But of course, politics, power struggles and the CART/IRL civil war ruined all that, allowing
F1 to carry on unperturbed and unchallenged as the world’s only major form of open-wheel racing.
Today, Champ Car is trying to be what CART once was, but without any ovals and only six 2008 races in the United States - the smallest number in the ninety-nine year history of what was once the American national championship.
Champ Car is trying to focus on international or European expansion while the IRL is a Midwestern-centred, oval-based series with little or no interest in adding international races. The two series are almost mutually exclusive entities, neither serving the continuing gap in the market created by CART’s failure.
For indeed, much more so than a dozen years ago, there remains a yawning chasm in the global racing landscape for exactly the alternative to F1 that CART once was.
To read the rest of this Gordon Kirby column and other 'The Way It Is' columns go to www.gordonkirby.com
