BONUS: Indycar at war! Ep. 1 - The insane story of how a sport was split apart
Bring Back V10s - Classic F1 stories
The Race Media Ltd
4.9 • 764 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
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Summary
We know from your feedback that you enjoy it when Bring Back V10s dips into the world of Indycar racing, so as a winter bonus we're delighted to bring you our special three-part series on the infamous story of how Indycar racing was torn apart in the mid-90s, shortly after Nigel Mansell had helped make the North American series so popular that Bernie Ecclestone saw it as a threat to F1.
In episode one, Glenn Freeman, Edd Straw and 'Indy Split' book author John Oreovicz head back to early-1994 and the moment Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George announced he would be forming his own competitor to the CART Indycar series.
We look at what drove George to make his bombshell announcement, and how the world of Indy racing reacted and evolved in the two years before the Indy Racing League hit the track for its first race.
There's also discussion around the silly move the CART teams made that helped the IRL get up and running, and how both sides of the war fired major shots at each other with their plans for the weekend of the 1996 Indianapolis 500.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's been plenty of open wheel hatred in the last 12 years. |
| 0:05.9 | Honestly, I felt I got screwed. |
| 0:12.0 | Get past the hate and start figuring out where open wheel racing goes from here and how it can be made better. |
| 0:26.7 | The IRL, as it is called, is a concept originated by the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George. |
| 0:28.6 | I hate the fact that the ND-500 was screwed up 12 years ago. |
| 0:31.6 | I hate the fact that Alex D'Nardi and Greg Moore didn't get to run the ND-500. |
| 0:35.1 | I hate the fact that NASCAR's laughed several times. |
| 0:38.8 | Consider the Indy cars. Well hate the fact that NASCAR's laughed several times. Consider the Indy cars. |
| 0:40.5 | Well, this year they will race in separate series. |
| 0:44.0 | You could run a strip like this. |
| 0:45.8 | We came back here. |
| 0:46.9 | I think we redeemed ourselves from the lousy thing we did in 95. |
| 0:51.0 | But I'll tell you, it's the best day of my life coming back like this. |
| 0:54.9 | Who needs milk? |
| 0:59.9 | Indy car racing was flying high in the mid-1990s. |
| 1:05.1 | High-profile drivers from the United States and overseas did battle in front of huge crowds, |
| 1:12.8 | attracting big-name sponsors and major manufacturers to create a series that was capable of genuinely worrying F1. |
| 1:18.0 | But that was all about to be blown apart following an announcement that was made just after Nigel Madsul had sensationly won the IndyCar title, having left F1 as the reigning champion. |
| 1:24.3 | Because at the start of Mansell's second season in 1994, Indianapolis |
| 1:29.4 | Motor Speedway boss, Tony George, announced that he was forming his own series, the Indy Racing |
| 1:35.0 | League, to act as a back-to-basics alternative to the explosive and often brilliant cart series. |
| 1:41.7 | Naturally, the Indy 500 was caught up in this, and while the full effects of |
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