round and round... but then again the fact the names I listed none were US might be another reason it ended up failing as ultimately it was a US-based series so why would US companies pay for advertising in races that no US driver would win? There is a reason we never seen a successful US driver in F1 and it's not just money...
Slick presentation, and plenty informative…
Love the metaphor about the Indy 500… The story is similar to what could have happened had FOTA left the Formula One World Championship in 2009…
I guess DTM would have grown even bigger, or GT1 would have made a comeback
There was already an attempted split in 82.
Great video, It's nice to see people interested in Indycar, and are talking about the CART/IRL 'split' again.
Interestingly enough, I just read an Autoweek article about the anniversary of the split, where a former CART boss says that (then) owner IMS Tony George did not leave the CART board of directors on his own, but was instead 'ousted'.
This (at least to me) makes the ridiculousness of the split and the draconian measures taken by George against CART more understandable, as the split was no longer about making Open-Wheel Car Racing in the USA better, but rather to prove a point.
Tony was ousted for good reason. He hadn't really done anything aside from ride his family's coattails. The IRL and Speedway mismanagement in the ensuing decade and a half or so was a reminder of that. Roger Penske buying out the George's was one of the best things to happen, and had it happened years sooner the sport would have been better off.
Yes, the Indy 500 drives American open-wheel racing. Yes, Tony George was the worst person ever to have control of the track/race. And all this after the 1979 USAC/CART war. Thanks for the video.
We don’t even get to listen to V10s in Aidan’s intro anymore.
Today I learned Aiden is at least 1 Stanley Cup tall
And I’ve seen the cup as many times as the Maple Leafs.
That is great racing
That new intro looks great, reminds me of a Gran Turismo title screen
The 96 US 500 is free on the Indycar channel, complete with American open wheel racing’s most ironic moment.
that race was the one that proved to me that CART really was run by an bunch of absolute f*cking idiots.
Great vid. I am just starting to read the "Indy Split" book that came out recently.
Thanks for this... I thought I was the only one who still remembered the split
Look up the nascarman History series in the split, it’s terrific!
I don't believe Jimmy Vasser was to blame for the Michigan 500 crash but rather Adrian Fernandez.
Nice colour! Been looking forward to this "reboot", as it were. A series of all the subjects is a great idea. Thanks!
Btw, "Garak"? DS9 fan? Can't blame you!
Massive DS9 fan.
Nice one Aidan
Aidan this is a fantastic video. Then again I’ve felt all of your videos I’ve watched are fantastic! I was a huge CART fan back in the days when this happened and I think you have done a magnificent job of setting the stage with this Part 1 video and really captured what it was like at that time just prior to the split and what led up to it and how devastating it was the US open wheel racing. I also like the fact that you decided to split it up into several different videos. Keep up the great work and thank you so very much for everything you do.
Aidan, your pic with the stanley cup, was it in toronto at the hall of fame? if so, didn't you find it odd how unprotected everything is in there?? I've been there a few times. It's a neat old building with its vault doors with the original cup cut into pieces. Love your vids!
Yeah, that was at the hall of fame. Went in 2019 and had a lot of fun. Didn’t think any of odd in terms of protection tho.
love the intro music and overall effort going into your channels presentation!
It really was a ovals v everyone else thing - the big street circuit tracks were becoming the non-500 marquee events. Toronto and Long Beach in particular were up there with F1 in terms of corporate sponsorship / involvement. But George didn't care for those races because, well, right turns (and Toronto had the double whammy of being outside the US - never mind that it always drew good TV ratings because of the made-for-TV chaos at the Lakeshore hairpin). He simply thought that ovals in smaller midwest markets were a better bet than street circuits in major cities. And pretty much everyone outside Indiana just went "... wha?"
I remember reading somewhere (ESPN?) that F1 was covertly backing IRL / George as well, because they were worried about CART honing in on their turf.
Wow nearly missed this with the new skin. Looking good dude
The smell of methanol and screaming engines, cool sponsors. I might be wrong, but it's the only place you could see a Honda V8 engine. was the CART series.
Have you looked into the book that was released last May called:
'Indy Split: The Big Money Battle that Nearly Destroyed Indy Racing' by John Oreovicz on this Said Split for more information?
nice video, excited for the rest of this series!
You’re definitely ill, you’re being nice. 🤣
90s seemed like everything sports split: Summer and Winter Olympics no longer in same year, Darts being split apart, and motorsports in the US too.
Pro wrestling with the Monday Night Wars as well.
I know that must be skilled to an oval track, but over tracks and rolling starts is just two things I can’t get my head around in terms of interest. There’s plenty of Formula One that I don’t love, but the difference of every single track and the intrigue of getting a good start are two of the mainstays for me.
Yes!!! Your Texas 2001 video was amazing. Looking forward to seeing a video of it back again.
So you got the events correct but flipped the order. the Indy 500 had it's usual noon start date and was a bit of a question mark early on, However afterwards the race went off without much issue and most of the early incidents were single cars either mechanical problems or spins. The race went on fairly well after the first 20 laps were over with while the US 500 started 2 hours after Indy had started. The Vasser crash basically turned the race into a sham due to the fact that a lot of people probably saw it as a power play after George's IRL announcement and the addition of the 25-8 Rule. Easiest thing CART teams should have done was just boycot the race entirely instead of creating a pissing match with George and the IRL.
As far as the Indy 500 winner being Buddy Lazier, He really only cared about Indy and was never a CART guy. As seen when he basically ran Full Time in the IRL until around 2003 and even attempting the Indy 500 until 2017. While CART teams could try to claim he was a CART guy, I'd mark him down for the IRL due to his career after that Indy 500 run.
I went to that 500 at Michigan. Greg Moore, my god,
I wonder what Tony George thinks when he hears that name ?
It’s the Hulman family, not the George family that owned the track.
Glad they are out of Indycar. If it wasn’t for the Hulman family interference CART would maybe still be here but reduced and the late 90s would have had more memories of a good kind that the IRL all oval system and horrible stock block chassis.
Big brain Simon legend
indy car is so much better than F1. glad to see you covering it.
The hoodie looks good. I’d be keen to buy one if you’re going down the merch path.
Mid-Ohio. Road course and a dammed good one, good sir.
"Indycar is just turning left"
That's what I'm trying to explain to people. I think INDYCAR is a much stronger and healthier package than NASCAR, there's no competition cautions, no playoffs, strategy is an important factor, multiple pit stops per race, colourful grid filled with a really neat looking chassis and multiple different disciplines with road, street and ovals (Hell, Worldwide Technology Speedway is different than Texas, Indy and Iowa speedway as an oval track.)
CART/Indy would still be in F1's orbit if not for the split. Maybe in 10-15 years , Indycar will be back there. F1 has some politics of its own- mainly electric that might cause problems.
I really enjoy the variety of oval types on the indycar calendar, not the constant cookie-cutter ovals of NASCAR.
NASCAR must be listening, they added the Charlotte road course, Indy road course, Daytona Road Course and Road America to the calendar, however because of the their gimmicks, its not the same. You cannot use the same caution/stage caution lap rules on a track where a caution lap takes 3+ minutes (Road America) that you can on a 1 mine oval. You end up with too many laps under yellow out of the total.
@@stephenbritton9297 I was hoping that Jim France was going to fix this like he hour he got IMSA squared away, but it's not looking like it. I will try to follow this year with the new car and see where it goes.
Nascar has done irreparable damage to motorsports in America. Trying to explain to Americans that the Indy 500 is not a nascar race is both frequent and painful
@@davidbarker8354 well,the indy 500 is nascar but for open wheel racing.... i hate oval racing. stick to road courses or street tracks.
Only 25.5k more subscribers until Roberto Moreno. :)
Basically Tony George had a temper tantrum because Cart wasn’t getting the attention from the crowd he wanted. Whenever I hear him talk I think of Baby Mario crying.
The Americans hated the mid engine cars and how the Brits came over with them and started winning.
@@default123default2 so did the Italians tbf 🤣
@@default123default2 those two things were about three decades apart.
@@jsquared1013the first split happened in the 70's. The next one happened in 1996 for basically the same reason. Ask Tony George. Not enough American drivers
Cart will be the greatest series for me especially in the mid-late 90s
Hello Aidan: I really like the new introduction and the video quality is noticeably higher. Good job. Well done.
I think in Part 2 a look should be taken at the Hawaiian Super Prix - one of the biggest failures in American Open Wheel Racing history, a race that never took part and most likely signaled the beginning of the end for CART. Not long after this f*ck up teams like Ganassi, Penske and Andretti/Green, who BTW stuck with CART through thick and thin up until this point, began to jump ship, because sponsors like Target and Marlboro wanted their logos to be shown on the Indy 500 and not some non-championship CART race, held on an airfield than never materialized.
Seen all them drivers at road America.
Very nice on the intro 🙂 Well done.
Like the new intro
When all this happened my dad and family were all for CART and went to the US 500 till 98 because Indy was Indy. They still didn’t truly enjoy Indy for a few years because of how crap the cars sounded, looked and performed
Those Oldsmobile/Infiniti engines in 97-99 sounded awful.
the IRL cars sounded and looked millenia better then the machinery CART was using at the time and that's just a fact. especially from 2000 onwards.
Loving the rebrand!!!
well done
I love these types of videos as a Brit who missed the split, I just have to say though it was CARTs fault that races collided in 1996, the IRL tried to make their schedule fit around CART but a late addition which I think was Rio I'm not 100% sure meant it wasn't possible which is why the CART teams started to play victim (even if I do think 25+8 was a dumb idea)
While i'm still gonna enjoy this series of videos, you should do (or point at, if you have done so) a prequel.
Most good summarizations of the split would start sometime before 1979. The remainders and aftermaths of the 1979 split will have consequences on the 1996 split.
You sound like a teacher marking Aidans homework 😂
@@edward4828 I'd also mention the AAA-USAC split in the 1950s. IndyCar has had three splits with AAA having moved entirely from auto racing as the first one after the Le Mans disaster.
OMG FUCK YES, more CART/Indy content!
America approves
oh how I loved 1990s and early 2000s CART
Read: "Indy Split: The Big Money Battle That Nearly Destroyed Indy Racing" - by John Oreovicz.
There were actually two Texas fiascos. One from the IRL and one for CART.
Honestly I think the v10 intro with updated Color’s might be better
Looking very slick, Mr Chapman The Millward!
awesome video, very interesting, looking forward to the next ones
Just an added snip bit. Not to defend Tony George but he was upset that CART wasn’t pulling drivers from the US sprint car scene and felt that they were loosing out on world class drivers because of it. Jeff Gordon being the biggest example.
The irony in it all was that guys like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart would have probably never gotten a chance in CART because of there limited road racing experience. Later became two of the best road course racers in NASCAR during their careers.
The problem is by the late 80's, driving a mid engined formula car like a IndyCar/Champ Car required a different skill set than driving late models or midgets around dirt tracks. We kind of seeing that play out right now with Jimmy Johnson running the Indy road course schedule.
@@danielhenderson8316 I’m not sure Jimmie had any open wheel experience before this tho. He came from Baja trucks and motocross. I’m not the biggest fan of his so I’m no expert on his career but I think he went from that to late model stock cars, ARCA, to Busch, then Cup.
I get more than a bell on when I see one of your videos come up.