BONUS: Indycar at war! Ep. 1 - The insane story of how a sport was split apart

The Race F1 Podcast

The Race Media Ltd

Sports

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While the F1 world is a little quieter, we’re dropping a special three-part series into the feed as a winter bonus. As you might have guessed from the title, it's not about Formula 1, but we think it’s such an incredible tale that many of you will enjoy it, and possibly even be amazed by it. It features our very own Edd Straw, alongside host Glenn Freeman and US racing expert John Oreovicz, and it tells the barely believable 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.

Episode 1 deals with the immediate aftermath of Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George announcing, in early 1994, that he would be forming his own competitor to the hugely popular CART Indycar series. We hope you enjoy the show, and we’ll be back with episodes 2 and 3 very soon (in between the usual F1 episodes!).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Athletic
0:02.7	Hi all, Ed here to introduce the first episode of a very special three-part series
0:08.7	we're dropping into the feeders bonus content this winter. Now, as you might have guessed
0:13.0	from the title, this mini-series is not about Formula One, but we think it's such an
0:17.2	incredible tale that many of you who follow the Race F1 podcast will enjoy it,
0:21.4	and possibly even be amazed by it. Over three episodes, I had the privilege of joining host
0:26.5	Glenn Freeman and US racing expert John Oriovitz to unpick the barely believable story of how
0:32.2	IndyCar racing was torn apart in the mid-90s, shortly after Nigel Mansell had helped make
0:37.1	the North American series
0:38.4	so popular that Bernie Eccleston saw it as a threat to F1. As Glenn says on the podcast,
0:44.6	how it hasn't been made into a Netflix series yet is astonishing, because it's a story that has
0:49.4	everything. Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here's episode one, which deals with the immediate aftermath of Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George announcing in early 1994 that he would be forming his own competitor to the hugely popular kart IndyCar series.
1:05.7	We hope you enjoy the show and we'll be back with episodes two and three very soon.
1:10.6	There's been plenty of open- wheel hatred in the last 12 years.
1:16.4	Honestly, I felt I got screwed.
1:22.4	Get past the hate and start figuring out where open wheel racing goes from here and how it can be made better.
1:31.2	The IRL, as it is called, is a concept originated by the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George.
1:39.0	I hate the fact that the ND500 was screwed up 12 years ago.
1:42.0	I hate the fact that Alex Zanardi and Greg Moore didn't get to run the Indy 500. I hate the fact that NASCAR's laughed several times. Consider the Indy cars. Well, this year they will race in separate series. You could run a strip like this. We came back here. I think we redeemed ourselves from the lousy thing we did in 95, but I'll tell you,
2:02.1	this is the best day of my life coming back like this.
2:04.6	Who needs milk?
2:07.0	Indycar racing was flying high in the mid-1990s.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Race Media Ltd, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Race Media Ltd and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.