A couple really good reads relating to the split.

[DaveG]

All of this may have been covered with the countless split threads, so I apologize in advance if any of the following is old news to many of you. But with so many new members, the following will give you much insight into what was happening as far back as 1990. Very interesting, and pretty prophetic as well.

1991 story about a IMS-CART merger.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/23/sp...-possible.html

1990 story about an international open wheel oval series.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/29/sp...pagewanted=all

And this article from Autoweek in 1990...

[Autoweek, July 30, 1990; page 50-51]

If Tony George wanted to get people's attention by trabveling to Europle to meet with FISA's Jean-Marie Balestre and Bernie Ecclestone, he's certainly acheieved his goal....

One thing is clear, however. Everybody connected with Indycar racing has their own views about what the new cosiness between IMS and FISA protends. Some believe it's but the first tangible step in a bold outflanking maneuver by FISA and IMS, one that will see CART all but frozen out of the most important Indycar race of them all--the Indy 500--amidst the creation of a FISA/IMS sanctioned series of three to five major international 500-mile oval-track races.

..."We didn't go with any specific agenda," said Donaldson [IMS marketing VP]. "We wanted to meet with Jean-Marie Balestre and Bernie Ecclestone to gain as much knowledge about F1 as possible. We talked with Mr. Balestre about our plans to build an oval in Japan and hold an Indycar race there. The internation oval series concept came out of those discussions."

In theory, the series in question would feature flat-bottom single-seaters powered by 3.5-liter, normally aspirated engines. Much the same package as F1 and also attractive to manufacturers building 3.5-liter engines for Group C (see page 55).
...
Of course, many observers see Tony George as the proverbial innocent abroad--particularly when he's meeting to discuss the possible future of the Indy 500 with an experienced and shrewed a man as Ecclestone. The worry that Ecclestone is far less concerned with the concept of three or four international oval races than he is with derailing CART. And if he can use George to his ends, then so be it.

[Z28]

This will no doubt go where they all go but looking back twenty years to what it all looked like without the agendas rolling.

The Indy 500 puts such a strain on local public services that the track cannot run a second event. And the track's seating capacity, 275,000, cannot be expanded much more.

Well that wasn't quite from the desk of Sydney Omar. And the big NE Vista replaced several smaller stands L South and M.

The loudest shot in the CART-FISA battle was fired Oct. 10, when FISA's World Council, meeting in Paris, announced plans for an international oval-track series, starting in 1992, with races at as-yet-unbuilt tracks in Japan and Europe and, presumably, the speedway.

You have to believe that would have put the AOW racing future on a very different path. And if you think about the track building era that started in the US about that time New Hampshire, Homestead and continued. If IMS had embarked on this oval building internationally it would have given it a better hold on scheduling, at least internationally. That's the route NASCAR/ISC later took in buying the Penske speedways, amd others, and building tracks. It gave them greater control over a large part of their schedule and limited any attempts by others to break away.

William Stokkan, CART's chairman of the board, disagrees. "If there's one thing I've learned in 20 years in business," Stokkan said, "it's that when people tell me it's not the money, it's the principle, it's the money."

And the same applies today.

But FISA could gain the upper hand if Al Unser Jr. and Michael Andretti, CART's two biggest young stars, could be offered enough money to switch to Formula One, a form of racing that greatly interests the two second-generation racers.

Without those two drivers, and with the expected retirement of A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti in the next few years, CART wouldn't have as much to offer the speedway.

Saying FISA could have played the hand of getting Michael and Al into F-1 is along the lines of my contention then that those two drivers could have put the split to rest if THEY had made a power play. They both gave up prime years with a shot at winning Indy to stay with their 1995 employers in CART. Had just the two of them decided to take a stand and either go to the IRL or tell their car owners they needed to run the 500 I think it would have taken a different course. The author of the article thought they had that much pull, 5 years before the fact. That other little tidbit is something that so often gets overlooked. Remember this is a 1990 article, the CART field was what it was in 1995 after Mario and AJ retired. It was apparent to some 5 years before the split. It doesn't even get to the retirements of Johncock, Rutherford, Sneva and others.

[DaveG]

It's pretty fascinating going back 20 years ago and reading this stuff. I was only 17 in 1996 so my recollection of what was happening at the time is no where near what it was for those following Indycar for much longer.

This part of the first story though is what makes me shake my head. People involved knew the consequences of what could happen and still couldn't find a way to see the greater good...

Then vice president of automotive products at PPG Kears Pollock.

Pollock, who said that he thinks the talks are still moving forward, was asked about the fallout for a major sponsor if the unification doesn't happen.

"I guess the best-case scenario is we don't make things worse than the status quo," he said. "And the best case, if it doesn't come about, is we miss an opportunity to get better.

"The worst case-scenario for a major sponsor is that I.M.S. feels that it has to go in a completely other direction and is able to pull it off."

In such a scenario -- with the Speedway creating its own rules for cars substantially different from those in CART's series -- two totally separate, weaker entities would be created: an Indy 500 unsupported by any national series, and an Indy-car series devoid of the race that literally defines it.

And that would so dilute the effect of sponsorship dollars, Pollock said, that it might cause his firm and others to ask whether their money might be spent more effectively in another sport.

[Grover]

Saying FISA could have played the hand of getting Michael and Al into F-1 is along the lines of my contention then that those two drivers could have put the split to rest if THEY had made a power play. They both gave up prime years with a shot at winning Indy to stay with their 1995 employers in CART. Had just the two of them decided to take a stand and either go to the IRL or tell their car owners they needed to run the 500 I think it would have taken a different course. The author of the article thought they had that much pull, 5 years before the fact. That other little tidbit is something that so often gets overlooked. Remember this is a 1990 article, the CART field was what it was in 1995 after Mario and AJ retired. It was apparent to some 5 years before the split. It doesn't even get to the retirements of Johncock, Rutherford, Sneva and others.

I'm sure it also assumed Mears and Sullivan would continue on for much longer than they did.

I read an old article like this and just want to yell "STOP!" to everybody...

[fasteddy]

Interesting. So it IS about the drivers after all.

[flatlander_48]

Interesting. So it IS about the drivers after all.

After all, there are only 2 reasons people go to racing events: watching the drivers and watching the cars. Some fans lean one way or the other and some in roughly equal proportions. However, no one ever went to a race to watch the track...