Merging for a good cause– INDY CAR & CHAMP CAR

Indy car and champ car are the terms used for a kind of open wheeled cars used for racing. The open wheel car racing had a lot of fans in the United States of America. For conducting the races in a more organized manner a sanctioning body was necessary. United States Auto Club (USAC) was the primarily existed sanctioning body succeeding the American Automobile Association. Some of the team owners who disagreed with USAC formed a different sanctioning body in the name of Championship Auto Racing Team (CART) in 1979.

This was commonly called as champ car. With the passage of time USAC lost its prominence and CART became the sanctioning body. It continued to organize open wheel car racing in America. In 1994 due to internal disturbances CART divided into two to form a new racing series called the Indy Racing League (IRL). The difference between the two was the amount of money spent on racing was very less in IRL as compared to that of CART. Till 2000 CART remained the prominent body. But after that IRL started to gain strength which was helped on by the mismanagement and such other problems inside CART. Then came the period of financial crisis to CART and the property of the sanctioning authority was sold.

The new name was Open Wheel Racing Series (OWRS). But later when the principal sponsors withdrew their support the official name became Champ Car World Series. It was a matter of time the CCWS fall apart. In 2008 an agreement was signed to join the CCWS and IRL. Thus champ car and indy car has merged. The division back in 1994 has hurt both the series. The agreement has sold the sanctioning power of champ car to IRL for about 6 million US Dollars. Thus all the assets and history of CART and champ car now vests with the IRL or simply called as indy car.