Indy 500 2012: Why the Open-Wheel Split Caused NASCAR’s Boom

The damage that open-wheel did to itself was sort of like giving oneself an amputation.CART and the Indy Racing League battled each other for a little over a decade for American open-wheel superiority. The open-wheel world saved itself when Champ Car was absorbed into IndyCar in 2008. It is slowly evolving back to the way it was in the 1980s and early '90s. CART was the series that had the edge in the early going. It had more money behind it with FedEx providing sponsorship and the bigger names in open-wheel racing including the Andrettis, Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and Greg Moore.It even formed a protest race that happened at the exact same time as the Indy 500. The US 500 at Michigan International Speedway (held on the same week...

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