CART selling all their 1992-1995 chassis to IRL teams to me was crazy. Penny on the Dollar and it allowed the IRL teams to become a reality and actually get old CART chassis. Without that they had zero power. Also it was dangerous racing at IMS at those speeds in such old chassis.

Secondly if CART had participated at the first 2 IRL events and dominated they would of likley taken the top 25 spots at Indy and filled the final 8 anyway. And the IRL would not of existed after this.

But this is hindsight.  

What was sad was I remember throughout 1999 they were very close at unifying and I believe had they of done so the sport would of been in a better position.  But TG pulled at the end of the last minute yet again.

The biggest cry is that Zanardi, Moore, Vasser, Andretti etc all could of been competiting for the Indy 500 and instead we got Calkins, Wattles, the driving dentist and Gutherie.

The most ironic thing is after 2008 the IRL reassembled very close to what CART was all along and showed the all American drivers only, all oval series was just a lie all along.

Anyway this whole mess allowed NASCAR to overtake Indycar around the time of the split and get to extreme heights among popular culture in the US, I think only second to the NFL in TV ratings and they had huge and incredible attendances.

I always remember watching NASCAR during this early to mid 2000s boom and watch with jealously and sad for Indy Car as a sport that despite often great racing products the attendances at ovals were often really poor apart from a few exemptions at the time.

We all know Bernie E and the FIA feared CART at the time. Even Balstre wanted to fine CART when they went to Australia in 1991! The way he paid Tony G to race at Indy for the USGP a lot of money says it all. This served as apurpose to pump money into the IRL and keep it a float. The IRL didn't really take off with momentum until the early to mid 2000s. The USGP was the start of their progress. Before 2000 the IRL had not taken off.

CART was very close to rivalling F1 before the split happened. Its involvement of manufacturers and sponsors and technology was amazing through to the late 90s.

Penske, Reynard, Lola, Swift. Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Ford-Cosworth. Goodyear, Firestone.

The late 80s through the late 90s was a pretty good time to be an Indy car fan.

👇CART appreciation button

I’m so shocked they never made a Netflix documentary of the Indycar split

Tony George could have saved us all a lot of hassle by selling the whole shootin match to RP 25 years earlier.

I felt scarred from the IRL split. I loved Indy Car racing and it felt like parents divorcing. I lost all interest in American open wheel racing after that and completely switched to watching F1 where before I was interested in both. Al Unser Jr. was one of my favorite drivers as a child along with Dale Earnhardt. Of course I'm over it now, but at the time I was a young adult and it really was gut wrenching.

I loved Indycar in the 80's and 90's. It's top drivers were household names back then. It was huge.
I still remember that first Indy 500 that had a bunch I've drivers I'd never heard of and I was crushed.
It's never been the same since.

I was lucky enough to see a CART race at Surfers Paradise as a kid and it was just awesome.
It struck me as quintessentially American in a positive way.
The split and the subsequent loss of the Gold Coast race was confusing and sad. As a result I started watching F1.

I remember as a 6-7 year old kid in 95 and 96, I began watching indycar. Paul Tracy was my favorite driver and I was confused to find out why many drivers like Andretti, Rahal, Unser Jr. and Tracy not racing in the 96 Indy 500 and years later. That year, I did remember watching the US 500 on ESPN mostly because majority of the drivers in the indy 500 were unfamiliar. If the split had never happened, Zanardi and Moore would surely won the Indy 500. It's sad that they didn't have a reasonable chance to enter. In addition, Michael Andretti would've won at least one indy 500. Forming the IRL and the open wheel split was a regrettable moment in motorsports. As damaging it is from the split and moving forward, we hope that FOX coverage would continue to elevate the upward trend of Indycar's interest. According to sources, their TV ratings were at its highest since 2008. FOX took over Indycar in 2025.

This discussion was absolutely exceptional. I’ve long enjoyed Mr. Oreovicz’s books and really appreciated the insight he shared in Episode 1. Looking forward to Episode 2!

Got ‘Indy Split’ as a result of this. Should’ve got it earlier. Great read. It will remain the greatest injustice in motorsport that late 90s CART/Indycar cars didn’t race at the Indy 500. Would’ve been fearsomely fast, but just ABSOLUTELY EPIC!!

shoutout to nascarmanhistory

(repost because of a edit which removed v10's like)
My one and only story about CART/champ car was 2003 at the Brands Hatch race. I was there because i needed to do some research for my coursework in GCSE design technology into livery design and the BTCC was the main support series alongside its own support and that research involved asking the vaxuhall team the in's and outs of that so we got to see (and hear which is my main memory) a CART race as a bonus

So cool! Excited for the rest of the episodes to come out :) hope you all do more deep dive cross series like this soon.

If this video had been 7 and a half hours long I’d still have sat down and watched the whole thing in one sitting.

Really excited for this series. I own a copy of Indy Split, but I'm not great at budgeting time to read, so it's really helpful to hear a summary of the high points. When the split was happening, I was too young to really understand what was going on, but it's fascinating to me, now.

Can't wait for these podcasts to drop, excellent work as ever 🤛

The reason neither CART or IRL were able to use the "IndyCar" brand from 1997-2002 was because of a court decision. George wanted his series to be IndyCar from the get-go, but CART still had a couple of years left on their licensing agreement with IMS. The ruling gave CART the right to keep the branding until the end of 1996 and use the "Indy" name on events outside the US (Like the "Honda Indy Carnival" in Surfers Paradise), while the IRL was  only authorized to use the brand in 2003.

It's frustrating to think what could have been if it wasn't for Tony George's actions

Literally searched up the indycar/cart split, and this popped up.