The IndyCar Split: Anger and Division in CART | Part I 

George in 1994: We need more ovals. IRL in 2005: We need road courses.

1998 CART Championship. 19 Races across the US and Canada including a race in Japan, Brazil and Australia. Comprising of 8 ovals and 11 road and street courses. 16 Teams with 29 drivers from 10 countries competed. With 7 different winners! 5 Chassis manufacturers in Eagle, Swift, Lola, Reynard and Penske! 4 Engine manufacturers in Ford, Mercedes, Honda and Toyota.! 2 Tyre manufacturers in Goodyear and Firestone! Does it get much better than that? EX F1 and Future F1 drivers too

18:48 - And now, nearly 30 years later, Penske owns not only the Indy Car Series, but Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It just blows my mind how I heard so many things in this video that I hear in NASCAR today. "We need to get out of these markets and go bigger." "This series is filled with nothing but a bunch of rich kids." "They went too far away from their roots." "Costs are way too high." You can't help but be concerned about NASCAR's future after watching this video, but they seem to be catching on to some of these pressing issues. Hopefully they don't meat a similar fate to the one their open-wheel counterparts experienced back in the 90s.

Imagine Senna vs Earnhardt. That would of been insane!

The late 90's CART racing was my favorite. It had 4 different chassis and 4 different engines to choose from. And the schedule was fantastic.

Well, as a foreign fan of IndyCar history, it's the first time i heard the both sides of the story. And with this, i think the both sides are in some parts right. Tony was right in complain about the lack of new American drivers in the CART, the cost for teams which was rising more and more but i don't agree with the IndyCar being a oval-only series. Particularly, the one of the things what attracted me to IndyCar it was this road-course-oval mix, to see the same car running two types of tracks. But CART leaders was right about the expansion of the CART around the world, the series was gaining more and more exposition with foreign drivers influx in the series, making the series a contender with the Formula One. But after all, when the egos starts to clash, bad things happens. And that's what happened with the American open-wheel universe. CART was starting to being the thing they most complained about USAC, a series which not all teams were fully represented, and worse, believing they're biggest than the Indianapolis 500, the race which was the reason why they were called the IndyCar. But George wasn't too far, believing the IndyCar needed to be more ''American", after all the series was growing up around the world and doing a move, closing more the series more in the America would be a great mistake. In the end, this split was the biggest blow in the IndyCar legacy, a wound i think would never being fully healed.

Finally. The true story of the Indy Split. Good job Brock

Wow. As someone who “lived the split” and was personally affected by it, it is very refreshing to see a video on this topic that isn’t the same old shallow “CART was great, Tony George ruined it” garbage. Thank you for taking the time to research it at a deeper level.

the sad result of the split that for 20 years until recently the IndyCar series has had to recover from...

The things that were said and ultimately happened. Notably, Pat Patrick's comments. 😬

Alot of people believe a big part that wasn't mentioned is the link between Tony George and Bernie Eccelstone to make this happen, CART while flawed was massive pre split and it was at the level to be a Solid F1 Rival, having any kind of split would be massively beneficial from an F1 perspective and it further gets suspicious when F1 started to host the GP a couple years later.

Tony George killed IndyCar with the split...I love watching the Indy 500 but the old pre split CART was so much better, multiple engines, multiple chassis suppliers and Penske even ran their own cars, a schedule with actual variety and not too many of a specific type of track, it was like a mini Formula 1, now it's just a spec series.

I'm 95% convinced it was Penske' super engine at Indy in 94 that was in a sense the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't believe it was a coincidence at all Tony George announced the IRL's creation two months later. He no doubt was absolutely livid inside about what Penske had done during the month of May and said to himself, "Never again."

As a fan, I can tell you when the time came in 1996.. I was watching the U.S. 500 All the big names were there and I was and still am a huge Michael Andretti fan.

That KFC Racing hat is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a minute.

This video is awesome, great job. Looking forward to the next few parts. This topic in particular angers me so much. I remember it quite well and being mostly confused as to why the Penske's and Andretti's were racing any Indy anymore. My favorite sport was set back 50 years with this!

12:32 I sort of feel bad for the dirt racers because they still believed in taking the “traditional” road to Indy, but then again, it didn’t reflect the type of circuits that CART was competing. Therefore, it made more sense to compete in lower Formula series. We’re sorting of seeing the same thing in NASCAR today. Small teams are easily crushed or being locked out of events because they don’t have a charter. There’s a high influx of pay drivers. Car fields are getting smaller.

You are way, wayyyy to good at this. Your documentaries could be mistaken for big network, and big budget stuff

Hearing Patrick talk about how INDYCAR should leave Road America gets under my skin. I’ve always felt annoyed by how CART was trying too hard to be Formula 1. Tony George had the right idea but executed it poorly. In the end it was just a battle of egos that ruined racing .

CART was no joke in the early to mid-nineties. When Mansell showed up in 1993, even Bernie Ecclestone became worried about CART's growing worldwide popularity.

"Everytime a driver turns right I lose money. So I want American drivers to only be able to turn left."-- Tony George

This was fantastic!!! Perfect use of the older footage and the commentary was excellent! Getting ready to start part 2.

CART was EPIC in the early '90s before Tony George destroyed it

Does tony george ever sound awake when he speaks? It's like he spits sleeping pills... also, great video. Part 2 please.👍

Great upload. I started watching IndyCar racing in 1988 and I was in awe. Because the drivers were cool and cars looks good. Plus, they race on different tracks. Like the oval in Phoenix one week and the next week the street circuit at Long Beach. Then the month of May of the Indianapolis 500. When the month May was happening when I was a kid. I used to hustle home from school and read the paper to see who was fastest that day. Also, any incidents happen on track and controversy off track. Especially with the popoff valves between the Chevy Illmor engine & the Buick stock block engine. Then watching qualifying on TV all day with stopwatch at hand to see who ran the fastest. In speaking of the Chevy engine that dominated the CART circuit from 88-92. The only non-Chevy engines that won in that period. Was Bobby Rahal winning with a Judd at Pocono in 1988. Bobby Rahal winning with a Cosworth at the Meadowlands in 1989 & Teo Fabi winning Mid-Ohio with the Porsche engine. I still look back at the era with fondness because I still watch old CART races still on RU-vid or from my own collection. When split happen in 1996 I went with CART until the end in 2008. Also, I got to meet drivers from that era who since retire. Like Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Bobby Rahal, Emerson Fittiapldi, & Rick Mears. I wish I got the autograph & picture with Bobby Rahal. I remember I had quick chat with Rahal & told him I remember during his Kraco days. He was kind of shocked anybody remember he drove with the Kraco team. I know the IRL won the battle, but they lost the war at the end. Because now they only race only on two ovals, Texas & Indianapolis. Kind of ironic now Roger Penske owns the speedway & the series. Hell, I went to the Pocono IndyCar races from 2013-2019. Now no IndyCar races on the east coast and that sucks. Another thanks for the upload it brought good memories of CART racing & the bad of the split. Can't wait for part 2.

This is a great video, and I really learned a lot that I didn’t know before. The “split”, like any war, was a series of unavoidable decisions that could only lead to a tragic outcome. As Pat Patrick said, the old USAC way of doing things had no prospects for growth going into the 80s. Indycar would have been a small thing compared to the growth happening in Europe and Asia, but at the same time cutting off the sprint cars meant cutting off indycar’s roots and hollow out its soul. As a CART fan, it would have been really tough to realize this at the time of the split, since the series had been going through a period of incredible international success. They had increased international races, sponsors; they got the defending F1 champion, Honda, Toyota, Bridgestone, Mercedes; they were the envy of Bernie Ecclestone, and yet lots of justified dissent from its grassroots.

Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart both showed INDYCAR what they were missing for 2 decades. Both Gordon and Stewart were smoking the rest of the field on road courses.

The European Super League may want to watch this.

I'll play devil's advocate here: Tony George wasn't wrong per se. CART badly needed a solid, homegrown base and a strong leadership that could have dealt with the political climate. Unfortunately, in trying to change the sport, George tore down a lot of things, perhaps even irreparably. Can't wait to see the next episodes of this series.

This is worthy of larger distribution. Easily the best explanation of The Split and how it nearly killed major league open-wheel racing in America. I am from Indy, a huge 500 fan and I lamented this split from the first, but was a touch too young (just turned 34) to understand the build and finer details. This filled EVERY gap. EXCELLENT WORK!

Popcorn ready

man Senna in NASCAR would have been epic!

It was both interesting and frustrating to be part of the CART circus at the time of the split.

Love your videos. Thank you for letting me relive my younger days. When I was 7 years old, i watched my first nascar race with my dad. It was the 1992 season finale in Atlanta. Gordon's first race, Petty's final race. And a great championship battle. IndyCar never appealed to me too much. But this was a cool video to watch.

Now the tables have turned. People are abandoning NASCAR for other series since NASCAR has gone this route. - Only a few large teams have competitive equipment.and have the "They need us more than we need them mentality". - Getting a competitive ride is a out money and family connections, (pay drivers). - Only small teams that can win are ones who buy or lease cars from bigger teams (which are charged lots of money and fold after a couple of years). - It's rare to see a driver get a chance from outside of NASCAR unless you raced in a bigger series. -Thete isn't enough variety of tracks in the schedule which never changes. - Long term contracts -

All because Tony George thought the USAC roots were still relevant to modern open wheel racing. If CART was competently run, Tony would have been begging for mercy after 1996. All they had to do was enter in IRL races, show outclassed the IRL guys were, and kill ‘em on their first season.

This is an excellent documentary. Terrific editing, bringing in all of those previous clips from other channels at the time.

Excellent video. I worked at IMS from 1995-1999. I only worked in concessions, but I remember the vitriol thrown both ways. I've been a lifelong IndyCar fan who supported the IRL over CART, but I was wrong. The whole thing was a cluster, and the series, while certainly strong on track, has suffered from the self-inflicted wounds from the 90's. I was such an idiot.

me and my dad still bring up the split 20 years later to complain about how it ruined open wheeled racing in North America... What a shame...

As always; stellar production! Im always blown away with the footage you’re able to put together.

Quality topic, and I'm sure an incredible video. Can't wait for Wednesday already, and I'm only a few minutes in!

This was really well done, a compilation of footage that would probably otherwise be lost to obscurity. Extremely underrated channel

I love sprint car racing, to me it's one of the most exciting forms of motorsport. But I grew up with CART on road courses, and that's what I prefer for Indycars.

Gordon running a 410 sprint at 13. It still trips me out. Love seeing Jenkins and the beloved Chris Economaki, GENUINE ole school journalists. Tremendous video and honest perspective of "the split"!! 👍🇺🇸👍🏁

This was super well edited and voiced. Very good. Also loved to learn about this "war"

Can’t wait for the next pieces of this series! Excellent job! The Jack Hewitt appearance and King of The Hill clip put the icing on the cake.

Very informative piece. Good job. I really enjoyed this, thank you. Looking forward to part 2.

I'm happy I found these videos. I was trying to find videos about this split I just found out about yesterday

Great video! Nice work... looking forward to Part 2.

FINALLY! a well produced doc about where we are today with indycar. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this, it's an excellent synopsis. Who knows where we'd be today if they hadn't split. So many missed opportunities.

12:50 Yep, that’s racing! Excellent video. Looking forward to Pt 2

If Tony George wanted more "good ol' boys" running Indycars, he could have easily created his own team or a junior series, he wanted to be the big guy like the Frances or Ecclestone, when he got to own it all he did nothing, the sport is a joke! The sisters just waited for Mary Hulman to pass and wanted out.

Fantastic viewing, can't wait for part 2

Great video! I remember The Split very well and this background video really gave a great insight into everything that was happening in terms of politics in auto racing at the time. I was 12 when The Split happened and being 12 I only cared about the on track action. The only thing I knew about the 1996 500 was that all the big names like Rahal, Fittipaldi, Unser, and Penske wouldn’t be there and that ticked me off.

Thank you for not stuffing it with ads. Subscribed to valuable content.

Great recap, thanks for covering this topic.

Tony George gets all the blame but in reality both sides were to blame

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 to you, good sir! Hope part two will come ASAP!

Your series on this topic is first class!

Very well done. Brings back a lot of memories.

Thank you, can’t wait for part 2

As a sprint car fan it was cool to see jack hewitt and steve kinser get to run in the indy 500.

Hell! How does a channel like this has so few followers? This is very good, a quality job!

Absolutely fantastic work, guys. Fascinating stuff.

Thanks for posting this. Tom Bigelows day in the Sun! What a great car that Wildcat was as it had a very long career and ran well throughout. This was just so cool to watch as it brought back many memories.

This is a fantastic video.. I was, and still am, a HUGE open wheel racing fan and I remember this vividly. I prefer road courses and I was one of the people who hated Tony George and only watched the Indy 500, purposely avoiding any other IRL races. I still think CART was the high point of open wheel racing in America - those cars were damn near as fast as the contemporary F1 cars and the lots of the drivers were ex F1 drivers.

Great video, can't wait for part 2.

I'm gonna love this series. Scott Brayton was from my hometown, where open-wheel was big, especially the 500.

Thank you Brock Beard for a truly great telling of the fascinating history of the "Civil War" which nearly ended open wheel racing in the United States. This telling is IMO very objective, fair and balanced.

Damn Dave Despain has been around forever. And you got to love that Jeff Gordon mustache

Love the late 90's CART, the cars, the teams (Penske, Ganassi, Newman-Haas, Team Green, PacWest, Forsythe...) the drivers (Vasser, Zanardi, De Ferran, Andretti, Franchitti, Tracy, Montoya, Hertha, Moore) they were fantastic. All ruined by Tony George whith the help of Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone did the same thing with the Indy Car he had done with the C class (Le Mans) and the DTM in the first 90's.

Great Work! Can't wait for part 2.

Amazing job Brock. You're looking at it objectively, which is what should be done.

Watching this great series again! :)

Excellent video. I think people tend to look back on the split with bias for one side or the other. This does a good job of portraying the truth... that there were no good guys during the split.

This is where the fun begins

The thing that never seems to get mentioned in these histories is the significance of Formula 5000 in the 1970s. If you put the USAC and F5000 schedules side-by-side you ended up with something that looked a lot like a latter-day CART schedule. It might have been the demise of that series that gave CART most of its road events, but it still means the U.S. had a tradition of open-wheel road racing well before CART. But it's always put aside and ignored because it was off in a separate series. Anyway, looking forward to Part 2.

I remember the split well, it was covered well in Autoweek magazine. According to what i read, Tony George was not happy over the influx of foreign drivers. He figured by having mostly oval races there would be more American drivers. He was very misguided in his reasoning as foreign drivers brought a lot of international fans.

I will also add that the France family helped the IRL get of the ground as well letting them use the ISC ovals.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.. oh, sorry. I was listening to Tony George announce something.

This is great so far!!

Never knew about those 1990 FIA plans to get involved with oval racing; very interesting and would love to hear more if there's documentation on it.

Thanks for uploading this. A few years out from this split in ‘96 and reunification in ‘08 gives a little perspective. As many here have spoken of the troubles NASCAR is encountering, would Indycar have the same issues if they hadn’t split up?

as someone who lives in europe (uk) i can assure you that if indycar had events in europe fans would flock to watch, us europeans live our open wheel racing !!

Been waiting on a series on this

Great trip to my childhood, and production here is top shelf! Great work again! Also, Gordon won nine times on road courses in Cup as well if I recall. Big oops by Indy on that talent...

At least Tony George didn't make a playoff format like Brian France did

Tony George's ego was the problem. Open wheel racing in the US still hasn't recovered. Every additional bad decision stems from Tony.

Great vid!!

12:25 then came guys like tony stewart

17:28 danggg..that got my imagination going...the thought of senna speeding through the indy 500...that would be mind blowing

One thing I wanted to point out, the Ford Cosworth XB engine debuted in 1992, not 1993.

Thanks i was waiting for so long thanks

Ooof, how did Dave Despain not nod off while listening to Jeff talk? Thank god Jeff got more of a personality as he developed lol

Tony George was the catalyst for the split. FTG. He single-handedly ruined open wheel racing in America.

Terrific video!

If there's one constant in any sport, it's that if you got owners making the rules, they'll screw everyone over to get their pockets lined. My favorite stories from racing have to be those lovely lunatics at Hesketh racing in the 1970sand Alan Kulwicki winning the 1992 Winston Cup as an independent. That's what I always thought racing should be.

It's easy to blame the sprint car/short track racers losing their connection to Indy on CART, but this had already become a problem before 1979. By 1971, rear-engine cars made the roadsters obsolete, and the [IndyCar] Championship Trail no longer had any dirt track races (though sprints and midgets still ran dirt). As Robin Miller says, those changes "cut the arms and legs off every short tracker who wanted to get to the Indy 500". Who was in charge of those decisions? USAC, which is still a 4-letter word in racing. USAC also lost Marlboro's title sponsorship after just one year because USAC allowed Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing to display Viceroy (a rival tobacco brand) on their cars. USAC couldn't even grant their title sponsor exclusivity, which isn't much to ask for.

Great video! I never knew Senna tested for Penske..