I was so bitter with Tony George for splitting american open-wheel racing. Like others here, I stopped watching the Indy 500 for years. I LOVED it when Juan Pablo Montoya (a CART driver at the time) walked in and won the Indy 500 on his first try. I live near Disney World but never gave this event a thought. I drove down to Homestead to watch CART instead.
"Tony George for splitting american open-wheel racing." Tony never split anything... and asked the CART teams to run his series. They refused. it was the CART teams that did the splitting.. it was them who refused to run IRL races and it was them who created the U.S. 500 in direct conflict with Indy 500. Those were CART's choices. Not tony's.
Now this track is gone! I ended up doing a ride along with the Richard Petty Driving Experience at this track during it's final weekend of operations while vacationing in Florida!
Richie Hearn qualified 2nd, but we had to do an all nighter to put together a loaner car. He passed 15 cars in the first 17 laps. We were lapping faster (in traffic!) than the leader was in the clear. In the wee hours of the morning, the front ARB was hooked up wrong. So when Richie went to adjust it, it went the opposite direction that he thought it would. We could have won this one.
A very sad moment for motorsports. Even with merger in 2008, the damage was done. Since 1996, the TV ratings for the indy 500 can go no more than 6.5 (set in 2005) and outside the indy 500, it can hardly go up to 1.0.
33kalam I don't know. The tv ratings for IndyCar as a whole have been rising every year since Verizon took over as title sponsor. In 2016, tv ratings were 38% what they were just two years before. That's quite the jump.
IndyCar races on NBCSN have been up, but the ratings for the IndyCar races on ABC have been down! I think that has to do with ABC's coverage of the series! ABC's coverage the last few years just went downhill, and it was clear they really did not care about IndyCar or auto racing anymore! ABC's coverage of IndyCar the last few years sort of gave of a vibe that said they wanted out but the only thing bounding them to IndyCar is a contract and that once the contract is up they are out, which they are now. Now that IndyCar is exclusively on NBC, hopefully NBC can resurrect the ratings of the races ABC did not do a good job covering, including the Indy 500!
Three Italian drivers all my friends were supposed to race here: Nicola Marozzo (the first Italian to win an Indycar race in 1991, AIS in Willow Springs. Now owner of Italian Super cars team ZERO Racing), Gianni Giudici (Dtm veteran...Callaway factory driver in Italian Gt 1997...now also team owner... Un po' di figa qua?) and Severino Nardozi (ex formula 3000 and next to debut with Pacific in F1 1995).
I was a CART loyalist when the split occurred, but as the years dragged on it became clear that both Tony George and CART's ownership got it dead wrong. The IRL's wish to hire more American drivers crumbled upon the realization that foreign racers could bring in more sponsorship money to offset costs. That wasn't fair to young American racers who lacked this newly required business savvy, but modern racing economics are rarely fair.
Final season for Johnny Parsons. Going into this race he had 102 career starts in CART/USAC championship car races. Had pole position at the Hoosier 100 (when it was still part of the National Championship in 1970). His best finishes came in the Hopkins Lightning. He ran 2nd to Mario Andretti at Trenton in 1978 and 2nd to AJ Foyt at Ontario in March of 1979.
After the accident of Las Vegas he someway patched up his car and apparently was in the entry list of the American Indycar Series 1997. However info about AIS 1997 are more than scarce and at the moment I cannot say if Parsons effectively took part to at least some events. The presence of Juan Carlos Carbonell and the team of Bill Tempero in some old-style Irl events in 1996 may or may not confirm the rumors about Parsons's switch to AIS 1997. No mystery that Tempero was trying to secure for his series the old cars that would have been discontinued by Irl...
I can guarantee you, IndyCar racing will NEVER be where it was before this, Tony George and CART management BOTH destroyed the sport, CART management for not recognizing the importance of the Indy 500 and not lowering costs for the teams, as well as not running enough ovals, and Tony George for causing the split, most of the young talent, sponsors, and audience have all left for NASCAR and probably will never come back.
The costs of the teams was not an issue, this was America's answer to f1 the car were supposed to be advanced cutting edge and constantly evolving, that was what separated it from the simplicity of stock car racing, the dumbing down of the the American open wheel car was the greatest travesty of the split.
Lowering costs, American drivers, keeping traditions alive, was nothing more than bullcrap propaganda!!! Tony George wanted to be like Bernie Ecclestone or Brian France, he was a moron who lost millions upon millions of dollars keeping his creation alive and at the end he lost everything.
It's funny, right from the first second you can hear Paul Page thinking "What the fuck is going on? Why are we splitting up a great series into two? DISNEY WORLD? Seriously?" while he's trying to put on a brave face.
Shame that they demolished the track. This would have been perfect for IndyCar in 2020 and beyond as short track ovals are becoming more popular in the series.
Yes, if Disney still wanted the track, and the race could have a determined promoter, a dedicated sponsor, and an enthusiastic and loyal crowd. IndyCar oval races mostly lose money. Indy is big enough to maintain itself, and St. Louis is really the only other oval that's made any money in the last decade or so (Texas gets some NASCAR TV contract money). Phoenix and New Hampshire could succeed if all those factors worked in IndyCar's favour.
Yes there have been but this year has been an exception. If you look at the IRL seasons since 2008, 90% of all the races have been won by three teams; Penske, Ganassi and Andretti. I hope this year's trend of smaller teams winning more races continues but changes need to be made before the Big 3's dominance of the IRL is finally broken.
let's put things in perspective. in the 96 cart season openner, 19 of the 27 drivers would go on to win at least 1 american openwheel race...in the irl, 10 of 20.
@@nachoalvarez7171 Would have won the 1996 Indy 500 but for a bad pop-off valve (showing why a LOT of people were glad to see turbocharged engines finally go).
CART's pitfalls eventually became Indy Car's pitfalls. The disappearance of American drivers was triggered long before the split by USAC's own decision in 1970 to remove dirt track events as points counting events towards it's national championship. That decision changed the paradigm negatively for drivers who learned on the dirt...Americans. There's more than enough blame to go around over the last forty years...pick a scapegoat, any scapegoat. Penske and Ganassi race on...where's Tony?
@BobbyRossRacing93 TG owned ovals, and he and the other track owners wanted to control the teams. CART wanted to use other tracks, not all ovals, and didn't want oval track owners to tell the what to do.
CART wanted to be like F-1 and allow a handful of elite teams to dominate the sport and they also wanted to flip off the US market as much as possible.
Both Cart and Tony George had good & bad ideas. Exporting indycars overseas? Yes but not to much. Running only on ovals. No; I don't believe this is a good idea. Having more american drivers, yes of course. The new Indycars is nearly perfect. The big teams such as Andretti, Ganassi and Penske are strong and this is normal and if Simona, can finish second, I think that this is nice for the serie. Pagenaud has proved that even smaller teams can win. Hope to see some SA and Belgian drivers.
CART made Indycar a worldwide success and it was only growing when the split happened, it was a nearly perfect series, when usac still ran the races it was complete amateur hour outside indy just watch some races the production value was garbage, Tony George cared about control and nothing else.
A worldwide success if you were a fan of seeing the same three elite driving teams win all the races with most of them on boring street circuits where the winner usually is the guy on the pole who gets the lead going into the first turn.
@@penskepc2374 maybe, but CART was a house of cards and a victim of its own success by the 90's. Going public doomed them far more than TG or not having the 500.
i don't wanna offend anyobody but...don't you think this kind of race is boring? i mean, more than an hour watching cars around a circle..i mean i don't get these circuits. Btw it is just an opinion of mine, i respect american racers and american races ;)
I find street races and road courses boring since the winner is usually who makes it into the first turn. In oval races, I see competition for position and passing.
Short ovals are always great and the IRL cars were not crapwagons yet, but uploading this race makes me sour. It reminds me of a big mistake that started the destruction of US open-wheel racing.
No, I think they could possibly make indylights resemble the irl, spec cars with the airbox and natural aspiration running a half oval schedule, it could still be a feeder series but it could be made more attractive as a destination for some and a place for veterans to keep running part time, you know like resemble xfinity a bit in that sense, in reality most of the drivers on the ladder need the oval experience much more.
Hunter Smith To be fair, this field did have some good drivers (Alboreto, Stewart, Luyendyk, Lazier, Cheever, Sharp, Guerrero)... but it still sucked compared to CART's fields at the time
one of the stupidest moves ever in motor racing, if not sports history was to establish this joke of a racing series. CART was not perfect and looking back no one could and would ever say it was but the original IRL was pathetic. The Indy 500 drew people, sponsors, drivers and manufactures wasn't the track but the combination of the drivers and the track. how was this going to ever improve the indycar series? stupid tony george, don't let him near indycars ever again.
19:34 Dave Kudrave was preferred a few days before Orlando race to Nicola Marozzo, that won a race in American Indycar Series in 1991 in Willow Springs beating Robbie and Johnny Unser. Big error. Marozzo could have won Irl 1996.
Jimmy Vasser crashing his car on the pace lap and being able to enter a substitute car from the same starting position and win the race in that joke event they held the same day is the real definition of pathetic (and the ultimate example of what was so wrong with CART)
TV doesn't do it justice. I enjoy all forms of racing, but road races are the most boring to watch in person. In oval racing, you can usually see the entire track and watch close racing all day or night.
I supported Tony George's vision of what he wanted the IRL to become; an all-oval drivers' series that was not dominated by a few rich teams the way CART was. CART had become too technology-driven. Sadly, TG is not in charge of the IRL anymore and it has now the same as CART. I don't want to see another OWL schism but I hope the IRL will one day fulfill TG's dream - especially for all of us who supported the new league when it began in '96.
The IRL became "CART Lite" (a term coined by A.J. Foyt) under Tony's leadership. The short track racer/oval track narrative was just a rallying cry to get support. The IRL was about control. If he was serious about helping the short track racers get to Indy, why not start a team and exclusively hire guys from USAC, WoO, POWRi, etc? No need to bring down the established stars. Also, why was the 1997 IRL car not a modern interpretation of a front-engine roadster? It was still a rear-engine formula car. And why were so many drivers and teams involved that came from road racing? Incredibly, no one in the IRL camp seemed to notice the flaws in Tony's plan.
@@NotSteveCook I will respectfully disagree with AJ's description and with your assessment that it was all about control. TG was simply trying to bring OWR in North America back to its roots and to lower costs because CART had become another Formula 1 - a technology-driven series where only 2-3 teams dominated every year (in 1994, for example, Penske Racing won 12 of the 16 races that season). Jeff Gordon tried to get a ride with CART but because of the high cost of sponsorship failed to find one which is why he went to NASCAR where he became driving champion. Just starting one team with just one or two drivers would not have solved the problems that George saw with the CART series., one of which giving young drivers a chance to compete in OWR. Since as I said, it was very expensive to get a CART ride, it was inevitable that most of the IRL's early drivers came over from other series since they could not find a ride in CART. As for your other questions, you would have to address those to TG himself but I assume that this had to do with keeping costs down. CART had become about as predictable as a professional wrestling match. With few exceptions, you knew from the start who the winning race car was going to be. If you look at the IRL's first three seasons, 22 drivers representing 16 different teams won races. I don't understand what was so wrong with trying to make these races more competitive. Isn't more competition supposed to be a good thing?
CART wasn't better because both CART and Champ Car went bankrupt and the IRL always produced great racing and since the Champ Car teams joined the series, it does even more.. :)
Paul Page is king of open wheel commentating. I miss him...
Thumbs up!
Not to mention Bobby Unser! Man he was so smooth.
This track produced some memorable races despite it's short tenure. Tony Stewart @1:15:52 produced one of those moments.
R.I.P
Alboreto
Brayton
& Paul Jr.
I was so bitter with Tony George for splitting american open-wheel racing. Like others here, I stopped watching the Indy 500 for years. I LOVED it when Juan Pablo Montoya (a CART driver at the time) walked in and won the Indy 500 on his first try. I live near Disney World but never gave this event a thought. I drove down to Homestead to watch CART instead.
"Tony George for splitting american open-wheel racing." Tony never split anything... and asked the CART teams to run his series. They refused. it was the CART teams that did the splitting.. it was them who refused to run IRL races and it was them who created the U.S. 500 in direct conflict with Indy 500. Those were CART's choices. Not tony's.
Now this track is gone! I ended up doing a ride along with the Richard Petty Driving Experience at this track during it's final weekend of operations while vacationing in Florida!
Gotta love those American oval drivers like Michele Alboreto and Roberto Guerrero..
Guerrero was a good oval driver whose first victory was at Phoenix in 1987.
@@epaddon I met Guerrero at Watkins Glen in 2019. One of the nicest people I've ever met!
gee aren't you cute... hope you stuck to your day job, cause comedy is not in the cards for you.
Richie Hearn qualified 2nd, but we had to do an all nighter to put together a loaner car. He passed 15 cars in the first 17 laps. We were lapping faster (in traffic!) than the leader was in the clear. In the wee hours of the morning, the front ARB was hooked up wrong. So when Richie went to adjust it, it went the opposite direction that he thought it would. We could have won this one.
Brad Bowman What ever happened to Richie?
Actually, he is a driving instructor at Ron Fellows’ Performance Driving School
Thanks, love hearing the behind the scenes stories. This was the year Della Pena and Hearn tried to run CART and IRL right?
Fantastic race, thanks so much for putting this up!
Arguably the best race the IRL ever had. New track, new winner, new sports entertainment alliance. Intriguing lineup. Their best looking cars as well.
Typical Eddie Cheever, “wasn’t my fault.”
20::05 “you’ll see a lot of Dave Kudrave, there’s no doubt about that”.
Uhhhh no you won’t!!!!
Who?
A very sad moment for motorsports. Even with merger in 2008, the damage was done. Since 1996, the TV ratings for the indy 500 can go no more than 6.5 (set in 2005) and outside the indy 500, it can hardly go up to 1.0.
33kalam I don't know. The tv ratings for IndyCar as a whole have been rising every year since Verizon took over as title sponsor. In 2016, tv ratings were 38% what they were just two years before. That's quite the jump.
well i think the aero kits helped
IndyCar races on NBCSN have been up, but the ratings for the IndyCar races on ABC have been down! I think that has to do with ABC's coverage of the series! ABC's coverage the last few years just went downhill, and it was clear they really did not care about IndyCar or auto racing anymore! ABC's coverage of IndyCar the last few years sort of gave of a vibe that said they wanted out but the only thing bounding them to IndyCar is a contract and that once the contract is up they are out, which they are now. Now that IndyCar is exclusively on NBC, hopefully NBC can resurrect the ratings of the races ABC did not do a good job covering, including the Indy 500!
Tony Stewarts first race
Three Italian drivers all my friends were supposed to race here: Nicola Marozzo (the first Italian to win an Indycar race in 1991, AIS in Willow Springs. Now owner of Italian Super cars team ZERO Racing), Gianni Giudici (Dtm veteran...Callaway factory driver in Italian Gt 1997...now also team owner... Un po' di figa qua?) and Severino Nardozi (ex formula 3000 and next to debut with Pacific in F1 1995).
I was a CART loyalist when the split occurred, but as the years dragged on it became clear that both Tony George and CART's ownership got it dead wrong. The IRL's wish to hire more American drivers crumbled upon the realization that foreign racers could bring in more sponsorship money to offset costs. That wasn't fair to young American racers who lacked this newly required business savvy, but modern racing economics are rarely fair.
Great upload. Thanks Indycar.
Final season for Johnny Parsons. Going into this race he had 102 career starts in CART/USAC championship car races. Had pole position at the Hoosier 100 (when it was still part of the National Championship in 1970). His best finishes came in the Hopkins Lightning. He ran 2nd to Mario Andretti at Trenton in 1978 and 2nd to AJ Foyt at Ontario in March of 1979.
After the accident of Las Vegas he someway patched up his car and apparently was in the entry list of the American Indycar Series 1997. However info about AIS 1997 are more than scarce and at the moment I cannot say if Parsons effectively took part to at least some events. The presence of Juan Carlos Carbonell and the team of Bill Tempero in some old-style Irl events in 1996 may or may not confirm the rumors about Parsons's switch to AIS 1997. No mystery that Tempero was trying to secure for his series the old cars that would have been discontinued by Irl...
I could hear the cars from my house. It sounded like a swarm of bees . I live about 5 miles away.
6:30 Danny Sullivan starting his broadcasting career as he meant to go on :D
I can guarantee you, IndyCar racing will NEVER be where it was before this, Tony George and CART management BOTH destroyed the sport, CART management for not recognizing the importance of the Indy 500 and not lowering costs for the teams, as well as not running enough ovals, and Tony George for causing the split, most of the young talent, sponsors, and audience have all left for NASCAR and probably will never come back.
NASCAR be like "that's where you're wrong kiddo"...550 hp..weekly pack racing. Their plan is a joke.
The costs of the teams was not an issue, this was America's answer to f1 the car were supposed to be advanced cutting edge and constantly evolving, that was what separated it from the simplicity of stock car racing, the dumbing down of the the American open wheel car was the greatest travesty of the split.
Lowering costs, American drivers, keeping traditions alive, was nothing more than bullcrap propaganda!!! Tony George wanted to be like Bernie Ecclestone or Brian France, he was a moron who lost millions upon millions of dollars keeping his creation alive and at the end he lost everything.
I was at this race. IT WAS UNGODLY BORING. The truck races at Disney Speedway were way better =)
It's funny, right from the first second you can hear Paul Page thinking "What the fuck is going on? Why are we splitting up a great series into two? DISNEY WORLD? Seriously?" while he's trying to put on a brave face.
And bringing up the rear
Buddy lazier! (Voice of Tom Carnegie.)
Great video!
Well we all knew that the IRL was a Mickey Mouse League.
This is the day American Open Wheel Racing died.
sad to see this track closing for good
BRN14fan Just closed 10 days ago :(
Now the track is demolished. :'( R.I.P Walt Disney World Speedway. :'(
Laurence Oliveri 😢
@@24RulezJG 😭😭
@@24RulezJG RIP old Indycar tracks.
Quote of the day "You'll see a lot of Dave Kudrave, that is for sure." LOL
I know Antonio Ferrari. A bit strict but he knows how to tune a winning car. Capable tuner and team owner.
I want NTT INDYCAR SERIES to return to Walt Disney World Speedway in 2022.
Shame that they demolished the track. This would have been perfect for IndyCar in 2020 and beyond as short track ovals are becoming more popular in the series.
Yes, if Disney still wanted the track, and the race could have a determined promoter, a dedicated sponsor, and an enthusiastic and loyal crowd. IndyCar oval races mostly lose money. Indy is big enough to maintain itself, and St. Louis is really the only other oval that's made any money in the last decade or so (Texas gets some NASCAR TV contract money). Phoenix and New Hampshire could succeed if all those factors worked in IndyCar's favour.
@@NotSteveCook Parking is much more valuable than an IndyCar race.
I could hear the cars from my home. It sounded like bees buzzing
Yes there have been but this year has been an exception. If you look at the IRL seasons since 2008, 90% of all the races have been won by three teams; Penske, Ganassi and Andretti. I hope this year's trend of smaller teams winning more races continues but changes need to be made before the Big 3's dominance of the IRL is finally broken.
what a great crowd and a unique track, i know the grandstands were knocked down but they should go back there
It was a great race I remember seeing the. Rest car in practice. Dr Miller the distinct I was at the race, long walk before the busses in 1997
I was on CART’s side of the split, but never missed listening to Danny Sullivan 😊
This was a nice little track. I can’t believe Disney got rid of it.
That's such a weird shape for an oval, which is what I like most about it.
There have been several small teams win this year in IndyCar and the reigning champion is American.
Indy racing league first broadcast for Brazil for SBT
in 1st row Mickey Mouse and Goofy in 2nd row Donald Duck and Scrooge in 3rd row .... ;-)
yup!
R.I.P in peace bobby unser!
I remember this race
Disclaimer: This race is the 1996 Indy 200 at Walt Disney World...
It's a pity Walt Disney World Speedway doesn't exist anymore.
And the war is on...
Today a master of "fuel conservation". Maybe learned with this car ;)
this proves once and for all that the copy is never as good as the original :P
This track was a joy , of course micky mouse lake really made if feel Disney
IRL was a good idea. I think if everyone wasn't so stupid CART and IRL could of worked something out.
Either two people who later won races both dive bombed Eddie Cheever the same weekend or he just never looked behind him.
Wow, was this really a new track? Why all of the patches and impurities...it looks dumpy.
The beginning of the end...
I get that Bobby was a great driver, but I always thought you had to be able to string two sentences together to get into a commentary booth.
The day AOWR died.
Because CART is going to stay around longer
I feel bad for that band. They tore so bad.
Its the 1 mile version of pocono 😀
yep maybe it is just cause you don't see it for real or maybe it is because it is another culture of racing
Wish that speedway still existed
It still exists, but no one profesional competitions are still there. I hope IndyCar comes back to that speedway some day.
@@christiandavidnorenavalenc9944 No, it isn’t. Disney demolished it to expand the Magic Kingdom’s parking lot.
It's funny when you guys show a CART race, you don't really mention CART.
let's put things in perspective. in the 96 cart season openner, 19 of the 27 drivers would go on to win at least 1 american openwheel race...in the irl, 10 of 20.
would have been 11 of 20 if Salazar hadn't crashed in practice.
field also had an F1 winner (Alboreto) and a future sports car star (O'Connell)
@@IndyX86 well, okay. i'll give you that. but still.
Huh. An Indycar video without a comment from David Land.
Well... until I saw this comment. Then I had to keep the streak alive!
My guess is that you would’ve hearted this if it were on your channel.
I'm confused. Are you saying you were wrong about CART or still have ill will toward the IRL from 1996 to 2008? or something in between?
US open wheel racing own 9/11.
this was a neat track imo. shame its not used anymore, and wasnt really used much at all to begin with
Tony stewart looks so young! :O
My fav NASCAR driver.
Paul looks really creepy in that segment starting at 3:03.
Intro at 2:24
Rookie in america Michele Alboreto. renowned Ferrari F1 driver elswhere. took a short stint in the meaningless series, and promptly left
wait... since when are Arie and Tony unheard of?
What ever happened to BuzzCaulkins and the "McYard"?
WOW Tony Stewart Is In This Race !?!?!?!?!?!?
Yes, he got his big break in the IRL
He even won a championship in it
@@nachoalvarez7171 Would have won the 1996 Indy 500 but for a bad pop-off valve (showing why a LOT of people were glad to see turbocharged engines finally go).
CART's pitfalls eventually became Indy Car's pitfalls. The disappearance of American drivers was triggered long before the split by USAC's own decision in 1970 to remove dirt track events as points counting events towards it's national championship. That decision changed the paradigm negatively for drivers who learned on the dirt...Americans. There's more than enough blame to go around over the last forty years...pick a scapegoat, any scapegoat. Penske and Ganassi race on...where's Tony?
Tony George. The man who destroyed American open-wheel racing.
@BobbyRossRacing93
TG owned ovals, and he and the other track owners wanted to control the teams.
CART wanted to use other tracks, not all ovals, and didn't want oval track owners to tell the what to do.
CART wanted to be like F-1 and allow a handful of elite teams to dominate the sport and they also wanted to flip off the US market as much as possible.
Both Cart and Tony George had good & bad ideas. Exporting indycars overseas? Yes but not to much. Running only on ovals. No; I don't believe this is a good idea. Having more american drivers, yes of course. The new Indycars is nearly perfect. The big teams such as Andretti, Ganassi and Penske are strong and this is normal and if Simona, can finish second, I think that this is nice for the serie. Pagenaud has proved that even smaller teams can win. Hope to see some SA and Belgian drivers.
CART made Indycar a worldwide success and it was only growing when the split happened, it was a nearly perfect series, when usac still ran the races it was complete amateur hour outside indy just watch some races the production value was garbage, Tony George cared about control and nothing else.
A worldwide success if you were a fan of seeing the same three elite driving teams win all the races with most of them on boring street circuits where the winner usually is the guy on the pole who gets the lead going into the first turn.
@@penskepc2374 maybe, but CART was a house of cards and a victim of its own success by the 90's. Going public doomed them far more than TG or not having the 500.
Was Alboreto just bored? Just seemed like such an odd spot to reemerge for a driver with his pedigree.
Because he's one of those short track racers the IRL was all about
Probably had to do with his team, Scandia. Was driving in IMSA for them at the time, in addition to his IRL program.
CART wasn't better? Hellooo...anyone there? Didn't think so.
i don't wanna offend anyobody but...don't you think this kind of race is boring? i mean, more than an hour watching cars around a circle..i mean i don't get these circuits. Btw it is just an opinion of mine, i respect american racers and american races ;)
I think F1 is boring. The technology is great but they rarely pass. I never could get into road racing.
I find street races and road courses boring since the winner is usually who makes it into the first turn. In oval races, I see competition for position and passing.
Short ovals are always great and the IRL cars were not crapwagons yet, but uploading this race makes me sour. It reminds me of a big mistake that started the destruction of US open-wheel racing.
a great year in motorsports?
Diego Ospina if Tony not created IRL
Spoilers
Buzz Calkins only IndyCar win
Am I the only guy that liked both CART and the IRL?
No, I think they could possibly make indylights resemble the irl, spec cars with the airbox and natural aspiration running a half oval schedule, it could still be a feeder series but it could be made more attractive as a destination for some and a place for veterans to keep running part time, you know like resemble xfinity a bit in that sense, in reality most of the drivers on the ladder need the oval experience much more.
I was too.
what a sloppy unfair looking start, why werent they side by side or in a line, maybe stopping first then having a green light would be most fair
C'erano anche Alboreto ... e Cheever ... tempi eroici!!!
Who the hell are these drivers??
Hunter Smith To be fair, this field did have some good drivers (Alboreto, Stewart, Luyendyk, Lazier, Cheever, Sharp, Guerrero)... but it still sucked compared to CART's fields at the time
I agree with you, I love all kind of races from european ones to japanese, from rallying to circuit racing but I think that this is so boring
one of the stupidest moves ever in motor racing, if not sports history was to establish this joke of a racing series. CART was not perfect and looking back no one could and would ever say it was but the original IRL was pathetic. The Indy 500 drew people, sponsors, drivers and manufactures wasn't the track but the combination of the drivers and the track. how was this going to ever improve the indycar series? stupid tony george, don't let him near indycars ever again.
Tony Fucking George
19:34 Dave Kudrave was preferred a few days before Orlando race to Nicola Marozzo, that won a race in American Indycar Series in 1991 in Willow Springs beating Robbie and Johnny Unser. Big error. Marozzo could have won Irl 1996.
@BobbyRossRacing93 The one that doesn't deserve it.
CART was better :)
Lazier had more than 60 Cart starts under his belt and he never quite made the podium. Then came the Irl and he is an Indy 500 winner. Pathetic.
Jimmy Vasser crashing his car on the pace lap and being able to enter a substitute car from the same starting position and win the race in that joke event they held the same day is the real definition of pathetic (and the ultimate example of what was so wrong with CART)
Lazier was only ever in back-marker junk during his CART days
TV doesn't do it justice. I enjoy all forms of racing, but road races are the most boring to watch in person. In oval racing, you can usually see the entire track and watch close racing all day or night.
I supported Tony George's vision of what he wanted the IRL to become; an all-oval drivers' series that was not dominated by a few rich teams the way CART was. CART had become too technology-driven. Sadly, TG is not in charge of the IRL anymore and it has now the same as CART. I don't want to see another OWL schism but I hope the IRL will one day fulfill TG's dream - especially for all of us who supported the new league when it began in '96.
The IRL became "CART Lite" (a term coined by A.J. Foyt) under Tony's leadership. The short track racer/oval track narrative was just a rallying cry to get support. The IRL was about control. If he was serious about helping the short track racers get to Indy, why not start a team and exclusively hire guys from USAC, WoO, POWRi, etc? No need to bring down the established stars. Also, why was the 1997 IRL car not a modern interpretation of a front-engine roadster? It was still a rear-engine formula car. And why were so many drivers and teams involved that came from road racing? Incredibly, no one in the IRL camp seemed to notice the flaws in Tony's plan.
@@NotSteveCook I will respectfully disagree with AJ's description and with your assessment that it was all about control. TG was simply trying to bring OWR in North America back to its roots and to lower costs because CART had become another Formula 1 - a technology-driven series where only 2-3 teams dominated every year (in 1994, for example, Penske Racing won 12 of the 16 races that season). Jeff Gordon tried to get a ride with CART but because of the high cost of sponsorship failed to find one which is why he went to NASCAR where he became driving champion. Just starting one team with just one or two drivers would not have solved the problems that George saw with the CART series., one of which giving young drivers a chance to compete in OWR. Since as I said, it was very expensive to get a CART ride, it was inevitable that most of the IRL's early drivers came over from other series since they could not find a ride in CART. As for your other questions, you would have to address those to TG himself but I assume that this had to do with keeping costs down. CART had become about as predictable as a professional wrestling match. With few exceptions, you knew from the start who the winning race car was going to be. If you look at the IRL's first three seasons, 22 drivers representing 16 different teams won races. I don't understand what was so wrong with trying to make these races more competitive. Isn't more competition supposed to be a good thing?
@@georgfriedrichhandel4390 Or you could write to Robin Miller and tell him what you told me.
millersmailbag@racer.com
@@NotSteveCook And why would I want to do that?
@@georgfriedrichhandel4390 To shed your ignorance and to learn.
IRL rocked. Real racing, for real people.
No.
I really hope you're being sarcastic
@@raymonddionne5088 no
Terrible years 1996-2001 for Indianapolis. Slow cars, i bet Nascar was faster... slow amateur drivers despite a few old f1 backmarkers. lol
crap league, with unheard of drivers, and ludicrous teams. Cart rules!
Ugh... Crazy uncle Bobby.
The first step to taking those CART bastages down
CART wasn't better because both CART and Champ Car went bankrupt and the IRL always produced great racing and since the Champ Car teams joined the series, it does even more.. :)