For a while in the ’90s, IndyCar challenged Formula 1 as the premier form of motorsport; we look under the skin of a Penske PC23 from the series’ golden era
by ADAM TOWLER PHOTOGRAPHY by ASTON PARROTT
BEFORE THE CALAMITY KNOWN AS ‘THE SPLIT’IN Indy racing circles, the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) IndyCar series was America’s premier single-seater racing category and a genuine rival to Formula 1. Indeed, as the series spread to Australasia and South America, and eventually even Europe, the power brokers of Grand Prix racing became increasingly nervous, a fear fed by Nigel Mansell’s defection after his F1 title year to IndyCar for 1993 and Ayrton Senna’s test of Brazilian countryman Emerson Fittipaldi’s Penske-Chevrolet in 1992 (also sponsored by Marlboro, like Senna’s McLaren-Honda). It seemed that IndyCar truly could become a world series.
CART had been formed after team and car owners became dissatisfied with USAC, the sanctioning body that ran the US’s top-flight single-seater racing championship. USAC was the baby of Indianapolis Speedway owner Tony Hulman, and increasingly throughout the 1970s the teams felt the series was being poorly run and with too much emphasis on the Indy 500 race and not the overall championship. CART was formed in 1978 and by 1982 was in overall charge, with only the Indy 500 running under USAC but now forming part of the CART series, which in time would be named ‘IndyCar’. Nevertheless, this complex political arrangement between Indianapolis and everyone else was fraught with hazards that in time would lead to the downfall not only of CART, but also see a tremendous decline in the standing and popularity of single-seater racing in the US; it was an open goal for NASCAR.
The IRL (Indy Racing League), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s own single-seater championship, began in 1996, and although CART enjoyed some classic seasons from that point onwards, it eventually went into decline, going bankrupt in 2003. The series limped on, rebranded as Champ Cars and effectively became a one-make ‘spec series’ until the two championships were ‘combined’ once again in 2008.
The subject of this story takes us back to the year 1994 and the heyday of CART, with a growing number of chassis and engine manufacturers, and top class drivers, from American household names to an increasing influx of foreign stars. Given the challenge of racing on a mix of dedicated racing tracks, street circuits, short ovals and super speedways, both car and driver had
