The great speedway schism
For those of you can't remember, what happened was this:
In the early 1990s, the Indy 500 was king while CART, Championship Auto Racing Teams, was America's premier open-wheel sanctioning body, second only to Formula One in worldwide popularity. CART was run by a board of team owners, including living legends Roger Penske, Pat Patrick, Bobby Rahal and Paul Newman. Also on the board, but reduced to a figurehead position, was Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. George became fed up with what he deemed "philosophical differences" between himself and the sanctioning body, differences that he stated publicly were driving the sport away from its American-born, American-bred oval roots, though many believe his motives had much more to do with money and power than motorsports dogma.
"Regardless of what you believe, the system was broken," said John Bickford, Gordon's stepfather and longtime business manager. "Jeff and I went door to door to all of the CART teams in the early 1990s with his impeccable sprint car résumé and everyone's response was, 'How much money can you bring?' Well, we didn't have the money, so we had the doors slammed in our faces. Drivers with far less talent than Jeff were getting rides because they came with financial backing we simply couldn't compete with. So we went to NASCAR, where talent was still the most important factor in getting a ride. I'd say that's worked out, wouldn't you?"
In 1995, inspired in no small part by the fact that Gordon had slipped through the cracks, George announced that he was forming the Indy Racing League, his own more affordable open-wheel series, centered on the Indy 500 and designed to compete with and ultimately destroy CART.
The CART board didn't budge.
The result was devastating on both sides, splitting an already leaky pool of sponsors and equipment down the middle. CART initially took the biggest names -- including Al Unser Jr. and Michael Andretti -- while the IRL retained the biggest race -- the Indy 500 -- and arranged a ride for the driver widely considered to be the next Gordon, one Mr. Tony Stewart.
CART, eventually renamed Champ Car in 2004, staged its own Memorial Day race to compete with the Indy 500 head-to-head, titling it the U.S. 500 and dragging the once-prestigious Vanderbilt Cup out of mothballs, carried in the white-gloved hands of Mario Andretti. A star-studded field took the green flag at Michigan and then proceeded to wreck itself into an embarrassing oblivion.
