problems at Michigan in 1998 when one of Adrian Fernandez's wheels flew into the grandstands, killing three spectators. Similar worries about 'the big one' prevail at NASCAR's restrictor plate races, where the cars also run around in packs, throttle screwed flat to the floor.
Going back before the CART/IRL split and the introduction of today's dumbed-down rules, I fondly recall both the 1993 and '95 Indy 500s in particular as furiously competitive races with lots of people battling back and forth throughout the race. In '93, there was a fantastic shoot-out to the finish between Emerson Fittipaldi,
Nigel Mansell and Arie Luyendyk, and the top eight finishers that year were covered at the finish by ten seconds. The drivers could race and pass each other energetically and the field was plenty competitive.
Those cars were great-looking machines, sleek and clean. My friend and colleague Nigel Roebuck used to regularly take in the Indy 500 in those days, and would rave about how the Indycars of those days were the best-looking modern open-wheel cars, well ahead of
F1 cars to his eye. In contrast, today's IRL cars look angular and crude, distinctly un-sleek in fact, and all too similar aesthetically to NASCAR's boxey and unimaginative 'Car of Tomorrow'. In simple words, they're butt-ugly.
Through the late nineties, horsepower increased steadily as Honda and Toyota took on Mercedes-Benz and Ford/Cosworth. CART tried to control things by continually reducing boost limits, but the organisation was run ragged by the engine war between the engine manufacturers.
"Horsepower almost got out of control," Lisles recalled, "When you have a qualifying lap speed of 240mph, you know that you've got to make some pretty big changes."
During this time, CART adopted the Handford wing, designed by aerodynamicist Mark Handford, for use on the superspeedways. The wing was intended to reduce speeds and keep the cars from running away from each other, the opposite of today's problem of the cars running around in packs.
