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None of the information above is 100 percent accurate.
When USAC took the dirt tracks off the national championship schedule for the 1971 season, it was known then as the Dirt Track Division and stayed that way for a number of years. The original IndyCar "split" in the winter of 1978 had little to do with renaming the Dirt Track Division for the champ dirt cars, the Silver Crown Series.
The Dirt Track Division was renamed Silver Crown Series prior to the 1981 season. It's along story but USAC and CART had been at war since the winter of 1978, and an attempt at reconciliation in 1980 failed. USAC tried to revitalize it's national championship schedule by adding the three dirt miles back to the national championship, along with Indy and Pocono. They also went to a weird calendar. The three dirt miles paid Gold and Silver Crown points at the time. So it was even more confusing.
In order to differentiate between the national championship and the Dirt Track Division, the terms Gold Crown (national championship) and Silver Crown (champ dirt cars) was used. It has been used in midget racing to differentiate between Offy and non-Offy midget racing.
The Gold Crown concept never caught on, the Silver Crown concept did. The dirt track promoters paid the hefty Gold Crown sanction fee for a year or two, then returned solely to the Silver Crown sanction.
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