The United States of IndyCar - An alternate TL

[Ferrarist]

Inspired by the alternate WRC thread, I decided to write a story on my own. Here it is, an alternate IndyCar TL. Enjoy and don't shy away from giving me feedback. After all, how should I know what to improve, if no one tells me?

The United States of IndyCar

Prologue

American open wheel racing has always been associated with the Indianapolis 500. One can say that American open wheel racing was given birth by the Indy 500. So naturally, open wheel racing has always been closely tied to Indianapolis. In 1955, Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman founded the United States Auto Club (USAC) as a new sanctioning body for open wheel races in the USA, when the then sanctioning body, the AAA, stopped their officiating of any racing series. But the thought of racing being directly controlled from Indianapolis, drew the ire of some team owners. It finally reaching boiling point, when team owners like “Pat” Patrick or Roger Penske broke away from USAC, to form their own sanctioning body called “CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams)”. As CART won out over USAC, USAC begrudgingly accepted defeat and allowed CART to take over the Indy 500 completely, although USAC continued to sanction that race.

Not every person involved with this sport was satisfied with CART. Among the most vocal of them was A.J. Foyt, who stayed loyal to USAC until its bitter end. He didn’t like the course CART was taking, like cutting down on oval races in favor of street courses, or relying on ride buyers from abroad, instead of home grown American talent. But Foyt was alone with his stance, and he couldn’t find someone who shared his concerns. That was until a certain Tony George entered the scenery.

George became president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1989, at a relatively young age of 30. But he was closely connected to A.J. Foyt, given that Foyt was George’s godfather. George has also witnessed the downfall of USAC, and thus the decreasing influence on American open wheel racing by Indy. From his point of view, the IMS should exercise at least some influence over the direction of IndyCar racing.
George shared similar concerns to Foyt. He also thought that IndyCar should put its main focus on the United States; therefore it should also primarily consist of American drivers. But his first attempts in enforcing changes to the sport were only met with laughter by the CART owners. At this point, George was close to dropping the ball with CART. He had already gathered thoughts for an own IndyCar series, which was supposed to be directly led from Indianapolis. When he talked with Foyt about his plans, he confirmed his full support. But something happened afterwards that made George reconsider his plans.

In 1991, a young Jeff Gordon became the USAC Silver Crown Championship. Before him, the crown was won by the likes of Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt or Al Unser. His father, who was sort of his manager back then, tried to give his son a seat with an IndyCar team. But one team after another declined. Either because they thought that Gordon needed more experience with the more powerful single-seaters (For example taking a year in the Indy Lights or Formula Atlantic series), or because they demanded some sponsorship money. When Tony George heard of this, he contacted A.J Foyt immediately, trying to make him give Gordon a seat with his team. Even Foyt was hesistant back then, but to do his godchild a favor, he invited Gordon for some testing at the Texas Motor Speedway. The rest is history. Foyt was so impressed with Gordon’s speed that he immediately signed him for the 1992 season. Little did he know that he had just signed a future IndyCar superstar, but he also reignited Tony George’s ambition to change IndyCar “from inside”. George saw that changes could be made, if the team owners wanted. He didn’t want to confront them anymore, but rather cooperate with them. He knew that it would be a tough nut to crack, but who said that George has to fight alone?

[Phoenix]

The irony is that, after all these years, Indy racing has become a series dominated by drivers from outside the States again. Only Ryan Hunter-Reay seems like he can run at the top right now.

[TomWazzleshaw]

The irony is that, after all these years, Indy racing has become a series dominated by drivers from outside the States again. Only Ryan Hunter-Reay seems like he can run at the top right now.

That's mostly because Andretti Green (The only top team, if you can call it that, to hire Americans on a consistent basis) are physically incapable of making more than one competitive entry at a time

[Ferrarist]

I find it odd that two people have posted in this thread, yet no answer has anything to do with what I wrote. Does this mean that my writing is good? Or is it bad? But I guess since only few things happened, nothing much can be said for now. By the way, the more things change compared to RL, to longer the updates get. Therefore, the chapter on the 1992 season is rather short.

The 1992 season

The 1992 IndyCar season saw a fierce battle between Bobby Rahal and Michael Andretti, all the way to the last race of the season. In the end, it was Bobby Rahal who won out closely over Michael, thus taking the PPG Cup. The 1992 season saw also the retirement of veteran driver Rick Mears, whereas Al Unser or A.J. Foyt were also slowly scaling back on their races, making way for a new generation of racers, such as Al Unser Jr., Jeff Gordon or Robby Gordon (Not related with Jeff). While “Little Al” has already had some success in IndyCar, including a highly-dramatic win at Indy in ’92, the Gordons were just at the beginning of their career. But both have already shown glimpses of their talent, with Jeff consistently finishing in the top 10, with a 5th place at Indianapolis being his best result. Consequently, Jeff won the “Rookie of the Year” award, and A.J. Foyt saw that he did the right thing by signing that young fellow. For 1993, Foyt decided to step even shorter, thus having two full-time cockpits free. Jeff already occupied one, but the other was also going to be occupied by a Gordon, Robbie Gordon that is. But this weren’t to be the only changes for IndyCar…

Michael Andretti decided to jump across the pond, just like his father did in the 70’s. With him being away for 1993, driving for the McLaren team, some already feared that IndyCar might have become that a glorified feeder series for Formula One. After all, guys like Al Unser Jr. or Paul Tracy would also go on testing for Formula One teams. But then, Newman-Haas Racing made a shock announcement. They announced a signing of a new driver for the 1993 season. Not just an ordinary driver, but none other than the 1992 Formula One World Champion, Nigel Mansell! Mansell’s move over to IndyCar put the series on the map of the mainstream, and suddenly a worldwide audience wanted to see IndyCar racing, just to see how the reigning World Champion would do in a relatively unknown environment. Many fans claim that the Mansell signing truly started the “golden age” for IndyCar, but some people forget that the way was pretty rough to where IndyCar nowadays is.

[Ferrarist]

Even if no one gives feedback, I'll go with this to the bitter end

1993 season

Before the 1993 IndyCar season started, many people didn’t have any clue about how Nigel Mansell would fare. For once, he didn’t have any oval races throughout his racing career. But modern IndyCar were also quite different from the high-tech Formula One cars, especially his dominant Williams FW14B. Mansell’s answer to all doubts was his first ever IndyCar victory at his first ever IndyCar race at Surfers Paradise. But that’s not to say that his PPG Cup win was a walkover. He fought all year with Penske’s driver Emerson Fittipaldi, but in the end, Nigel Mansell managed briefly to hold two championships at the same time, as he was still the reigning Formula One world champion.
In the 1993 season, it became more and more apparent that IndyCar has become a melting pot for driver from all over the world. Drivers from 16 different nations competed in the 1993 season, with drivers from the United States being the majority of course. Over the last couple of years however, drivers from Canada, South America, Asia and Europe found their way into the series. Naturally, some people started to ponder if IndyCar was still “American”, and if American drivers were still given a fair chance to enter IndyCar. If one looked at A.J. Foyt’s team, he might have been proven wrong. The “two Gordons” had a pretty good year, with both drivers occupying top-10 spots in the championship. 1993 was also the first year where Jeff Gordon competed in the iconic DuPont livery, thus earning him and team owner A.J. Foyt some money. Due to promising results in 1993, Foyt’s team was seen as the “Great American Hope”.
But Foyt wasn’t the only team owner to make for headlines. At the last round of 1993 season at Laguna Seca, two teams announced their entry for the 1994 IndyCar season. The first one was an Indianapolis-based team, run by John Barnes and Gary Pedigo, called Panther Racing. Given that the team was based in Indianapolis, rumours quickly arose about whether Tony George was giving financial aid to the new outfit, rumours George neither confirmed nor denied.
The next team didn’t need any financial aid, as its owner was already a billionaire. His name was John Menard. Prior to the 1994 season, Menard has only entered Indy, but now they wanted to make a big shot at the IndyCar series. There was one tiny problem; Menard has been famous for their V6 pushrod engines, based off a Buick unit. Most teams used turbocharged V8s however, so it took Menard some persuasion with CART. After some negotiations, CART finally allowed pushrod engines for 1994. There were fears that Menard would walk over the 1994 championship, but as it turned out, it wasn’t Menard that would profit from the rule change…