A Brief History of Champ Car......

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With over a century of racing history behind it, the Champ Car World Series has taken many a meandering path from its' beginnings to the modern spectacle it is today. But the question beckons......How did we get here?

For that, let us look back to Oct. 1904, when the first Vanderbilt Cup race was held on Long Island, NY. The 20th century had just arrived and the automobile was still in a bit of infancy; the Indianpolis 500 was still seven years away when one of America's richest men, William K. Vanderbilt, entranced by the potential of the automobile, decided to bring some of that magic to the States' and elevate racing to the same positions that it held in Europe. From his efforts came the first Vanderbilt Cup race, held on a near-triangular circuit of dirt roads stretching from Queens, NY through Nassau Co., Long Lsland. Of the 18 cars that started, only two made it to the end, with George Heath winning in a Panhard-Levassor which put out around 90hp, beating Frenchman Andre Clement in a Clement-Bayard. Because of spectator concerns and the deaths of one spectator and a riding mechanic, Vanderbilt convinced NY state authorities to build America's first purpose-built highway, known as the Long Island Motor Parkway, which incorporated numerous overpasses so that spectators could watch w/out being next to the racetrack.

After a successful 1905 race, won by Victor Hemery, and a 1906 race won by Louis Wagner, Vanderbilt psotponed the 1907 race, instead deciding to run it a year later in 1908. That race was won by an American, George Robertson. Yank Harry Grant went on to win the Vanderbilt Cup races in 1909-1910, and the fledgling American Automobile Association(AAA--"Triple A") became a major sponsor of the race and of motorsports in North America. However, by 1911, Vanderbilt moved the race from Long Island to the southern city of Savannah, Ga., where Ralph Mulford won, beating then-legend Ralph de Palma. The race then headed to Milwaukee, Wisc. where de Palma won successive Vanderbilt Cup races. By this time, the legendary Brickyard, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had held its' first 500-mile race, won by Ray Harroun driving a yellow Marmon Wasp.

Meanwhile, de Palma continued winning, taking the 1914 Vanderbilt Cup race held in Santa Monica, Ca. along with two AAA national titles in 1912 and 1914. While Vanderbilt was holding his Cup races across America, a rival series, the Automobile Club of America(ACA) held several Grand Prix races(Imagine.....there were racing politics back then....!) which attracted both American and European drivers. However, there were very dark clouds ahead for the sport; the end came w/the arrival of World War I. From around 1915 to the late-50's/early-60's, the AAA became the exclusive open-wheel series in the United States. This period also saw Vanderbilt himself bow out of the scene, believing that his series of Cup races had done their job of bringing interest to the sport. Throughout the post-war 1920's, the sport saw the rise of "board-tracks" which drove the speeds up, and drove spectator interest up as well. Then the Great Depression struck, nearly extinguishing the sport. Up until World War II, the sport saw only a few races per year; it was during this period, from the 1920's to 1941, that saw Indy become predominant on the NA motorsports calendar.

There was a bright spot; Wm. Vanderbilt's son, George, revived the Vanderbilt Cup races in 1936 and 1937, run on a temporary course near Roosevelt Field out on Long Island. They and the Indy 500 were THE only races on the 1936 calendar, while a 100-mile race at the Syracuse Mile dirt-track in upstate NY were the lone races in 1937. The fields resembled Champ Car fields of 2004; weak, weak, and weak. Italian Tazio Nuvolari won the 1936 race in a super-charged Alfa-Romeo, besting rival Jean-Pierre Wimille in a Bugatti. 1937 saw the arrival of Auto-Union and Mercedes-Benz to America, with German legend Bernd Rosemeyer winning in a V16 Auto-Union, winning over afield which included Englishman D ick Seaman in a Mercedes-Benz and American racing legend Rex mays in an Alfa-Romeo, putting a fitting end to the Vanderbilt Cup races.

As for the Vanderbilt Cup........It was revived in 1996 as the trophy awarded to the winner of the 1996 Michigan U.S. 500, won by Jimmy Vasser. Four years later, CART decided to rename the series trophy the Vanderbilt Cup, awarding it to the series' champion in 2000, Gil de Ferran, and in subsequent years(de Ferran-2001, da Matta-2002, Tracy-2003 and Bourdais-2004, 2005). It is a fitting legacy to the man who gave the impetus to motorsports in North America.

Later on this week, we'll look at the sport's history, starting with the board-track era and proceeding through the politics of the sport, which have taken sometimes an eerily similarity to the politics of the sport in present times.

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In the first installment of this thread, I talked about the early days of NA motorsports and what would become known as Champ Car. Now, the focus goes back to the sport's past, but not as far back....say, around the 1920's the era of the "board-tracks".

As the Vanderbilt Cup races waned in the distance, board-tracks(racetracks where the racing surface was made up of pine boards nailed together to form oval-like tracks) became the focus of the sport's attention. While these tracks lasted from around 1915-1931, their popularity shined most from 1918-1928. Under the stewardship of racer Jack Prince and engineer Art Pillsbury, tracks of this type were built in California(Culver City, Fresno, San Carlos and Cotati), Atlantic City, NJ, Sheepshead Bay, NY(Brooklyn, NY), along with Chicago, Miami, Charlotte, Cincinnati, etc. The most successful of these tracks was located in Altoona, PA. where the track was maintained from 1923-1931. As with a lot of events today, these tracks brought in huge crowds and fast(for their day) racing. Every new track Prince & Pillsbury built raised the "bar" higher; in April 1925, Harry Hartz set the then-fastest closed course speed, a 135.25 mph, at Culver City, Ca.; 2 yrs. later, Frank Lockhart set the fastest speed, a 147.729 mph speed in Atlantic City, NJ, a speed not to be touched until drivers topped it at a one-off race at the newly paved Daytona Intl. Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Like today's heroes, people back then followed the sport's top drivers, men like Lockhart, Hartz, Jimmy Murphy, Pete de Paolo and Tommy Milton as they raced in supercharged, 1.6-2 liter Miller str.-8 cyl. cars. It was these vehicles that set the then-standard for racing, later to be succeeded by Duesenbergs of the era. And these vehicles were good. Jimmy Murphy would drive one to victory in the French GP in 1921, then took it to Indy and repeated the victory, using a Miller-powered Duesenberg. His victory using an American-built grand prix car would not be repeated until American Dan Gurney took an Eagle-Gurney/Westlake V12 to victory lane in the 1968 Belgian GP at Spa. It was not, however, the safest of eras in the sport; Lockhart was killed attempting a land-speed record on the sands of Daytona Beach in 1928; Murphy lost his life in 1924 during a race on the 1-mile dirt oval in Syracuse, NY. However, a bigger problem loomed ahead for the sport; the arrival of the Great Depression ended the board-track era and all but eliminated the sport in the United States; by 1932, only Indy and a selected few other tracks were left. They, too, ceased to run events with the arrival of World War II in 1942 w/in the US.

After the war, the racing resumed, this time with a new dominant power--the Offenhauser engine. Drivers w/Offy-powered cars won virtually every AAA & USAC-run race from 1947-1963. While there are challengers from Cummins Diesel and supercharged Novis', the Offy was the engine in NA motorsports. Paired w/a Kurtis-Kuzma chassis, these cars became the standard for the sport. Like their predecessors, the heroes of the sport were fire-breathing giants such as Rex Mays and Ted Horn; Horn, to this day, is the only driver to ever win three cons. championships in the sport. As the 1950's began, they were joined by racers Tony Bettenhausen, Bill Vukovich and Jimmy Bryan; Bryan is best remembered for winning the Race of Two Worlds at the banked track at Monza, Italy. During this time, AAA left the racing world following the tragic events at Le Mans, France, and were replaced by the United States Auto Club(USAC). USAC, created in 1955 by then-IMS president Tony Hulman(grandfather of current IRL founder Tony George), ran the sport with a firm hand from the mid-1950's through the 1960's; the sport pretty much resembled what the sport does now(sans the split!).

As the 1960's began, the Offy was still dominant; indeed, front-engined roadsters were predominant in the sport. That ended at Indianapolis in 1963, when drivers Jim Clark and Dan Gurney, backed by Lotus founder Colin Chapman, brought a pair of rear-engine Lotus-Ford racers to the Brickyard; the front-engine days were numbered. Besides putting the front-engine cars in the proverbial dust, Chapman's creations also commenced a period of technological innovation as teams sought to push the envelope, to reach the knife's edge, so to speak. Cars became sleek, low-profile beasts, surging with turbocharged engines, slick racing tires, and possessing the latest in aero-technolgy, all looking for that little bit of an advantage. The revolution had begun.....

Jim Clark began the revolution, so to speak, with his win, the first for a rear-engined car, at the Milwaukee Mile in 1963, then broke through at Indy with a win in 1965. Throughout the 1960's and early 1970's drivers from USAC, Formula 1 and even NASCAR fought for racing supremacy at Indy and other tracks of the era; it was the golden era for "the Greatest Spectacle in Racing". But with the technological advances came the challenges top safety. The deaths of racers Art Pollard and Swede Savage in May 1973 at the Brickyard brought changes to the cars, including the first limits on turbo boost and fuel tanks. Unfortunately, USAC began losing the battle to keep technology in check and, in time, the costs of the sport began to rise, without any inherent way to keep the costs down. Teams, in turn, had to deal with the increased costs, which threatened the stability of the teams, and in turn, the sport. It was at this time that the foundations for what would become CART began to be put in place.

Early next week, I'll examine the Gurney White Paper, CART's 25+ yrs. of existence, and the lessons learned in the modern era of the sport.

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If Roger Penske(the Captain) and U.E. "Pat" Patrick(the Innovator) are two of the three rungs of the modern-era of NA open-wheel racing, then "the Intellectual" title is best applied to legend Dan Gurney. Along with Mario Andretti, Gurney's career is a standard that few drivers ever reach or achieve. But Dan wasn't just a driver "par excellente, but he was a legend out of the car, as well. His All-American Racers team, founded in the late 1960's became, along with Penske's team, one of the dominant teams in NA motorsports. But Gurney is probably best known for penning the standing document outlining what motorsports in NA should be, the Gurney White Paper.

During the course of the 1978 season, as USAC spiraled out of control from the teams, Gurney wrote out a vision for what a racing series should be, and it is Gurney who coined the phrase CART. Early on in his paper, Gurney wrote some(in my honest opinion) very prescient and telling words about the sport......

I realized that we are so intent upon racing each other, that we do not stop to look and analyze our situation. In frustration I decided that things must get worse before we will all wake up. Our sport has the potential to be financially rewarding and healthy (for all participants). Many of the car owners and team directors are excellent, sucessful businessmen in their own lives outside of racing. We (should) be ashamed of ourselves for being involved in a prestigious sport such as Championship racing while it is as weak and disorganized as it is. It is strange that with all these "heavyweights" involved, we still (don't) have our act together. "Divide and conquer" still seems to be working doesn't it?

It is almost scary to realize that, in 2006, Gurney's words are those like a sentinel's, crying out in the night.

Gurney, then turned to the direction the sport should turn to, pointing out what Bernie Ecclestone(yes, that Ecclestone!) had done in Europe with Formula 1, noting that...

The obvious fact is that the F1CA has transformed the Formula 1 Grand Prix racing scene from what was a scattered, weak group of teams without bargaining or negotiating strength into a bonafide business. The did it by uniting and making (a) "no turning back" commitment. They speak with one voice(that of the chief negotiatior, Ecclestone) and that voice has gained power by leaps and bounds.

Eventually, Gurney began to discuss in his paper what CART should look like. He envisioned

(That) in all our discussions, that it is essential that we continue to support USAC as the sanctioning body for Championship racing. The only improvement will be that USAC will work for us and support our causes and policies. It should be clearly understood that the purpose of this organization is to make racing better in an overall way. Not just for the car owners and drivers, but also for the track owners and promoters and the sanctioning body and the sponsors and supporters and last, but (not least) the racing fans and paying spectators. Someone (from CART) must be a part of USAC's negotiations with track promoters, television people and series sponsors, etc.

Unfortunately, Gurney's idea failed, and he and the other signatories to the Gurney White Paper, led by Roger Penske and U.E. "Pat" Patrick, decided to set up CART as a separate organization, with USAC(through the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) running the operations of the Indy 500. When the first CART series race, the Arizona Reublic/ Jimmy Bryan 150, won by Gordon Johncock on March 11, 1979, the "modern-era" had begun. And now, as 2006 beckons, the 28th season for the Champ Car World Series(CART's successor) is on the horizon. The question remains, though....what lessons do we have to learn?

1}For a series to survive its' rough patches, the teams, drivers, and owners must remain united and not allow itself to be split, either by "renegade" officials, tracks, promoters, or manufacturers.

2}In allowing competition between engine suppliers, chassis builders, etc., there must be firm, solid and unshaken rules that all parties must agree to. Don't agree to follow em'; you don't participate. Period!

3}Whatever happens internally, a series must, must, treat its' fans and spectators with the utmost respect and care. They are the ones who pay the bills for the sport, either at the track, or through purchasing series/team merchandise, or by purchasing sponsors' products/services.

4}Finally, if a series' highlights a driver for on-track ability, make sure to recognize them appropriately. Don't go out of the way to "prop" them up at the expense of others. Just look at how Andretti-Green reacted at Milwaukee during the 2005 IRL season("Autograph-Gate").

Over the past ten years, the CART-IRL split has reinforced the need to reread the Gurney White Paper and follow its' prinicples. As we have seen, it only takes one "renegade"(Tony George, in this instance) to set NA motorsports asunder. Although the racing in both series has been good, the split has allowed that "gorilla", a/k/a NASCAR, to become the dominant series, and it continues to threaten AOWR. I sometimes wonder, on occasion.....in ten years, will AOWR even exist. Quite frankly, I don't even want to answer that question.

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Hard to believe, but 2 months are all that separates us from the first race of the 2006 Champ Car season, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. For the third year in a row, fans will have to wait until April to see Bourdais, Tracy, Junquiera, and the others fly around the temporary circuit in Long Beach, Ca. But it got me to thinking, how did the schedule evolve into what it has become?

In the early years of AOWR, the earliest races were all road races, with the exception of the Indy 500, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Then the era of the board tracks arrived, and drivers/fans flocked to see their heroes on thos tracks; its' zenith was in 1926, when Frank Lockhart, Peter DePaolo and Earl Cooper fought a 26-round battle for the AAA title that year. However, the schedule soo shrank.....dramatically, as the Great Depression put an end to these tracks. By 1937, only Indy, the Milwaukee Mile, and a few other tracks held races, and these ended in 1941 with America's entry into World War II.

It wasn't until the 1950's that the schedule began to take on the familiar pattern that has held to today. The schedule generally began with one or two races, then the Indianapolis 500, followed a week later by Milwaukee, with tracks at Sacramento, DuQuoin, IL, and Springfield, along with the most unusual race ever on the calender. From 1947-1955 and 1965-1969, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb was a points-paying race on the USAC National Championship schedule. Other places such as Trenton, NJ, home to a paved-oval track , and Phoenix's Phoenix Intl. Raceway, began hosting Champ races. Indeed, before the split, PIR hosted the season-opening race 16 times btwn. 1964-1990 before yielding to Surfers Paradise, Australia from 1991-1994. Their foray to "the land down under" wasn't the first time AOWR opened its' year outside the USA; in 1971, (Big) Al Unser, Sr. won a pair of 150-mile races at a track in San Rafael, Argentina, and in 2001 and 2002 CART began its' year at Fundidora Park, in Monterrey, Mexico.

Despite all the changes wrought within AOWR, around 7 or so tracks have reamined constants, especially in the modern-era of the sport. Those tracks are Milwaukee(1979-present), Long Beach(1984-present), Portland(1984-present), Cleveland(1982-present), Toronto(1986-present), Surfers Paradise(1991-present), and Road America(1982-2004, 2006-). There is one glaring problem with the schedule currently in play; only one oval, Milwaukee, is on it. Now, while some auto-racing scribes say that CC should abandon the ovals, I beg to disagree. What makes Champ Car unique is its' heritage of racing on different types of tracks, from long superspeedways, to "bullring"-style short ovals, to natural-terrain road courses, and temporary street circuits. Dropping ovals would obliterate(yes, obliterate!!) that heritage. As I once said to a friend of mine, "If they ever drop all the ovals from their schedule, they would become Formula 1 lite."(Apologies in advance. )

So where should Champ Car go in search of ovals? Well, for starters, a return to Phoenix would be good. My biggest memory of that place was seeing Mansell try to take out a place of the turn 1 wall in practice(this was, BTW, long before the SAFER barrier was even thought of..... ), and its' "peculiar" dogleg-baxkstretch is a tricky place for drivers to manage. Despite losing its' spot on the schedule, Las Vegas should be considered for 2007, with one exception......take the road-course wing package off and let em' run wide-open. In an ideal schedule, you'd see probably two "bullrings" and two superspeedways on a majority non-oval schedule. Let's hope the powers that be see the "oval light", so to speak, and let's bring some of that ole' track diversity back to the Champ Car World Series.