BONUS: Indycar at war! Ep. 2 - The nightmare attempt to rival the Indy 500

The Race F1 Podcast

The Race Media Ltd

Sports

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the F1 world is a little quieter, we’re dropping a special three-part series into the feed as a winter bonus, all about the barely believable story of how Indycar racing was torn apart in the mid-90s.

Episode 2 deals with CART's US 500 nightmare as it attempted to go head-to-head with the first 'IRL' Indy 500 in 1996. Glenn Freeman, Edd Straw and John Oreovicz then look back on CART's strength in the late-1990s, and the IRL's struggles to become established. Then at the turn of the century, Chip Ganassi Racing became the first big hitter from CART to go back to Indianapolis, starting a gradual shift of more teams crossing the divide each May, which eventually led to the first big full-time defection to the IRL.

We hope you enjoy this little sideways step into another area of motorsport, but if it’s not for you, fear not we’ll be back with more F1 coverage very soon.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic.
0:04.7	Hello, Ed here to introduce episode two of our special three-part winter series on the contentious
0:09.8	IndyCar split that tore US single-seater racing apart.
0:14.1	Ironically, when it was so popular that even the unflappable F1 Supremo Bernie Eccleston
0:18.8	was getting concerned. This episode deals with
0:22.0	Cart's US 500 nightmare as it attempted to go head to head with the first IRL Indy 500 in 1996.
0:29.9	We hope you enjoy this little sideways step into another area of motorsport, but if it's not for
0:34.6	you, fear not, we'll be back with more F1 coverage very soon.
0:38.4	There's been plenty of open wheel hatred in the last 12 years.
0:44.2	Honestly, I felt I got screwed.
0:50.1	Get past the hate and start figuring out where open wheel racing goes from here and how it can be made better.
0:59.3	The IRL, as it is called, is a concept originated by the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony George.
1:06.7	I hate the fact that the N.500 was screwed up 12 years ago.
1:09.7	I hate the fact that Alex Zanardi and Greg Moore didn't get to run the NEP 500. I hate the fact that NAS ND-500 was screwed up 12 years ago. I hate the fact that Alex Zanardi and Greg Moore didn't get to run the ND-500. I hate the fact that NASCAR's laughed at several times. Consider the Indy cars. Well, this year they will race in separate series. You took a 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,
1:29.9	it's the best day of my life coming back like this.
1:32.2	Who needs milk?
1:35.6	Welcome to episode two of our Bring Back V10's mini series on the Indycast split.
1:40.7	If you missed episode one, make sure to go back and check that out to To hear the story of the formation of the Indy Racing League and how we ended up with two
1:48.5	rival series both competing in different events on the Indy 500 weekend in 1996.
1:55.3	Because that's where we're going to pick up the story now.
1:57.5	And once again, we have Ed Straw and the author of the book Indie Split,
2:01.3	John Oriovitz, joining me, Glenn Freeman, to rake back over more dirt from this damaging
	...

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