What Exactly is an IndyCar?

[Music] it's the month of may and that means the indy 500 is right around the corner it's one of the oldest and most historic ongoing races in america and not just that it's one of the largest in-person live sporting events not just in the country but in the entire world on the last sunday of may nearly 300 000 people descend on this two and a half mile track to watch 33 drivers go to war for 500 miles and it draws in millions more viewers on tv to boot but here's the thing though despite this massive event headlining the entire indycar season you'll be hard-pressed to find a random person off the street who can name more than two drivers name another track on the schedule or even explain what an indycar is how can such a large sporting event exist without people even having the most basic understanding of its sanctioning body it's practically a mainstay of american culture but americans by and large are completely in the dark about it save for this one race it would be like if 300 000 people showed up at the world series but nobody knew who any of the teams were or where they were located and i cannot even begin to tell you how many times i've had to explain the difference between an indy car and a formula one car to someone but it's not like it's their fault at one point formula one cars and indy cars were the same at one point the indy 500 was part of the formula one schedule indy cars and sprint cars used to be nearly identical all that and i haven't even talked about the cart indy car split where we had two indycar series in america yeah that's about clear as mud so let's get more in depth with all this and explain a little bit more because the indycar series deserves its fair shake because without them motorsports probably wouldn't exist in america like it does today welcome to where it all began they say that auto racing began the moment the second automobile was built in the 1890s but the first officially sanctioned races began in europe as german and french mechanics pitted their creations against each other in what would become known as grand prix events french for grand prize these races were nothing like the circuit racing we know today instead they were simple reliability tests where racers were to drive from one town to another whoever got there first was the winner and oftentimes there was no predetermined route you just took whichever road you thought was the faster one this style of racing eventually migrated to america with the chicago to evanston race in 1895. much like the first french race it was simply a reliability test that covered about 50 miles but it drew widespread attention nonetheless there were five entrants and the race was held in snowy conditions in november for some inexplicable reason and after more than 10 hours the duryea brothers charles and frank claimed victory in their own custom-built car auto racing in america was here to stay the first automobiles or horseless carriages as they were known at the time were open wheeled cars meaning that they didn't have enclosed fenders a feature still found on indy car and formula one cars today and although car manufacturers did exist most of the time they just sold you the car and no body it was up to you to either build one or order a body from somebody else so two 1901 buicks might be built in the same factory but look radically different grand prix events would eventually migrate onto enclosed circus by the turn of the 20th century and the focus would still be on reliability as race organizers would set a distance and whoever can complete that distance first would be the winner just like today the american automobile association or aaa would organize the first competitive season in american motorsports in 1905 and boom there it is indycar now has a sanctioning body but nobody called them indycars yet back then they were known as champ cars and yes this does come into play later like a hundred years later most of the tracks in these early days were dirt 1 mile ovals save for the 1.39 mile track in the bronx yeah the one in new york city hey early auto racing was wild man the man who won that first race was swiss racing pioneer louis joseph chevrolet that name should sound familiar the aaa came back in 1909 with a street race in portland where howard kovy driving a cadillac bested just five other drivers on the 14-mile circuit yeah most of these tracks were very strange by today's standards and harken back to the days of grand prix events some of these street courses were up to 23 miles long and the final race of the year was a 480 mile rally style race from la to phoenix arizona and that lasted 19 hours however one track on the schedule was a real game changer the indianapolis motor speedway this two and a half mile track was paved with bricks and was ridiculously fast by the standards of the day where most tracks would have an average race speed in the 20s maybe the 30s if they were lucky indy had average speeds well into the 70s but the races were not 500 miles just yet they had some 100 200 and 300 mile events but in 1911 track promoters decided not to have just a few smaller races sprinkled throughout the year but just to have one big event thus the indianapolis 500 was born but they didn't call it that just yet at first it was marketed as the 1911 international 500 mile sweepstakes race but indy 500 had a substantially better ring to it so that name stuck reiherun and his souped-up marmon wasp took the checkered flag and little did he know it but he had just kicked off an entire century of racing tradition ray had won with an average speed of just 74 miles an hour in a race that took nearly seven hours and he one-handedly because of one simple breakthrough he had a single-seat car every other car at the time was a two-seater and a mechanic would ride along with the driver and fix any problem the car had right there on the track sometimes even while it was still racing but if nothing was wrong with the car the mechanic would manually pump oil into the car while on the straightaways and spot for the driver literally shouting into his ear telling him where other cars were on the track reiherun wagered that his lighter car would be so much faster and have less wear and tear on it that he didn't need a mechanic on board he also installed a new rear view mirror and side mirror so he could scan the track for himself now that sounds like a race car from today a single seat open cockpit open-wheeled car with mirrors thus harun's race car became known as an indie special or an indy car and these indy cars began racing everywhere not just at the indy motor speedway this also meant that indy cars now diverged away from regular passenger cars since the average person has no use for a single seat car plus in 1908 the ford model t had been introduced and it featured fenders around the wheels meaning that cars were sturdier and didn't have to worry about the most minor bump resulting in a broken part plus the model t was dirt cheap and this then led to the rise of a different form of racing where people could race cars taken straight off the showroom floor stock car racing you all probably know all about that the aaa stopped sanctioning indycar races in 1956 and yousac the united states auto club took over running the series throughout the 50s 60s and 70s indycar racing had perhaps the most diverse racing schedule in the world featuring races in the u.s and canada and racing on paved super speedways dirt 1 milers street courses purpose-built road courses and even having the pike's peak hill climb on the calendar for a long while they really did it all but as the 60s rolled into the 70s one major advancement and something from the past caused a rift in 1965 jim clark won at indy in a rear engine lotus car the rear engine cars were lowered to the ground and way faster than their front engine counterparts and the design of choice moving forward was clearly going to be some sort of rear engine configuration for paved ovals and road courses however indy cars still raced on dirt and that was the one area where front engine cars still had the advantage because of how cars drift in the turns on dirt it's better to have the heavy engine mounted forward so the rear of the car can swing out as the driver stabs the gas pedal and spins the tires a rear engine car has its weight distributed completely wrong for this this meant that teams were going to have to keep two stables of cars on hand for the entire season that was just too big of an ask for most people so in 1970 indycar ran its last dirt race at the california state fairgrounds in sacramento however some drivers remain dirt loyalists and those purpose-built indie dirt cars would eventually morph into sprint cars and that would not be the last split in indy car racing not by a long shot by 1979 some of the teams began to disagree with the way usac was running things drivers and team owners felt as though usac just didn't care about their concerns regarding safety costs and litany of other issues so in 1979 a large group of teams and drivers split to form kart championship auto racing teams and it's important to remember that at this time indycar is the biggest motorsport in america and always has been nascar dominated the south sure but indie racing was a nationwide series that routinely found itself in front of the entire country this split was like if major league baseball had the american league in the national league split at the height of their popularity cart was to be for the most part a democratically run organization where car owners would vote on rules packages how broadcasting rights revenue was split what the schedule should be and many other major decisions however the indy 500 was still sanctioned by usac as they had an alliance with the holman family who now owned the indianapolis motor speedway after they had saved it from falling into disrepair after world war ii this sort of odd scenario caused an even greater rift between the teams and the speedway for decades kart ran a whole season and then the indy 500 just so happened to be in the middle of their calendar it was like if the nfl didn't own the rights to the super bowl and instead the usfl ran that but the results still counted towards your season it just made no sense what made matters even worse was that indianapolis made the rules for the indy 500 not cart so sometimes a car that was within specifications for every other race of the year would be illegal running during the biggest race of the year roger penske had dumped millions in developing wicked fast v8 elmore motors only to be told in 1994 that those motors would not be allowed to race in the indy 500. penske had basically spent millions on what were now the world's most expensive paperweights and that wasn't the only problem card had smaller teams felt like the bigger teams had far too much power and would write rules that benefited only them while smaller teams sometimes didn't even have voting power between indy sticking their finger in kart's eye and the underclass causing trouble on the home front something was inevitably going to give and that happened in 1996 with our third split tony george the grandson of tony holman who had saved the indy motor speedway trademarked the term indycar and announced in 1995 that the next year they would form the indie racing league usac would no longer sanction the indy 500 instead the irl would take that duty while the irl would be a completely different series with an emphasis on cost controls kart and the irl would compete against each other at this one race which would count towards the championship points for both series however another rule change tony george put in place would effectively kill off any cart involvement at indy the 25 8 rule the irl stipulated that the indy 500 must consist of at least 25 irl teams and only eight cart teams could make the race cart understandably said absolutely no way and went and made their own race the u.s 500 at michigan international speedway which was to be held on the same day at the same time as the indy 500 since this is probably the first time you've ever heard of the us500 you can probably guess who won out in this situation cart built itself as having the faster cars the best drivers but before even taking the green flag for the first ever u.s 500 nearly the entire field crashed out and teams were told to pull out their backup cards after a lengthy red flag everybody had changed the channel to the indy 500 where out of a 33 car field 17 of which were rookies buddy lazier won in dramatic fashion the irl had won the first battle of the split but at what cost fans had their attention and their wallets divided for the first time in decades there were empty seats at indy and hotels were not even close to being completely booked the split had caused both leagues to shrink drastically and kart was in such bad shape that they were having to pay networks to air their races instead of the other way around cart eventually declared bankruptcy and was reorganized as champ car in the early 2000s since that's what they were known as all the way back in 1905 and the term indycar had been trademarked champ car did what they could and held some really great races but they never got things turned around and another bankruptcy was looming however after just one race in the spring of 2008 champ car announced they would merge with indycar and finally unify after a 12 year split but by then the damage was done and the newly rechristened indycar series was still suffering however an old friend would come to save it in his most desperate hour [Music] the indy 500 has had a renaissance as of late back in the late 2000s you'd be lucky if 200 000 people showed up in the seats but now it easily has 300 000 people paying to be there and that race alone holds up the entire series but hopefully it won't be that way forever there was once a time when formula 1 was scared of indycar racing and nascar could only hope to match it one day the product on the track itself is spectacular the indy 500 is a breathtaking event and the race at laguna seca last year had mike jaw on the floor there is honest to god great racing happening in that series and you owe it to yourself to go check them out when you can the ntt indycar series hosts races all over the u.s racing everywhere from the streets of nashville to st petersburg florida to road course races in portland where it all began it has nearly a century of history backing it and nearly every motorsport in the world can trace some part of its ancestry to it the darlington raceway of nascar fame was built because it was inspired by indy daytona is 2.5 miles long because of indy sprint cars are just old dirt indy cars formula one has single seat open-wheeled cars because indycar proved the concept like it or not this is where it all began and we owe more to these cars in this series than we could ever possibly pay back anyway i'm slap shoes thanks for watching and until next time y'all take it easy [Music] [Applause] [Music] my

Channel: S1apSh0es

Views: 218,114

Keywords: IndyCar, ntt indycar series, CART, USAC, Indy 500, barber motorsports park, highlights, full race, alabama grand prix, split, 2022, cart indycar split, cart usac split, Ray Haroun, the first Indy 500, first race, formula 1, sprint cars, what is it, S1apSh0es, slapshoes, slap shoes, NASCAR, Champ Car, CCWS, what's the difference, race highlights, formula one, David Land, the month of may, IndyCar vs F1

Id: mt7MQD0cmks

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2022