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Indy Car: Difference between revisions
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But then things changed.
In 1994, Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George took a stand against CART, protesting the series' [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|arbitrary rules]] (CART was often charged with changing rules to benefit certain teams), [[New Tech Is Not Cheap|escalating costs]] (Which squeezed out small privateer teams who could not afford to race), [[Fake American|the lack of opportunities for American drivers]] (Only 10 Americans raced in 1996), and the emphasis on road course racing. In response, he teamed up with USAC and created the Indy Racing League (IRL), using the Indianapolis 500 as leverage to get the series off the ground. IRL was created to be a cheaper, all-oval, [[America Saves the Day|all-American]] alternative to CART, and George enforced it by allowing the top 25 drivers in his series a guaranteed spot in the Indianapolis 500, leaving only eight spots on the grid to CART regulars.
CART, outraged, filed a lawsuit in 1996, which ultimately ended in a settlement and the legality of the new series. In response, they created the U.S. 500 the same weekend as the Indianapolis 500 to show their technical superiority to the "CART rejects series". [[Backstab Backfire|However, this backfired when the front row drivers collided on the pace-lap, leading to a multi-car pileup before the race began]]. Although the race was restarted and the Indy 500 was won by a relative unknown driver (Buddy Lazier, who had been a makeweight in previous races), the damage to CART's 'professional' image had been done. George and IRL then pushed CART series against the wall when they announced new technical regulations [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|which basically outlawed CART-spec cars from competing at Indy.]] IRL slowly climbed in popularity, as they held the one card the CART series couldn't hold; the Indianapolis 500. The tradition and prestige of Indy completely overshadowed everything else and CART's leading teams, Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti, found it increasingly difficult to justify staying away from the big race to their sponsors. Eventually they bowed to the pressure and [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|abandoned the series for IRL.]]
Now on the decline, CART began to get desperate. Trying to outdo IRL with a race at Texas Motor Speedway in 2001, [[Threat Backfire|they found that the greater performance of the cars led to many drivers coming close to to blacking out under the extreme g-forces imposed.]] Forced by the series doctors to cancel the race for medical reasons, CART took a huge blow in prestige, which was then compounded when a row over engine rules resulted in key engine manufacturers Honda and Toyota defecting to IRL. CART tried to pick up the pieces in 2003 by reforming under the name [[Brand Names Are Better|"Bridgestone Presents]] The Champ Car World Series [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Dualvertisement Powered by Ford] (Champ Car)." After declaring bankruptcy in 2003 and again in 2008, Champ Car was finally bought out by IRL, which then became simply the [[Indy Car]] Series. In a final twist of the saga George was voted out of his position at the head of the series by his own sisters, allegedly angry at the amount of family money that had been spent over the years, and a new boss was brought in (Randy Bernard, a former head of Professional Rodeo). Now the 'IRL' name is largely history too, and the series is officially the 'Izod Indycar Series', a series [[Shaggy Dog Story|contested between US and non-US drivers on oval, street and road courses.]]
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'''Team Penske:'''
* ''Hélio Castroneves'' - [[
* ''Ryan Briscoe'' - Seems to have fallen victim to [[Always Second Best]], on the team and on the racetrack. It's not that he's bad, but he seems perpetually overshadowed by Will Power.
* ''Will Power'' - His successes on road course tracks are balanced by his failures on oval tracks, usually due to outside circumstances. He always is competing for the title, but his failure to get results on oval tracks means that he loses to the more consistent Dario Franchitti.
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'''Andretti Autosport:'''
* ''James Hinchcliffe'' - [[Canada, Eh?]]. Landed with Andretti Autosport under the worst possible circumstances, because his ride belonged to Danica Patrick before she left for NASCAR and was going to be Dan Wheldon's before he was killed at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Despite all the baggage, has been very competitive now that he has better equipment to run with.
* ''Marco Andretti'' - [[Spoiled Brat|The Spoiled Brat]]. Despite having raced for several years with limited success, he still manages to be the epitome of immaturity when things don't go his way. Of course, following in the footsteps of your legendary father ''and'' grandfather must be no easy feat, considering many people believe he's [[Curse|cursed]].
* ''Ryan Hunter-Reay'' - Five wins across his CART/CCWS and [[Indy Car]] career, all of which have been on non-ovals or short ovals. Still best known for having Andretti buy a seat for him from A.J. Foyt after he got bumped from the 2011 Indy 500.
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'''Journeymen:'''
* ''Paul Tracy'' - [[
* ''Tomas Scheckter'' - [[Glass Cannon]]. Son of former [[Formula One]] champion Jody Scheckter, Tomas is best known for his spectacular outside lane charges on the ovals...and his spectacular wipeouts that often result from it (especially when he drove for Red Bull in the early 2000s).
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* [[Continuity Snarl]]: The rapidly changing array of tracks. Outside Indianapolis of course.
* [[Down to The Last Play]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZc_u2lfOeo The 2011 Indy 500].
* [[
* [[Every Year They Fizzle Out]]: Beside 1969, Indy has not been nice to the Andrettis.
* [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]]: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is more suited as such and much less so for Indycars with the narrow surface and few straightaways.
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** The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is commonly referred to as 'The Brickyard,' due to the paving bricks that originally made up the track surface from 1911-1962. Today, layers of asphalt cover the track, with the exception of the start/finish line, which is called 'The Yard of Bricks.'
** After experiencing horrible crashes at Indy and Milwaukee, Simona de Silvestro has been dubbed "The Iron Maiden" by the fandom, who remarked how easy it looked for her to bounce back from potentially career-ending wrecks.
* [[First
* [[Flame Bait]]: To this day, the CART vs IRL debate is taboo in [[Indianapolis]] and its surrounding environs.
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Many engines throughout history, most notably the Novi (1941-1966) and most recently the Infiniti (1997-2002).
* [[Hey
** In fact, quite a lot of NASCAR drivers started their careers in open-wheel racing. Drivers such as A.J. Allmendinger or Juan-Pablo Montoya.
* [[Hollywood Dateless]]: Some Indianapolis 500 champions have been unable to find full-season, competitive, or any [[Unfortunate Implications|rides]] afterwards, including Arie Luyendyk after his first win in 1990, Buddy Rice (2004), and Dan Wheldon (2005).
* [[In Name Only]]: In early 2003 Chevrolet engines were severely uncompetitive. The newer and faster Chevrolet engines used from midway through the season on were built by Cosworth. Specialized outside engine companies are also used by other manufacturers however.
* [[I Will Only Slow
* [[Irony]]: Tony George's original vision was an all-oval, all-American series that relies on cheap technology. Nowadays only a handful of Americans are driving in the series, more than half of races are driven on road or city courses while some teams have trouble funding a full-season drive.
* [[Laser
* [[Loophole Abuse]]: In the 1994 Indianapolis 500, Roger Penske entered a brand new pushrod engine. The top teams at that time used overhead cam engines, and so the rules favored pushrod engines over overhead cam engines as only small teams were expected to build them. Penske's cars turned out to be unbeatable in the race. By 1995 the loophole was closed, and pushrod engines no longer were at an advantage.
* [[Luck Based Mission]]: The second Firestone Twin 275 at Texas in 2011. The starting lineup was determined by a random draw as opposed to time trials.
* [[Ludicrous Speed]]: Physically, modern IndyCars, even as far back as the ground effect days in the late '70s and early '80s, were and still are extremely physically demanding cars to drive. Modern drivers are often examples of physical fitness just to cope with the G-forces of acceleration, braking and turning. Mentally, IndyCars accelerate and corner so quickly and are meant to be driven so fast in order to generate grip via downforce that a normal person would simply be unable to think as fast as the car can maneuver.
** The official fastest lap in motorsport belongs to Gil de Ferran in the CART series in 2000 at Fontana: 241.428 mph. Paul Tracy recorded a record top speed of 256.948 mph on the backstretch at Michigan in 1998.
* [[Money, Dear Boy]]: As with most upper echelons of motorsport, you get the occasional accusation of hiring a driver simply to gain money from the sponsorship they bring in.
** Milka Duno was brought in to drive for Dale Coyne because of the sponsorship money she brought with her from CITGO and... [[High Hopes, Zero Talent|well, we know how that turned out.]]
* [[The Movie]]: In 2001, Sylvester Stallone produced a movie based on the CART series called [[Driven]]. The result, as [[Bad Movie Beatdown (Web Video)|Film Brain]] put it:
{{quote| "Originally intended as a biopic of the late Ayrton Senna, it evolved into a racing movie set in Formula One. One problem: the Formula One bosses took one look at the script and told Stallone to get stuffed."}}
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* [[New Technology Is Evil]]: The reason why Tony George began the IRL series in the first place. He believed that the technology available to CART teams was such that it was more a case of better car than better driver. Therefore, his new series has been strictly spec-racing and has remained so even after Champ Car merged with IRL.
** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted somewhat,]] as IndyCar officials have announced a stack of new rules for 2014 that are designed to offer more freedom to designers, including more leniency on aerodynamics and the availability of more than one engine manufacturer.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Tony George's war with CART caused Open Wheel Racing to play second fiddle to NASCAR, losing drivers like Tony Stewart or A.J. Allmendinger in the process.
* [[Nitro Boost]]/[[Super Mode]]: Okay, while IndyCars may not use literal nitrous, the series has the "Push to Pass" Button, which gives cars an extra 5 horsepower for 12-18 seconds (depending on the track) to make overtaking a car easier during a race. However, they are only allowed a certain number of button-pushes (Again, depending on the track), and there is a cooldown period of 10 seconds after using it. The new engine packages in 2012 tentatively will have a 100 HP boost when activated.
* [[No MacGuffin, No Winner]]: Essentially the whole story of the 12-year 'Split' between CART and IRL. [http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/columns/story?columnist=hinton_ed&id=5195237 Right from the beginning in 1996] pundits were predicting that the only benificiary of an Open-Wheel racing civil war would be NASCAR.
* [[Only Known By Initials]]: A.J. Foyt.
* [[Part
*** The grid for the Indy 500 is 33 drivers instead of the usual 26-28, so it gives part-timers a chance to compete.
*** It ''is'' the Indy 500. Anything can happen in your favor.
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*** Not really, considering Wheldon was killed in a horrific fifteen-car accident at said Las Vegas finale...
** Ed Carpenter nearly won at Kentucky two years in a row in part time campaigns. He finished 2nd in 2010, only denied because of fuel strategy from Castroneves. [[It Got Better|Then he won the 2011 race edging Franchitti in a photo finish.]]
* [[Precision F
** [[Up to Eleven|Made more awesome]] by the fact that [[George Jetson Job Security|the censors didn't catch it]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|until it was too late!]]
** Cue profuse apologizing from the commentary team.
* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: Ganassi vs. Penske.
* [[Red Herring]]: Tony Stewart getting into, but not actually driving, one of A.J. Foyt's cars during Indianapolis 500 qualifying is believed to be this. At that time Stewart was a full-time NASCAR driver and may not have had any intentions of driving Foyt's car.
* [[Retcon]]: The 2011 MoveThatBlock.com 225 at New Hampshire. The race was restarted with 10 laps to go in rainy conditions on an oval. After several immediate wrecks, the race was red-flagged, and eventually stopped. For better or worse, the official results reverted to the running order before the restart, not after it.
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