Indy 500 Brings About Cooperation

“The Indianapolis 500 is just another race. It’s lost its mystique. It’s no big deal anymore.”

So said car owner Bobby Rahal six or seven years ago, talking about the rift between CART, the established American open-wheel racing series, and the Indy Racing League, Tony George’s breakaway oval racing series whose centerpiece is the 500.

Chip Ganassi, another car owner, totally agreed.

“Who needs milk?” he quipped after CART had scheduled its U.S. 500 at Roger Penske’s Michigan International Raceway on the same day as the Indianapolis 500 in 1996, alluding to the Indy winner’s customary swigging of a bottle of milk in the winner’s circle.

How time has changed their tune.

Rahal, now calling the Indy 500 “an American tradition,” is planning a return to Indy with driver Jimmy Vasser.

“We are very proud to return to Indianapolis Motor Speedway again,” he said.

Ganassi has gone even farther. He still has his CART team, with drivers Kenny Brack and Bruno Junqueiro, but he also has one in the IRL, with Jeff Ward as his driver.

Rahal and Ganassi--and Penske, one of CART’s founders 23 years ago--all will be at California Speedway this weekend for the IRL’s Yamaha Indy 400.

Why this turnaround?

It’s simple: the Indianapolis 500.

It still is the biggest and most important motor race in the world and after six years of rancor and wrangling in Indy car racing, it became apparent to some major CART sponsors, such as Marlboro and Miller, that the IRL wasn’t going away--as some CART team owners kept insisting it would--and that if they wanted to showcase their names at Indianapolis, they had better join the IRL.

Marlboro, with Penske and drivers Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, made the jump this year, even though its red and white cars had won the last two CART championships. Miller dropped out of CART, deciding to run one race only, the Indy 500. Team Rahal, although still running a full CART schedule, agreed to run Vasser at Indianapolis, with a test run at California Speedway.

The defection of the Penske team, the cancellation of races in Brazil and Texas, the announcement by Honda and Ford that they would not provide CART engines beyond this season, and the scheduling of nine races outside the United States led racing enthusiasts to foresee, if not the end of CART, at least its significance as a U.S. racing series.

At the same time, the IRL was growing its all-U.S. series to 15 oval-track events, adding races in Michigan, California and Nazareth, Pa.--all once CART tracks--and in its biggest public relations coup, getting Penske’s team on its side.

When former promoter Chris Pook, newly named CART chief executive, announced that he welcomed cooperation between his group and the IRL, even leaving dates open so that CART teams could race in IRL events, the perception was that the split might be healed and one series emerging.

That’s hardly the case.

Despite a more cooperative relationship, the series are far too apart philosophically to merge.

“The IRL has its product, it is an oval series and we are not,” Pook said. “We are a completely different series. We are a multi-national series comprised of different disciplines, racing on ovals, road and street courses. The only comparative item is that some of our guys will race on ovals and will be able to go and race the Indianapolis 500.”

There also is reason to believe that even if open-wheel racing were to become a single series again, the damage done is so severe that there can be no return to Indy car racing’s glory days.

Tim Cindric, president of Marlboro Team Penske, on the other hand, believes that a single series is a necessity to survival.

“It needs to go to one series,” said Cindric, probably echoing the beliefs of his boss. “However that happens, whatever brand we put on it, that’s the only way it’s going to survive in this country.

“Roger and our team are trying to get where we think open-wheel racing needs to go. Obviously, we made the choice to be in the Indy Racing League. The thing that we’re trying to stress as much as anything is, let’s talk about the positives out there. Let’s talk about the last 20 laps [at Phoenix], what’s going on between our two guys and [Sam] Hornish, the fact that he goes to the back, up to the front. That’s what’s going to build us and keep us where we need to go.

“I think Tony [George] has that vision, as well.”

The presence of the Penske cars, the emergence of one of racing’s brightest new lights in Hornish and some remarkably competitive races, have not done much to attract new and larger IRL audiences, though.

The estimated crowd at Homestead, Fla., in the IRL’s opening race, was about 25,000, and last Sunday’s race at Phoenix drew an estimated 30,000.

Ticket sales for Sunday’s California Speedway race are lagging, partly because the infield, with its 1,800 motor home sites, has been largely taken over by the road course, which will be in use all weekend.

“I think it will be similar to our Saturday [NASCAR] shows,” said Bill Miller, speedway president. “I don’t think that’s bad. You’re talking about the first time a series is in a marketplace. It was added late in the year, last October, and all of our season tickets had already been released, so it’s not part of our season-ticket package.

“Then you look at the entertainment dollar. You’re always competing for the entertainment dollar in Los Angeles because there’s so much to do. You have the Academy Awards, the NCAA tournament. You’re always competing for awareness.

“I say 30,000 people at any event is a good event. Not too many baseball games played in the Los Angeles area have more than 30,000 people. We have more people than Staples or any closed arena holds. The demands have been positive. We know we’re going to need to grow these events as we go.”

One sore point for both the IRL and CART is that their races get compared to NASCAR’s wildly popular Winston Cup series. And NASCAR also siphons off the racing dollar.

“You can’t overlook the NASCAR effect on open-wheel racing,” said a California Speedway official. “People get their Winston Cup tickets first, to be sure they don’t get crowded out, and then they think about other races. That is happening to us, and I’m sure it happened at Phoenix too.”

Winston Cup races at Fontana have been sellouts, with 115,000 attending last year’s race.

Scott Sharp, co-champion of IRL’s inaugural year in 1996, doesn’t see this as a breakthrough year for the IRL, but only the continuation of a long, steady growth.

“Sure, the Penske cars have raised the bar, but every year our series has become more competitive,” Sharp said. “I don’t think there is a series anywhere that has had the competition that we have had. And the series has grown each year, more cars, more tracks, more interest.

“I keep hearing about three new tracks this season, but we added six last year with Chicago, St. Louis, Miami, Kansas City, Nashville and Richmond. I think, with 15 races now, the IRL has elevated the perception of its future with a good geographical mix.

“Our car count is good. We had 27 at Homestead and 26 at Phoenix. I think that’s more than CART had for its opener.”

CART had 20 starters in Monterrey, Mexico, the same number that is expected for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 14.

There are 28 entries for this week’s Yamaha Indy 400 at Fontana. Practice is scheduled today, with qualifying Saturday at 11 a.m.

Sharp, however, disagrees with the perception that IRL drivers are not as good as CART drivers, a perception magnified by last year’s Indianapolis 500, in which CART team drivers finished in the first six positions. The first IRL finisher was Eliseo Salazar, a 47-year-old Chilean, in seventh place.

“I know, I know, Indy was a disaster for the IRL last year,” said Sharp, who qualified on the pole at 226.037 mph but spun and crashed on the first lap. “I’m still smarting over that, and it was just one of those things where all the other IRL guys had unusual trouble. That won’t happen again this year, I guarantee that.”

Of course, Castroneves and De Ferran, the first two finishers last May, will be on the IRL side this year.