CART U.S. 500 1996 Michigan Start Crash

The 3 by 3 start at the inagural U.S. 500 in May 1996. The same weekend the first ever IRL Indy 500 took place with a field of no bodies as all the great CART/Indy Car drivers were at Michigan.
www.myspace.com/champcarblade

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• CART
• Indy
• Champ
• Car
• U.S.
• 500
• Michigan
• International
• Speedway
• Vasser
• Zanardi
• Andretti
• de
• ferran
• fittipaldi
• tracy
• al
• unser

[airben3]

Actually the old Cart is pretty much the new IRL. The only difference between the two series is the guy in charge. Either way I'm really glad all parties were able to put their differences behind them.

[THEkingjaymz]

This is a foreshadow of CART's future

[PCCphoenix]

I remember seeing this with my grandfather on live TV. This race clearly wanted to "make history," but clearly NOT like this.

[nicoffspring4500]

the champ car miss !!!

v8 turbo 750,800 hp these cars were very beautiful. 240 mph!!!

irl I find less attractive 600 650hp 225 mph

[manthing43]

@crvorhees  I was there. They got their back-ups out and had a great race. I came home & watched the Indy 500 on videotape and it was atrocious. Indy car racing has never recovered from this awful year.

[allstarchris1]

@erasetoimprove I hope Indycar will climb back, they need to have a race again at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ where I live only 10 minutes from there. Indycar needs to have a presence in the NJ/NY market something that Nascar does not have if they want to get more fans interested in the there form of racing. Don't get me wrong I'm a huge Nascar fan and F1 fan but what Tony George did was wrong.

[erasetoimprove]

@allstarchris1 who cares which one is more important? What's important is that ALL forms of American Auto Racing succeed. If just one succeeds, that's not a good thing. Indycar will climb its way back one day. Never in the history of motor sports has a series dominated for more than a couple decades. We've seen F1, Indycar/Cart, NASCAR, Road Racing.... it's all been at the top at one point or another. That's just how the wheels turns in racing.

[HollywoodSheen]

this was the beginning of the end of CART.

[crvorhees]

I was at the Indy 500 when this happened. I was listening to this race on a walkman and I couldn't help but laugh. The announcers were talking about how this was the race to be at and the greatest drivers in the world were there. Then they destroy the field before the race even started.

[AmerkFlack]

Yeah rookies were at the INDY 500?  Who were these cats?

[cheese2507]

Nowadays, that would be the whole field.

[allstarchris1]

CART and IRL both lost in the open wheel war cause all it did was make NASCAR the more popular form of racing here in the U.S.A. Thank you Tony George you A-HOLE!!!