American open-wheel car racing

This article provides a general outline of the major American Open-Wheel motor racing championship, for specific information on the current Champcar World Series and the Indy Racing League see Champcar and IRL.

Since 1909 there has been a United States national automobile racing championship for drivers of single seater (commonly referred to as open wheel) cars.

This championship has been run by several different sanctioning bodies since 1909.

The Indianapolis 500 has been a round of the National Championship since it's inception in 1911.

Sanctioning Bodies

From 1909 to 1955 the championship was sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (the AAA).

From 1956 to 1978 the championship was sanctioned by the United States Automobile Club (the USAC), a body formed by the then-owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony Hulman.

In 1979 there were two championships run by two sanctioning bodies, USAC and CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams), which was a body formed by most of the existing team-owners. As all the top teams were allied to CART, the CART championship became the defacto championship, and USAC withdrew from sanctioning, except for the Indianapolis 500, which they continued to run. USAC ceremonially named the '500' as part of their 'Gold Crown' championship, an essentially meaningless title as the race was the only round, and allowed the race to be included in the CART championship.

In 1980 USAC and CART jointly formed the Championship Racing League (CRL) to run the National Championship, but the management of the Indianapolis speedway disliked the idea. The CRL was abandoned before any races were run and CART exclusively sanctioned the championship. [1] In 1981 and 1982 the Indianapolis 500 was not included as a points-paying round of the National Championship, although all the top drivers and teams competed anyway. One further race was run by USAC at Pocono in 1981. This race was not supported by many CART teams, and even included some dirt-track cars.

From 1983 to 1995 stability returned and the championship was run by CART, with USAC organising at Indianapolis.

In 1996, Tony Hulman's grandson, Tony George, the owner the Indianapolis track and the '500', created the Indy Racing League (IRL), a separate championship that includes the Indianapolis 500 as a round. Unlike the CART breakaway, the established teams were not initially part of the IRL and thus did not race at Indianapolis for several years. This has resulted in the IRL being considered as a 'breakaway' championship in some areas. The IRL's results are either listed alongside the existing National championship [2] or treated as a entirely separate entity and not included. [3] [4]

CART continued running the existing championship until the organisation went bust at the end of 2003.

The rights to CART's assets were purchased by a consortium called Open Wheel Racing Series (OWRS) in 2004 and the former-CART series was renamed the ChampCar World Series.

Names

National Championship cars have variously been called 'Championship (or 'Champ') Cars', 'Indy Cars' (after the Indianapolis 500) or simply 'Big Cars', a term that reflected the cars being larger than junior formulae such as midgets or sprint cars, and that has largely disappeared from use.

From 1998 to 2003 'ChampCar' was a trademark of CART, and is now owned by OWRS.

The 'IndyCar' name was incorporated by the Indianapolis Speedway in 1992. CART was licensed to use the term until 1997. When a 6-year non-use agreement with CART expired in 2003, the IRL series was rebranded the'IndyCar Series', with the IRL name remaining as the sanctioning body.

Types of circuit

The American National Championship is notable for the wide variety of racetracks it has used in comparison other series, such as Formula One and the various forms of Endurance sports car racing. The mainstays of the championship are paved oval speedway tracks, road courses and closed public road (Street) circuits.

Until 1970 the championship frequently raced on dirt and clay tracks, but all such tracks were removed permanently by the USAC before the 1971 season.

The Pikes Peak Hillclimb was a round of the championship in the years 1947 to 1955 and 1965 to 1969.

In 1909 a point-to-point race from Los Angeles, California to Phoenix, Arizona was included in the championship.

Non-US races

For the majority of the National Championship, the races have been held inside the United States. Since the 1980s the CART/OWRS championship has increasingly raced outside the US. A full list of tracks is avalialable here [5]