Championship auto racing teams

CART ( C hampionship A uto R acing T eams Inc.) was an American car racing organization that organized the Formula racing series for the Champ Cars from 1979 to 2003 .

CART is often used as a synonym for the Champ Car series. However, this is only partially correct. The CART organization also organized other racing series in other classes ( Indy Lights (formerly American Racing Series), Toyota Atlantic Championship , the Trans-AM Series , the Barber Dodge Pro Series and the Formula BMW ). The confusion probably arises because the Champ Car series was called the Indy Car (CART) Series for a long time due to the close association with its host, the CART . Since 1979 the series was named after the main sponsor PPG Industries - PPG Indy Car World Series . Due to a trademark lawsuit by the Indy Racing League (IRL), CART lost the rights to the IndyCar name . The series was called the PPG CART World Series in 1997, before Federal Express replaced PPG in 1998 as the main sponsor . From now on the series was called CART / FedEx Championship Series . The Champ Car series kept this name until the end of the CART association, including 2002, when FedEx dropped out as a sponsor.

history

CART was founded in 1979 by Dan Gurney , Pat Patrick and Roger Penske to enable a democratic and flexible organization of formula racing in the United States, as the previous organization by the US automobile club USAC was unsatisfactory at that time. In particular, the USAC neglected the security aspect.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the CART did not succeed in stabilizing the racing series sufficiently and in bringing interest groups together. As the most important race of the season, the Indianapolis 500 , lost its importance in the Champ Car series in the early 1990s (mainly because more and more races on street courses were added to the racing calendar), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was founded in the middle of the 1990s its own series in competition with the Champ Cars, the Indy Racing League (since 2003 IndyCar Series ). With its founding, US formula racing maneuvered itself into the worst crisis in its history. The CART and the IRL could not settle their disputes despite several talks about merging the two series. The tough competition for leadership in the narrow US formula racing market brought CART to its knees at the end of 2003. She could no longer cope with the financial burden and had to file for bankruptcy. A group of team owners bought the majority of CART as the Open Wheel Racing Series (OWRS) (today the organizer is called Champ Car World Series (CCWS)) and continued to run the Champ Car World Series and the other racing series as a direct successor organization until 2007 . At the beginning of 2008 the merger with or takeover by the competition took place.