It took twelve years to mend one of the greatest blunders in professional sports.
Only the NHL's decision to go on strike may have been dumber.
In 1995, Indy Car racing was the most popular form of American motorsports. Television ratings, attendance, sponsorship dollars and exposure were bigger in open wheel racing than they were in NASCAR.
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| Dario Franchitti already moved on, but maybe fewer drivers will jump to NASCAR. (Getty Images) |
And in the process, American open wheel racing was destroyed.
With the teams and the stars of the sport split into two circuits, interest in open wheel racing plummeted.
While the war raged on, NASCAR began to take the country by storm and stock car racing's meteoric rise crushed the open wheel world into oblivion. NASCAR drivers became mainstream sports celebrities while IRL and Champ Car pilots couldn't be identified in a police line-up.
In the 12 years since the split, each series dwindled into oblivion.
The IRL watched its last two Indy 500 winners and its last two champions -- Sam Hornish Jr. and Dario Franchitti -- jump to NASCAR. With only Helio Castroneves, thanks to his Dancing with the Stars exposure and Danica Patrick left as names with any recognition, the IRL had zero star power left on its roster.
Champ Car, which also saw its most recent champion, Sebastien Bourdais, move to Formula One, is in even worse shape. The series driver line-up is made up of mostly foreign names with big checkbooks who bought their rides.
It's out of these ashes the reborn unified open wheel initiative hopes to rise.
To say there is work ahead is an understatement.
"It's going to take a lot of time and they have lost so much right now that to take something that has gone downhill so hard and bring it back up, it will take as much money as they spent to stay separated," said Patrick Carpentier, a former Champ Car regular who made the move to NASCAR.
