Why did the IRL particpants break away from CART?
The reasons why are many and varied, and depend to a considerable extent on who is telling the story. But since I’m the one telling, you get my version. 🙂 CART shifted their emphasis more towards a European-type series where the focus of the events was the spectacle of the fast cars and the star attraction of the drivers and other celebrities attending, with the actual racing action being considered less important. A relatively permissive set of rules caused costs to rise rapidly, and they adopted a “franchise” system for controlling the size of their fields. These things made their Indy car series more or less an invitational series, being run to a great extent by wealthy playboys and heirs. Smaller teams charged that their interests weren’t being considered by CART. Many American fans begin to be put off by the star-system model of how the series was being run; gradually, the series began to move away from the more typically American idea of competition between individuals. The emp
