The Athletic

Hello, Ed here to introduce the third and final episode of our special three-part winter series on the contentious indie car split that tore US single-seater racing apart.

If you've listened to the first two episodes, we hope you've got a lot from them and enjoyed a small foray

away from F1. We'll shortly be getting into the meat of what should be a thrilling F1

preseason soon. But in the meantime, here's episode three of our miniseries for your enjoyments,

which details how the cart IRL war finally came to an end after more than a decade of fighting.

But not before one of the

most controversial Indy 500 finishes of all time.

There's been plenty of open-wheel hatred in the last 12 years.

Honestly, I felt I got screwed.

Get past the hate and start figuring out where open wheel racing goes from here and how it can be made better.

The IRL, as it is called, is a concept originated by the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Tony George.

I hate the fact that the 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 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, it's the best day of my life coming back like this.

Who needs milk?

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