So I watched the Zanardi crash. Advert comes on pre video. “Have you had an accident at work that wasn’t your fault?” Jeeeeeeesus.

That CART race at Texas is the only time I ever seen Michael Andretti scared. All he said was "I don't think this is a good idea" but he looked like he was at a funeral

Zanardi often jokes "I now have more German than Italian blood in my body"… Two years later, he was back to complete his missing 13 laps in a modified car - and how he did: His fastest lap would have placed him fifth on the grid.

The death of CART was so painful. Tony George destroyed open wheeled racing with the split and how CART screwed it up with all the talent they had in their better cars was painful to watch

Never again will see a series with the speed, looks and noise of CART. It's just sad, it truly was fantastic in person.

Cart cars of mid-late 90s were the best looking of the time and my favourite of all time

CART was always destined to fail once the big sponsors finally noticed their names weren't at the Indy 500. In many ways, it would have been better had they given up after the 2003 bankruptcy. But the likes of Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven didn't want to let it go, they hated Tony George and the IRL THAT much. As it was, the Split dragged on for another few years, by which time American open wheel racing resembled two bald guys fighting over a comb.

Zanardi is a God. If that wreck didn't kill him bah gawd nothing will (yes I went Jim Ross on that)

I was regional Executive of the Oklahoma Region of the Sports Car Club of America and I organized a charter bus trip to the Texas 600 for our members. Everyone was excited to see how fast the cars would be and we scurried into the track early to buy souvenirs. Adrian Fernandez came out to sign autographs at the Tecate beer tent. great looking Mexican babes were trying to smile and failing. Adrian looked like someone had just killed his dog. Iasked him to sign the 600 tee shirt I'd just purchased and he said "You might want to ask your money back on that one." they didn't cancel the race until just a couple of hours before the green flag time. Despite CART repaying Gossage for everything, none of us ever got our ticket money back, certainly not the bus charter fee. I still have the tee shirt but I've never returned to TMS because they got reimbursed but my 60 ticket buyers did not. Gossage has retired since then but old dogs have long memories and i refuse to give that track any more money. I look forward to the Indy double header this July in Iowa, though.

Montoya lead 167 laps in 2000, it was Al Unser and Jim Clark that lead 190 laps in 1965 and 1970 respectively. Only bill Vukovich and Billy Arnold lead more in a winning drive. While looking that up, I also came across the fact that in 1912 Ralph de Palma lead 196 laps (98% of the race) but had engine problems at the end of the race and came in 11th. Another interesting thing is Montoya's dominance in 2000 is matched perfectly by the mere 9 laps he lead in his 2015 winning drive.

The Hanford device was an aerodynamic device used in CART on superspeedways like Fontana and Michigan in the late 1990s to slow the cars down. It did that, but it also produced a massive slipstream that allowed trailing cars to easily slingshot the car ahead. This produced races at Michigan and Fontana with truly insane numbers of lead changes.

The Hanford Device was basically a vertical plate on the back of the rear wing. It pretty much was a metal parachute. It allowed for drafting and slinghot passing on ovals and is one reason why superspeedway pack racing in CART wasn't suicidal; the cars could pass each other, but the difference in performance between the different engines and the teams meant that the cars weren't in a massive four wide pack. Also, short oval CART racing from the 1990s is some of the best racing you'll ever see. Look up the 1992 race at New Hampshire; it's an FFFing classic.

Alex Zanardi was indestructible. He survived accident where he lost both of his legs. Still able to compete in the paralympics in cycling, and drove in sports cars in a car specifically fit with hand controls.

Yes, the Texas thing was very worrying. Initially 1 driver mentioned feeling off colour & when it was mentioned at a driver's briefing, slowly most drivers raised their hand. In the end, I don't think Tony George was the winner. History has shown it's The Captain. . . Roger Penske.

One thing missed was that Honda and Toyota's defection to the IRL was largely in part to the ineptitude of CART management. Basically CART announced that they were going to Normally Aspirated engines without properly consulting their suppliers. At the time there was fear that none of the 3 remaining engine suppliers (Honda, Toyota, and Ford-Cosworth) would remain. During the Laguna Seca TV broadcast in 2001, the head of Honda North America's racing engine program absolutely ripped into CART management, basically accusing them of lying and dishonestly, declaring that Honda had no interest in working with them even further.

Thank you! I've been so excited for this chapter to finally drop. I was literally pulling into the Texas Motor Speedway parking lot when I found out the Firehawk 600 was cancelled. It was a bad look to not do enough testing then cancel so close to the show. Crazy times. Keep up the great work!

Great video, thanks for uploading. Alex Zanardi is a hero of mine, coming back from that accident with such an amazing positivity and drive, what a human being 💙💙 Such a shame what happened more recently, but STILL he survived

This is craziest collection of numbers I ever heard in motorsport.

Wasn't Roberto Moreno one of those drivers in the TMS test?

JPM's 2000 Indy 500 victory was the most dominant victory that I had ever seen in "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" since The Great Jimmy Clark decimated the field with his Colin Chapman Lotus DOHC Powered Ford in the 1965 event thus changing the face of American Open Wheel racing forever!

Absolutely love the mini series on CART/Indy split. One of my favourite videos you did was the one on CART and the texas motor speedway. Great to see it back in some form. Keep up the great work.

This series was brilliant Aidan ...I was never really able to wrap my head around the confusion of this era, but your series helped a ton! Thanks!

Also in Maricio case, he blacked out BEFORE he crashed at turn 2. If u hear the clip, his throttle was wide open even as he was sliding from turn 2 to turn3 before his 2nd hit at 113G.

Hearing you talk about wrestling is like hearing somebody talk about cricket. I have no idea and I don't want to know.

The only thing I think worth mentioning in hindsight is that Honda and Toyota didn’t simply leave CART to go to the IRL; but rather angrily stormed out of the series due to pop off valve mandates that were only implemented after less than a weeks worth of testing and availability. The hubris or incompetence of CART contributing to its downfall in other ways.

I used to watch Minardi in ChampCar after they sold their F1 team and did an American tour with Robert Doornbos. I think there were street tracks only lol. It was mental

The whole split was George bringing up issues from the 50s and 60s. IMS and USAC had their war and IMS and CART had their war, both over the same kind of issues. The only reason a split didn't happen sooner was IMS needed CART and CART needed IMS. George just kinda said "F that". This is a great series.

The entire conceit for Texas Motor Speedway being built was to be able to accommodate both NASCAR and IRL/CART in the same venue, using different layouts. When the venue was being designed, it was originally designed with a dual banking layout. If you watch the 1997 True Value 500 IRL race, there were two layouts, a track with 8 degree banking intended for the IRL/CART that was otherwise used as the track apron and the original 24 degree banking for NASCAR. By the time the CART race was scheduled and eventually abandoned in 2001, the track had been reconfigured twice to remove that secondary layout. When the IRL ran their first race at Texas, they didn't close off the 24 degree banking and discovered that the cars ran faster on the NASCAR banking, which is why Texas was considered the ideal venue for the IRL for well over a decade. When CART held a track inspection at Texas Motor Speedway in 1998 to gauge whether a race would be feasible, the Chief Steward at the time, Wally Dallenbach, Sr. declared that it was not a suitable venue for CART, owing to the secondary track with 8 degree banking not being wide or long enough to accommodate 28 cars at speed, and the 24 degree banking would be too fast for the drivers and cars. CART initially accepted his findings until the series decided to run a single car test in the year 2000 with bad data suggesting that the cars would be fine on the 24 degree banking, not realizing that the cold weather experienced during the test actually slowed the car down because of the heavier, denser air contributing more downforce and drag than the warmer thinner air of the April weekend. I was at the venue the weekend the race was abandoned as a team guest, and that's been the only time I've ever seen drivers look scared. The sounds the cars made during practice were like banshees wailing off the walls. Imagine an F1 V10 engine at full song coming off of Turn 4 and that's what the cars sounded like before they abruptly pulled into the pits.

U said Galles right the first time....its GAL-ess. That family used to own every car dealership in new mexico *and Eddie Gossage was the president of TMS, not the owner...Bruton Smith was owner.

I was wondering why it said private video at first, thanks for the re-upload....I really like your videos Aidan. Also following on Twitter.

Very much approve of the thumbnail. Red gloves rule

Unrelated but sort of related… I’m a typical F1 fan, knew v little about Cart / Indycar beyond my knowledge of Mansell / Villeneuve / Montoya - then SkyF1 started showing Indycar a couple of years ago. Fallen in love with it now! What with AMS2 DLC too, I’m addicted to finding out more - thanks for the fascinating insight!

You've reached the point at which I started to be able to watch CART/Champcar (it was when I got the first analogue Sky box which came with Eurosport), and these stories are becoming more and more familiar to me. This is a good thing, btw. I loved Champcar and was gutted when it finally died - partially because I couldn't get to see it.

Amazing job as usual Aidan. As a American, you make me feel ignorant, as you know so much more about this Era than myself...I always look forward to story time, and your irreverent take on things....thank you. 🇬🇧🏁🇺🇸

Great video! You're getting alot more comfortable infront of the camera and it shows :)

The title 'The nails in cart's coffin' (under a thumbnail of Greg Moore) Nice, very nice. (spoken in a sarcastic fashion.)

A seamless audio edit! 😂😂😂

nice ninja edit there Aidan me auld. Top work as usual though, and yes, Alex Zanardi is an absolute hero on the level of Lauda

Alex is alive because Steve Olvey MD was at the track....i mean on the track! The emergency responders are the best....bar none! My combat medic experience gives me some insight in trauma situations, and both CART, Indy racing league , and now Indycar have THE best responders in the business! Perhaps a story about their expertise?!

Well, for me, CART started it’s slippery slide to crap show status on a bright sunny Sunday in Michigan when the “Stars and Cars” provided us fine folks in turn four with a shower of carbon fiber when they balled up the pace lap at the US 500.

excellent episode thank you man

Love your videos

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the massive failure that was the CART movie, Driven.

Would love to see a video on Zanardi. I never thought much of him in F1 tho I was young and Williams were over the place when he raced for them. Looking back he seemed a pretty solid driver but I still can`t fully work out the context of his performance. I followed the CART results because he was in it and even his paralympic career after. The man is a complete legend. It`s a shame what happened to him. I still check every now and again to see if there have been any updates

I REALLY miss the CART days...

Great story there Aidan.

Regarding the Zanardi crash: Aidan REALLY isn't kidding about seeing pieces of Zanardi's legs in those photos. There is one photo is particular, taken while the cars were still together during the impact, in extremely high quality where it is VERY CLEAR that some of those red bits are chunks of human body, not car body. We're not talking tiny bits, some of the chunks are VERY big. Zanardi actually included this photo in his autobiography. No, I will not link to the photo, as only the most morbidly curious people should ever be looking at that. It's on par with Jansen Van Vuuren for horrifying sights, but Van Vuuren at least had the dignity of having his death caught on a very shitty camera so you can't truly see the full force of the nastiness.

You deserve more subscribers than you have (I'm a subscriber BTW).

Really enjoyed the episode. One thing I will mention is that losing Little Al to IRL was not as big a deal at the time. Al was past it as driver, having not won won since 95 mostly due his alcoholism really starting to effect his racing. I remember watching right as he jumped to IRL (being more of a F1 fan) and being stunned as how terrible he looked. Really sad. It wasn't a big defection at all as it was really a point of comparison that he could hop to IRL and be a winner again in showing the lack of quality issues IRL had at the time. I definitely remember around my house there being a bit of snobbishness too about Champ Car/CART vs IRL as it seemed as though Champ Car was "real racing" and IRL was Nascar Light. Champ Car raced everything and had the better drivers while IRL was all ovals. Some of the darker rumors I heard was that this Tony George was ginned up to this by Brian France and Bernie to splinter off. The rationale France wanted to make Nascar the top US racing and that Bernie was smarting over losing Mansell to Indycar. In addition the split got Access to Indy for NASCAR and F1. I don't think thkl

Not just with cart, but Looking back now that I’m a bit older it seems like it was just luck that so many drivers survived back in the day. We talk about 100g+ at least once a video which theoretically every single one of these crashes should have killed the drivers.

Thanks Aidan. As an Aussie feeling his way into Indycar League racing in the new RF2 official Indycar with a bunch of savvy Americans, this vid is a really useful history lesson for me. Btw - really put out that rf2 had no Will Power livery for the Indycar. Anyone know why not?

Hello Aidan: Thank you for that warning about that crash video. I will give it a miss. Good job on this series. Well done. Stay well and safe.

nice video

Aidan, the complete stinker "Driven" a movie about a CART driver came out in the cinemas here in the states the same weekend of that cancelled Texas race.

I guess they set the boost/popoff valve to Ludicrous Speed down there in the Lonestar state.

HA! There are very few who are Wrestling and IndyCar fans. Welcome to my wheelhouse! The comparisons to the Monday Night Wars is 100% appropriate.

Looking forward to part 4, in which Tony George "wins" by ending up with a series that includes lots of right turns, "foreign" drivers, larger budgets for teams than he'd like, etc.-more or less the opposite of his "vision" for the IRL, or in other words CART circa 1994, except he's scared off all the fans and sponsors and it will take another 20 years from the time of CART's initial bankruptcy for "his" series to claw its way back to relevance...by which point Roger Penske is running it, which is pretty much what Tony and his family were mad about in the first place way back in 1979.

You need to do a storytime about Alex Zanardi, What a story that will be.

The cruel thing about the fatal or almost fatal crashes were mainly caused by faulty safety planning on the tracks. LagunaSeca the dipping runoff at the corkscrew. Fontana Greg was killed because the car spun into the infield and got launched into the air by a rescue lane which sent him top down into the inside wall. At Lausitzring there were no barriers between the slow pit exit and the track. Alex Zanardi the guy who survived Spa in F1 and the Lausitzring. 🏅🏅

CART without indy, and IRL as the inferior series but with indy, was guaranteed to end badly for both series

Btw, the "he who shall not be named" Aidan was referring to was actually [NAME REDACTED].

I loved CART, I liked IRL but wished there was only 1 series. I may be a bit off but I think it would have been an 85% / 15% split CART/IRL drivers in the one series. There were some good drivers in IRL but for the most part the CART drivers were a class above in my opinion.

The first version was fine. I watched it. The few missing photos didn't detract from it at all. IMO.

bit of a plug perhaps, but I'm curious, have you listened to the 83 Weeks podcast Aidan? With Bischoff, gives some great insight throughout each episode, it's so fascinating

Hamilton in a Zanardi type of accident!

I'm really enjoying this series of videos. I'd love to have another video though going over what has become of IndyCar, because I watched CART, loved it (more than F1 at the time, and it was more about racing than speed), but didn't see or know about its decline or what happened next when there was no split. The fact that I've never gone back, apart from watching a few Indy 500s suggest it's just not been that great ever since. Maybe I'm wrong, can someone correct me if I am. Otherwise I'll await the next video in this series (you didn't say this was the last one so I assume it's not finished)!!!

@AidenMilward you are comparing CART losing to IRL to WCW losing to WWE? Nice comparison 👏 👍 👌

7:07 If i remember CART back then was using ground effect. If we see in formula 1 drivers were suffered from "Porpoising effect" because the violent bouncing of the car during the straight. This might be the case with the Texas 600 event, and it made worst by the speed hit almost 400km/h on average meaning drivers were basically a ping pong ball on the seat with that Porpoising. No wonder some drivers suffered dizziness

Zanardi is unbreakable. The will of a God.

Is it just me but it sounds like the drivers were approaching what the Air Force calls GLOC(gravity induced loss of consciousness.)

What happened to the first one? It went to private right at the end.

I have a request video for you. Seen as you like to cover all motorsport and you like to discuss the controversies, I have one for you what is perhaps the most controversial moment in the history of motorsport. The death of Kevin Ward Jr, and how culpable was Tony Stewart in it.

everyone who whats to know how the Texas cancellation went down and how Zanardi was saved should watch the Rapid Response Documentary on Amazon. its extremely well done and well worth your time if your a Motorsport fan

Spoilers for part 4(or 5, depending on how Aidan chooses to focus episode 4): Tony George lost even after he won. I don't even think it's fair to call what Tony achieved a Pyrrhic victory.

WCW announcer Tony Whatsitchipster: Mankind defeated The Rock for the WWE Championship Half a million viewers: Between Mankind's win and the Fingerpoke of Doom, WWE goes on a hot streak they don't let up until WCW outright collapses in 2001 Numerous former WCW fans attending subsequent WWE shows: Mick Foley (aka Mankind) put my butt in this seat

Interesting little tidbit starting at the 14:30 mark of this David Land video (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rtV9gdiDv8iwqqM.html), Colton Herta said that some drivers were blacking out coming out of 1 and 2, and then waking up in time to take 3 and 4

Oh just give em pressure suits like fighter pilots and let em hit 250 like a boss. Sarcasm for those not familiar with Poe's law.

Very interesting. I had read F1 chooses to limit the cars to ~200mph. The G-force issues support this figure (even without oval tracks). I wondered how the top qualifying speeds of ~236mph seen at the Indy 500 fit? Slower race pace, G-force suits, track design? Anybody know?

I get the very strong feeling Ganassi's departure to the IRL was highly decided by Target. In their minds: "Why advertise our brand at some generic no-name race when we could instead have it seen by Billions at not just any event but THE event?" Just look at the hype the 500 Generates nowadays just with sponsors (Especially the ones that jump on purely for the event). I'm just dumb struck though at the number of things that just piled on and really drove CART into the ground, with the TMS test just really hammering in one red flag after another.

So; its just Gowron & Duras all over again... (except with less plausible names)

I'm trying to figure out who he is... "Who shall not be named" regarding the WCW / WWF(E) reference. Can anyone enlighten me? I can't remember who else left since I always watched the WWF since the 80s. Lol

Hi Aidan, have you sunk your teeth into Gran Turismo 7 at all? I ask because from all the gameplay vids I’ve watched it looks pretty whopper! 🍔

I don't quite understand (or appreciate) the references that equate Monday night wresting and North American open-wheel racing.

24k left

Shame, I always liked Carts, and I had quite a hate for Indys... they were like de Aliexpress version of Carts.

Has CBeebies approached you to read the Bedtime Story yet?

I think Tony George had good ideas of a series with American drivers racing on ovals but it never should have come at the cost of losing the international superstar drivers and the prestige of races like Long Beach, his innovations in safety with SAFER barriers was a good thing, Cart should have instead went with somewhat lower cost cars, they added more ovals anyway so that wasn't the problem.

"Indy will always be Indy." Indy is NOTHING like Indy was. Indy is not Indy. Until the mid-1990's, the Indy winner was a national celebrity, went on all the TV shows. People talked about it at work people who didn't even know that was any other motor racing. None of that is true anymore. No one cares. It's sad.

why didnt they just make a figure 8 track :) lol

Tittle + thumbnail = ouch 😅

Who shall not be named?

well i wish you look at Indy car and Us based racing cars to the new F1 car i seen or remember a car like that in my back ground in my foggy mind, it like peter Northrop a plane designer he designed the flying wing it crashed and was a disaster his company still went on he in a wheel chair they roll him into to a hanger and the worker puts in his lap a model cover with a towel remove it please he picks up the model of the b2 bomber, it nice he said where is it they turn him around here it is in real life his flying wing reborn! i worked for the company Northrop Grumman making mail trucks see dreams do come true! that what was shown at break in the company!

12:23 I should also pointed out the reasoning behind both Toyota and Honda switch to IRL. There's this controversy about the Pop-off valve during mid season. At that time, manufactures/teams find out a loophole that if they could made the pressure around the valve to be lower, the sensor may read that there's was a low pressure which would going to release the valve and in turn allowed more air to be feed into the turbochargers. (At least that was my understanding, i'm sorry if it was wrong). CART gave three manufacturers (Ford, Honda, and Toyota) a new spec pop-off valve which added another valve therefore blocking the sensors to it. The controversy was not on the pop-off valve, it was on how it would be implemented and how the government body reacted to it. A couple of days before the belle isle race, CART conducted a rookie test. It also allows Toyota to test the new spec pop-off valve. It looks just fine in anyway teams allowed to test their parts etc, but what happened afterwards is that before the practice session belle isle begin, CART decide to mandated the valve to be use on all teams. This pisses off Honda and Ford because they're not testing the new parts yet on how it would affect the car overall. At that time, pop-off valve wasn't mandated so manufacturers and teams could decide whether they wanted to use it or not. Honda demands to CART to reverse the decision, but CART is like ghosting to that controversy. Honda boycott the first practice session at the Belle Isle. Toyota also questioning about the allowance to use it in which they're the one who got most of the data but CART also ghosting about it too. This made Honda and Toyota pissed off withdrew from the championship from 2003 onwards.

Spell out the word LEO. That is how to correctly pronounce Helio.

It was better when you were just the voice over.

Texas is a wonderful track. Better test of driver than Indy. Indy tests strategy.

cart champ car what every want to call it. that was the best series. i never watched the idiot racing league. never watched indy 500 when cart was gone. as far as i am concerned the indy 500 stopped when cart was not their. never watched any of them.i do not count them as indy 500 winners. the whole irl was like aa or aaa baseball, the cars were terrible.

I have watched both series between 96 and 98 on KZfaq IRL was better... Except The Milwaukee Mile 96 Miller 200. The 96 seasons cart was better except the ludicrous Disney world opener. 97 I preferred IRL. I love watching blowout wins. That's why I don't watch NASCAR stage racing.