Quote:
Originally Posted by aussiemidgetfan
CART was the biggest thing to happen to any national championship anywhere in the world. Suddenly the word had a second openwheel championship that rivalled F1. It tested drivers more than any other series with a large variety of venues, a unique governing/ownership system, good promotion and money and continual upward growth.
|
I find it hard to believe that CART had an open wheel series that was anywhere near as challenging as USAC had in 1970; ovals, super speedways, road courses and
dirt track miles.
Quote:
|
the only reason it all turned to s@#$ was Tony George. CART tried one hell of a lot of things to keep him on side, but the moron grandson was out to reestablish the race at the expense of everything else. a wise person would have continued to let the series build as that would continue to make the central event shine. (think nascar and the d500.) If CART had continued with the US500 in 1997, I honestly believe the IRL would have fallen flat on its face, and the sport would have been better off. CART was just that popular (check out how the Indy 500 crowds have fallen since 1995.)
|
CARTs structure was flawed from the start. Having race teams and car owners govern the sport is somewhat akin to having the inmates running a prison. Many of these car owners and drivers came over from SCCA which had the CAN-AM series fail twice and Formula A/5000 fail as well. In my opinion CARTs demise was inevitable whether the IRL was formed or not given past history. CART jumped the shark before the IRL was formed when it became more financially viable to have a electronics company hier drive full time in the series while four-time Indianapolis winner Al Unser was stuck with Indy one-offs. The current incarnation of the IRL is basically what CART was with a few more ovals.