Champcars

   

Image:CARTcar.jpg
Champ Car has been the name of the cars involved in premier open wheeler United States auto racing for decades. Champ Car is also the official name of the racing series being promoted as the Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford since early 2003.

Champ Car replaced CART, Championship Auto Racing Teams Inc, a company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. CART was founded in November 1978 by Roger Penske, Pat Patrick, Dan Gurney and several other team owners who had been participating in USAC events involving cars known as Champ Cars and IndyCars. They oversaw the day-to-day business and sanctioning of Champ Car racing at locations that today include the United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. The Champ Car organization runs the Champ Car World Series, the Toyota Atlantic Championship and the Formula BMW USA Championship. Champ Car also operates the Trans-Am Series in a cooperative agreement with SCCA Pro Racing.

History

In 1909 the American Automobile Association (AAA) established the national driving championship and became the first sanctioning body for auto racing in the United States. In 1956, the United States Auto Club (USAC) was founded to take over sanctioning from the AAA which ceased sanctioning auto racing in the general outrage over motor racing safety that followed the Pierre Levegh disaster at Le Mans Sarthe. USAC controlled the championship until 1979 when CART took over.

The split away from USAC in 1979 was spurred by a group of activist car owners who had grown disenchanted with what they saw as an inept sanctioning body. Complaining of poor promotion and small purses, this group coalesced around Dan Gurney, who, in early 1978, wrote what came to be known as the "Gurney White Paper" - the blueprint for an organization called Championship Auto Racing Teams. Gurney took his inspiration from the improvements Bernie Ecclestone had forced on Formula 1 with his creation of the Formula One Constructors Association. The white paper called for the owners to form CART as an advocacy group to promote USAC's national championship, doing the job where the sanctioning body wouldn't. The group would also work to negotiate television rights and race purses, and ideally hold seats on USAC's governing body.

Gurney, joined by other leading team owners including Roger Penske and U.E. "Pat" Patrick, took their demands to USAC's board and were turned down flat. This rejection turned disenchantment into defiance, and the rebel team owners laid plans to run their own racing series in 1979, competing with the established USAC National Championship - a racing series called CART. The new series quickly gained the support of the vast majority of USAC Champ Car team and track owners, with the only notable holdout being A.J. Foyt.

As the morning of March 11, 1979 dawned, the open-wheel landscape had been transformed. The formerly all-powerful USAC was left with a slim, hodge-podge schedule of seven races, while CART could lay claim to the sport's notable drivers and tracks - except Indianapolis. On that day, CART - sanctioned then by the Sports Car Club of America - dropped the green flag on its very first race, the Arizona Republic/Jimmy Bryan 150 at Phoenix International Raceway. Gordon Johncock would claim the checkered flag, but it was Rick Mears who would go on to capture the inaugural CART championship. USAC's competing championship was dominated by Foyt, but it would be the last National Championship for both the driver and the sanctioning body, as USAC threw in the towel at the end of the season and folded its National Championship Trail.

Champ Car, like its predecessor USAC, was dominated by North American drivers until the 1980s when former Formula One drivers like Mario Andretti, Bobby Rahal, and Danny Sullivan competed. After former F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi won in 1989, the team managers finally conceded that European and South American drivers were highly competitive.

Non-US drivers discovered that competing in Champ Car could often be more lucrative than an average career in F1 and consequently there was an increased presence of non US drivers (from mainly F1 and the European Formula 3000).

The easy victory of world champion Nigel Mansell in 1993 highlighted the competitiveness of non-US drivers which some interpreted as superiority. This led to a split of the series after the 1995 season due to a dispute between egos at CART and Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

During the 2003 offseason, CART went bankrupt and shares of the stock were worth only 25 cents. The assets of CART were liquidated and put up for sale. Tony George made a bid for the company in an attempt to bury the series once and for all, while a group of CART owners, who had formed the OWRS (Open Wheel Racing Series) also made bids. In the end, a judge ruled that the OWRS group should be the purchaser of CART, which ensured a 25th anniversary season in 2004, running as Champ Car.

Today, there are still many questions about the future of the series, particularly whether or not it will continue the series' long-running tradition of American road races. In the past two seasons, several traditional circuit venues have been dropped in favor of street courses, which some fans view as counterproductive and damaging to the health of the sport. A dearth of noteworthy, name drivers has also hurt the series in its quest to recapture the popularity it held in the early 1990s. However, the series' new owners, Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven, have so far demonstrated a commitment to the series, notably expressed in their November 2004 purchase from Ford of the sole engine supplier, Cosworth Racing. While the owners may have no qualms about spending the money it will take to build Champ Car back up, whether their efforts will be successful or not is a question that can only be answered by time.

Specifications

A Champ Car has a Ford Cosworth turbocharged, 2.65 liter (161.703 in&sup3) V-8 engine, fuelled by methanol to produce about 850 horsepower (650 kW). It has a top speed of about 240 mph (390 km/h). The car is 190 to 199 inches (4.8 to 5.1 m) long, weighs 1,550 pounds (700 kg), and sits on a 120 to 126 inch (3.0 to 3.2 m) wheelbase.

Champions

AAA Season Champions: (1909-1955)

USAC Season Champions: (1956-1979)

CART Season Champions:

Champ Car Season Champions:

External links

Other Less-Frequent Meanings of the CART Acronym


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