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Much has been made about CART, about its leadership struggles, about its plunge in the motorsports totem pole compared to NASCAR, about a lot of things. Perhaps foremost is the series' lack of identity. In an insightful piece at Autoracing1.com, R. Eric Davis notes that as a fan, "I don't really know where CART is going at this point."
Of the four major sanctioning bodies in the US - NASCAR, CART, IRL, and NHRA - NASCAR, IRL, and NHRA have a focus and thus an idea where they're going. CART, on the other hand, seems less sure-footed. Lack of promotion is a very substantial reason for CART's comparative lack of
recognition.
It hasn't helped that CART has gone through four different leaders since the costly owners revolt over technical rules led by the late Andy Kenopensky in 1989. A. William Stokkan, a former executive of Playboy Enterprises, headed up CART until 1993, when Andrew Craig, who'd headed a Swiss sports marketing group that was a key organizer of the Olympics, was given the job. Craig's leadership was marked by an air of pomposity that was off-turning and ultimately helped lead to the split with Indianapolis in 1995-6.
In June 2000 Craig was finally let go and Bobby Rahal took over as interim President - it helped Rahal's role that under his brief leadership two of CART's greatest races, the Michigan 500 and the Marlboro 500 at Fontana, occurred. Rahal, though, had his eyes on Formula One and reviving Jaguar's F1 team. So in December 2000 Joseph Heitzler, a former CBS Sports production executive and recently head of National Mobile Television Productions, was announced as CART's newest CEO.
Heitzler's task is a daunting one, as he now controls a sanctioning body much weaker than it was ten years ago. He himself notes that "To date CART has lacked a vision," and is aware that CART's drivers are virtually unknown outside of diehard racing circles.
Though CART has problems unique to itself, some of its problems are not unique to racing. There is the matter of costs - tens of millions of dollars are necessary for a race team to run, and escalating costs have translated to smaller starting fields despite the influx of several manufacturers. There is the matter of safety - on ESPN's Outside The Lines in November 2000 Robin Miller made a big issue out of NASCAR's handling of safety issues compared with how CART and IRL handle them, ignoring that the years 1996-9 were among the bloodiest in open-wheel history with the deaths of Scott Brayton, Jeff Krosnoff and Toronto course worker Gary Avrin, the career- and nearly life-ending crash of Emerson Fittipaldi - it says a lot about NASCAR vs. CART that Fittipaldi's Michigan crash came on the same day as Dale Earnhardt's 1996 Talladega tumble, in which despite getting T-boned twice Earnhardt suffered far less severe injuries than Emmo, and also got far more news play than Emmo - the deaths of three spectators at Michigan, the deaths of three spectators in the IRL's aborted Charlotte race of 1999, and the deaths of Gonzalo Rodriguez and Greg Moore in 1999.
There are more issues NASCAR and open wheel racing have in common - competitive quality, technology, keeping the fans and drawing new ones, television - a variety of issues. It is now well known how NASCAR suffered a decline at the gate and in the ratings in the 2000 season.
To start this next section it is useful to list the eight best races of 2000 -
Craftsman Truck 250 at Daytona
NASCAR Atlanta 500
IRL Casino Magic 500 at Texas
Featherlite Modified Thatlook 100 at New Hampshire
CART Michigan 500
NASCAR Charlotte 500
NASCAR Winston 500
CART Marlboro 500 at Fontana
These races had a combined 320 lead changes, or an average of 40 per race. They also had several things in common which will be addressed below.
THE ISSUES OF SPEEDS, DOWNFORCE, AND AERODYNAMICS - Only three of the eight events listed above involved speeds over 200 MPH. Two of these events involved restrictor plates and six involved aerodynamics that were either dirtied up or considered less than optimum. Racing has long since outgrown the need for 200 MPH speeds - new track records today lack much in the way of meaning. At most tracks the speeds are such that they overwhelm the ability of the cars to safely race - it showed most graphically in the fatalities in NASCAR and open wheels 1996-2000.
NASCAR addressed the issue of speeds at its fastest tracks when Bobby Allison ripped out over 100 feet of fencing at Talladega in 1987, but it has basically put off doing something about speeds at other tracks, such as Atlanta where the cars are flirting closer to 200 MPH. Superficial efforts were made when downforce was shaved in 1998 via the 5 & 5 rule, a rule that accomplished nothing and was dropped at the very end of the 1998 season. There was also the restrictor plate experiment at New Hampshire in 2000 and Goodyear's pledge for 2001 to harden its tires, but overall the sanctioning body has not seriously addressed the issue of speeds and what little it has done has been thoroughly counterproductive.
CART and IRL, meanwhile, have also done little to curb the speeds - IRL did take a step when it switched to natural aspiration in its engines going with generally bulkier racecars, but its cars still regularly reach 210-plus on the majority of its tracks. CART has experimented with lesser downforce wings on its short oval cars, and it also implemented the Hanford wing for the 1998 Michigan 500 - an innovation partly influenced by 1997 NASCAR experiments with air displacement rails on its cars - which added drag to the cars and suddenly made the draft much stronger than it had been before.
Overall, though, even the Hanford wing did not slow the speeds down by more than a second a lap. It is surprising that so little has been done to slow the speeds, especially after the twin tragedies that befell both bodies 1998-9 at Michigan and Charlotte involving the deaths of spectators to wheel assemblies thrown high into the grandstands.
Racing needs to recognize that raw speeds are not the source of the sport's appeal anymore - 200 MPH does not carry the sense of wonderment it once did. It also needs to recognize that reducing corner speeds has not worked, either by itself or to reduce overall speeds. This is what made the 5 & 5 rule so ineffective and why harder tires, which will mean less corner grip, are not all that good an idea, either. Downforce is important in terms of competition and safety - CART and IRL have no serious problem with downforce; in contrast, NASCAR's racing machinery is notorious for being overpowered and undergripped. Lack of corner control is an underappreciated aspect of the safety debate - it stands to reason that drivers don't crash when they have control of their cars in the corners; it is when the speeds overwhelm that control that problems develop. This is what the speed issue should keep paramount - CART and IRL racecars have greater grip at similar speeds than NASCAR racecars, and thus have a safety and competition edge.
There is also the issue of aerodynamics and drag, for it is here that one of the biggest jumps in speeds can be found. In 2000 the aero-push became a common term in NASCAR circles, and it has been the bete noir of competitive racing - in the dirty air of traffic cars lose downforce on the nose and thus resist turning; this means they are not able to close up on other cars for passing. Also, the amount of displaced air is much lower than it was in the early 1980s, and this means that the draft is either inconsistent or ineffective. This plus the aero-push is why the ability to overtake at Daytona and Talladega has suffered over the past fifteen seasons.
NASCAR's Talladega aero experiment was such a resounding success that it seems air displacement rails will become a permanent fixture at the two biggest tracks in the sport, much as the Hanford wing has become a permanent part of CART at Michigan and Fontana. It is puzzling that NASCAR has resisted implementing aero anchors at other tracks - Atlanta was rebuffed when Ed Clark requested aero anchors for the 2000 season finale.
Aerodynamic disruption has worked and racing bodies need to adapt the idea with greater seriousness.
PARITY, NOT DOMINATION, IS BETTER IN THE LONG RUN - It is a running debate - do sports need someone to dominate? We've seen repeated assertions in the affirmative based on the attention lavished to golfer Eldrick Woods - aka Tiger Woods - who has monopolized golf like no personality before. His domination, it is said, has drawn attention to the sport of golf like nothing else has, much as the domination of basketball by Michael Jordan brought attention to that sport like nothing else.
But in the long run, does domination really mean greater attention? Jeff Gordon's domination of the latter 1990s - 47 wins and three titles 1995-9 - seems to indicate the opposite. The more Gordon dominated, the worse the booing became. Booing has been a perennial reality for those who win too much, but the booing of Gordon was like nothing since the heyday of Darrell Waltrip.
The booing came for several reasons, but the fact that Gordon was winning so many races was its backbone, and showed how his domination was not benefiting the competition, despite claims that "he's raised the bar."
Historically, racing's growth came about not because of domination, but because of rivalry. Indeed, the most celebrated part of NASCAR history was not Richard Petty's 200 wins, but his rivalries with David Pearson, Bobby Isaac, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Fred Lorenzen, and others. While A.J. Foyt's quest to become Indianapolis' first four-time winner brought attention, it was his rivalries with Mario Andretti, the Unser brothers, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, and others that brought more and longer attention.
One of the highlights of NASCAR 2000 was the string of ten different winners in the first ten races, twelve winners in the first thirteen races, and four first-time winners total. In CART a highlight of 2000 was its high number of different winners. The IRL has seen more different winners than any other major racing series in its five seasons of competition.
It helps illustrate the drawbacks to dominance that the NBA has seen with the retirement of Jordan - having depended on him for so long and to such a significant extent, the NBA suffered at the gate after Jordan's retirement, because it depended on him and basically ignored other stars would could pick up the slack. In Shaqille O'Neal the NBA is seeing another dominant personality, but it is also seeing the same downfall - one personality at the expense of depth.
Imagine a Winston Cup season with wins by John Andretti, Casey Atwood, Dave Blaney, both Burtons, both Earnhardts, Bill Elliott, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Hamilton, Dale Jarrett, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Sterling Marlin, Mark Martin, Jeremy Mayfield, Joe Nemechek, Kyle Petty, Ricky Rudd, Tony Stewart, and Rusty Wallace - a CART season with wins by Dario Franchitti, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Gil de Fereen, Helio Castroneves, Kenny Brack, Max Papis, both of Chip Ganassi's drivers, Alex Zanardi, and Tony Kanaan - an IRL season with wins by Eddie Cheever, Scott Goodyear, both of A.J. Foyt's drivers, Greg Ray, Scott Sharp, Buddy Lazier, and Robbie Buhl - such would be a racing season with greater depth than one dominated by two or three drivers.
COSTS, THE HAVES-HAVE NOTS GAP, AND COUNTRY CLUBS - Though the growth of NASCAR and the stagnation of CART were stories of the 1990s, in reality these were continuations of trends of the 1980s. CART established itself during the 1980s but throughout the decade it was clear that NASCAR was growing much faster, and by 1989 CART's status as lower than NASCAR in American racing was manifest.
A major reason for this disparity in growth lay in the leadership politics within CART. The four different leaders of CART in the 1990s all had one thing in common - they did not have complete control of the sanctioning body. Before the hiring of Joseph Heitzler, CART courted Long Beach promoter Chris Pook for the job of CEO. Pook, however, sought wide-ranging authority and control of the sanctioning body, authority the car owners of CART refused to grant, so Pook withdrew his name from consideration for the job.
This lack of power by the CEO has been a running theme in CART through its life. With the car owners holding actual power in the series, strife became inevitable, and in 1989 it led to the revolt of Andy Kenopensky and other have-not car owners in stormy owners' meetings at Michigan and Pocono.
In 1993 came two more rules controversies - first came word that Honda wanted to enter the series, but before it could a rule was passed requiring that new engine suppliers had to supply three cars the first year and six from then on. The rule was widely criticized as designed to chase manufacturers out rather than invite them in.
Concurrent with controversy over the "Honda" rule, Dianne Simon was asked by CART to prepare a White Paper on conflict of interest within CART. The resulting report was damning in the extreme, detailing how CART was, in the words of motorsports journalist Forrest Bond, "run like a whites-only country club" to the benefit of one or two big-name team owners.
For most of its existence, NASCAR was different from CART. It had a blue-collar aura that was a source of its appeal. In the early 1990s this blue-collar appeal reached its apex when self-made owner-driver Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Winston Cup title. But from then on the blue-collar aura began to be squeezed out, due in large part to a restriction on testing that wound up benefiting big multicar teams. By 2000 single car teams had become effectively extinct in NASCAR, and the same rich-man's game quality that permeated CART was now a fixture in NASCAR.
This quality needs to be addressed by racing. Instead of catering to the richest team owners, racing should cater more toward the owner-driver, owner-crew chief, owner-engine builder, and the journeyman. Such a change will help racing in terms of mass appeal, and also help address the issues of costs. In NASCAR costs have risen from roughly $2.5 million per team in 1989 to over $15 million per team by 2000. Much of the increase is due to the spendaholism that has become pervasive in the sport in the 1990s, a spendaholism that was the source of the Kenopensky revolt in CART. Among the latest examples of such spendaholism is a 50% windtunnel being built by Penske Racing South - it stands to reason that other teams will be forced to build their own wind tunnels, a hugely expensive investment, in order to keep up.
With this spendaholism has come something unthinkable in NASCAR ten years ago - a haves-have
nots gap. In 1998 three of NASCAR's most famous participants - Richard Childress, Dale Earnhardt, and Andy Petree - formed an engineering alliance in order to keep up with the increasing strength of the biggest multicar organizations. Such an alliance was unthinkable in 1990 or even as late as 1996.
A number of teams have already been priced out of the sport in the last five or six years and a number of longtime sponsors - notably Valvoline and Exide - have left or stepped down their effort because owners asked for a massive and needless increase in sponsorship monies. As it continues, NASCAR is going to reach the situation CART presently sees - a huge shortage of teams and thus small starting fields. Already NASCAR has seen a noticeable shrinkage of its Craftsman Truck fields in the 1999-2000 seasons.
There have been several ideas for lowering costs. None, however, cuts to perhaps the heart of the issue - the number of racecars an individual team possesses. It goes beyond even the fact that team owners field three or more teams where NASCAR has a rule limiting a team owner to just two teams - this rule, which applies only to contingency monies, is routinely cheated on as individual teams are listed under sham "owners" such as Rick Hendrick's father and Jack Roush's mother and his business manager. It applies to the fact that a team will have at least ten racecars in its shop, each one tailored for individual tracks.
One can see a significant reduction in costs, for all three major sanctioning bodies, by forcing teams to stop using specialist racecars and instead reuse certain individual cars for the bulk of tracks - one car for the superspeedways and intermediate supers, another car for the short tracks and one-milers, and a backup car for each. Gone should be the Bristol cars, Charlotte cars, Winston cars, road-course cars, etc. It is amazing that the success at diverse racetracks of such individual racecars as The X1 Project (Harry Gant), 007 (Davey Allison), and Blacker (Jeff Gordon) has not discouraged the practice of building specialist cars for certain individual tracks.
Another area of costs is engines and qualifying - in NASCAR it has long been pushed that teams not be allowed to use special qualifying engines. The use of a special engine just for qualifying is pointless, as is the practice of qualifying with "trick" oils, a near-empty tank, and near-total blockage of the grille. NASCAR partly addressed the problem by banning soft shocks for the restrictor plate tracks, though there it did more harm than good by making the cars too tight in dirty air.
For all the sanctioning bodies, require that teams qualify with a full tank of gas, no tape on the grille, and no change of engines after qualifying.
All of these issues need to be addressed. Let's hope the
sanctioning bodies are listening.
Thank you,
Mike Daly
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