And don’t believe for a moment that peace and love was found between the warring factions on the way to the rostrum. Or, more accurately, the rostrums.

Inside CART’s 2001 Texas debacle: Silent running

Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 2, 2021 5:42 PM



One final act was required on Sunday. At approximately 12:00 p.m., a press conference would be held to break the news that the Firestone Firehawk 600 would be postponed for a late, undefined date, to give the series and its partners time to tweak its TMS formula and return to race at lower speeds.

And don’t believe for a moment that peace and love was found between the warring factions on the way to the rostrum. Or, more accurately, the rostrums.

Robin Miller: The way CART handled it with Jabbering Joe Heitzler was comical. Jabbering Joe had a press conference and he wanted (TMS president Eddie) Gossage to come in with him. Gossage says, “I’m having my own press conference.”

Mike Zizzo: When we decided that we’re not going to hold the race, we had to get together on both sides, come up with our strategy, a little crisis management in terms of your press conference on who’s going to be our speakers and such. I went to the TMS side and said, “Hey, does Eddie want to join us? We need a united front here and we’ll have a press conference and we’ll work on messaging to make sure that we’re all aligned on what we’re going to say about the event, etc.” They come back to me and Eddie told me, “No, we’re going to have two separate press conferences.” And I was like, “Well, I don’t think that’s the way, you know, we should go..”

And he says, “Well, that’s the way I want to go.” And I said, “Well, OK.” And of course I said, “Well, since you’re the host, Eddie, you can go first.” The reason for that was that I wanted to hear what he said before we had to go on and do our press conference. And he said, “Oh no, no, no, no, no, you’re the guest. You get to go first.”

It was his facility, it was his race weekend, so we went first and just had Dr. Olvey explain about the large amount of G forces. If I recall correctly, I think it was a 23-second lap and they had sustained G forces each lap for like 18 of the 23 seconds. You basically needed a G suit to race.

In front of their partisan congregations, Gossage vented and CART faced the music. Despite shouldering most of the blame, the series would later thank one of racing’s most famous surnames for cultivating goodwill among some influential reporters in attendance.

Mike Zizzo: We had our press conference and I had to recruit drivers to join us. I had, and still do have a ton of respect for Michael Andretti. I said, “Michael, can you please do this press conference?” I said, “The Andretti name…and you’re one of our biggest stars.” And he’s like, “Yeah, I don’t know.” He didn’t want to get in the middle of it and I don’t blame him, but I pleaded with him because I said, “It’s so important to the series that we put you out front.” He was gracious enough to do it and help out CART at that time.

Robin Miller: CART, in USA Today, the Indy Star, and some big newspapers, they were heroes because they put driver safety first. Other than Eddie Gossage going off on them, they got fabulous coverage for taking care of the drivers.

In what’s been described as feeling like a death notice had been delivered, tens of thousands of fans were informed the race would not be held. It went over like a proverbial fart in church.

Dr. Steven Olvey: The people in the stands, of course, they went nuts, called all our drivers sissies and babies and all that kind of thing.
Race ticket holders weren’t interested in the explanations for the abrupt cancellation. Phil Sedgwick/Motorsport Images

Mike Zizzo: There were fans screaming at drivers and calling them cowards. We’re getting booed and stuff thrown on us when we’re leaving, and there were tons of people still coming into the track for the race.

As hostilities grew, one pit crew member recalls receiving explicit instructions to swiftly exit as a sizable number of fans vented their frustrations.

“It was really sobering on race day,” he said. “We weren’t sure what was going to happen. After the race was cancelled with 60,000-something fans there waiting for a show, our team manager told us to go change out of our team gear, put on our street clothes; the most Joe Normal things we had to blend in with the fans, take off any parking passes on the car and anything that might I.D. us as members of a racing team, and get out of there as fast as we could in case it went bad.”

 

With the race cars packed away in their transporters and sent down the road for a race the next weekend in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the CART paddock moved on from Texas as quickly as the speed limit allowed. The three-day saga, born from all manner of mistakes, would become an infamous chapter in a year that brought CART to its knees.

Inside CART’s 2001 Texas debacle: Silent running

Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 2, 2021 5:42 PM



With the race cars packed away in their transporters and sent down the road for a race the next weekend in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the CART paddock moved on from Texas as quickly as the speed limit allowed. The three-day saga, born from all manner of mistakes, would become an infamous chapter in a year that brought CART to its knees.

Intensified by Zanardi’s sickening crash at the CART race in Germany just four days after 9/11 — when a similar sentiment of not wanting to race was expressed, this time, out of respect for the lives lost in the terrorist attacks — the once-proud series was becoming unrecognizable.

Safely removed from the rightfully outraged TMS fans and the immediacy of Gossage’s scorn, CART took the safe and predictable route of announcing the Texas race would not be rescheduled. Signed as a three-year deal, the bad blood accrued throughout the ordeal ensured the experiment would not survive beyond 2001.

In a subsequent lawsuit filed by TMS for a breach of everything, CART was rumored to write a check for $3.5 million in a private settlement that served as a fitting end to a miserable marriage.

Mike Zizzo: It’s crazy it’s been 20 years. I look back and I still don’t see a reason to play the blame game. It was a lose-lose for everyone. This was going to be a great event for Texas Motor Speedway. It was going to be a great event for CART. We both lost on this one.

If there’s a sense of pride to be found amid the regret within this grand fiasco, it’s in the decision to protect CART’s most valuable assets.

Helio Castroneves: The promoters, some of the team owners…everybody’s upset. But I have to say that if Dr. Olvey and the drivers weren’t united that day that we shouldn’t race, probably someone would not be here to tell the story.

Oriol Servia: I was in a very small, rookie team. For us, we had a great qualifying, which was huge. The car felt great. This was going to be a big deal for us. And I cannot tell you how relieved I was that the event was canceled. I mean, it was absolutely the right thing to do. It was going to be a disaster. We couldn’t do more than 10, 15 laps without losing control of our bodies. It was that extreme, it really was.

Wally Dallenbach: And the fact of the matter was it was a very unfriendly move that had to be made and we took the responsibility with the support of the doctors and the support of some of the drivers that it was a good move. I was very disappointed and a lot of us were brokenhearted that we had to do that. I took the fall for it, and I’m OK with. But I would have never lived it down if we’d have killed a driver there knowing that we had a problem. And we did have a problem; we were going too damn fast for the configuration of a mile and a half racetrack.
Lessons were learned, but few have regrets over the decision taken to cancel. Motorsport Images

Mike Zizzo: Looking back, one, I wish we probably would have done more due diligence in terms of testing, but no one could have predicted the speeds would have gone as high as they did. The biggest thing is I wish we could have only needed to postpone it. I just felt terrible for the fans. I just wish we didn’t hurt the fans. But to this day, I still think it was the right decision.

I don’t think a lot of us could have lived with ourselves if we would’ve lost a driver that day just to put on a show. It was basically like putting jet fighters on a track. And it’s all about the drivers’ safety, whether or not due diligence was done. It’s always about the drivers’ safety.

You should never sacrifice a driver for an event. And I live by that today.

 

The glorious series founded in 1979, responsible for some of the greatest Indy car racing the sport has known, limped through the 2002 and 2003 seasons before declaring bankruptcy. A handful of wealthy CART team owners bought the series and relaunched it as Champ Car in 2004, which survived through early 2008 and faded into history when another collapse and the ensuing purchase by the Indy Racing League led to its permanent shuttering.

Max Papis, driver, Team Rahal: I still believe that the race pace would have been dramatically slower and we would have not had any problem. I think the race pace would have been in the 210s, and I don’t think it would have been at 230mph. But in hindsight, if they would’ve asked me, I was ready to jump in the car and race, simple as that. Maybe I pissed a lot of people off when I tell them that I was ready to race, but I was. I would not lie and that’s why I’m a true, genuine competitor.

When I look back at it, it was maybe what CART deserved in that moment. So many bad mistakes made that they contributed to the sport’s collapse. This was maybe one of the things that people should have looked at and said, “Yeah, we’re making many mistakes.” Instead, they kept drinking the Kool-Aid until the thing shut down. To me, that was the saddest part and it ended up with a bankruptcy of one of the most amazing sports. I tell people I won some CART races, and they don’t even know what it is.

Most people with a reasonable understanding of all that went down in Texas would place the heaviest blame on the series’ side. CART, as a business and sports entertainment organization, failed its paddock, sponsors, and fans. It’s an indisputable truth.

But there’s an underlying tone that’s emerged since 2001 and it doesn’t sit well with one of its former officials as a steady drumbeat of blame continues to flow from the track’s president against an organization that no longer exists.

Chris Kneifel: The fact that Eddie Gossage, to this day, is still the one writing the history on it; that’s the only thing that bugs me. I understand that he got put in a bad spot, but he was part of the damn thing. But he’s still the one out there talking about it, because he’s controlling the narrative and he’s got the bully pulpit to do it. But that’s his personality, too. That’s Eddie Gossage for you.

And in terms of taking shots at CART, fair enough, that’s his opinion. I can’t tell a guy not to have an opinion. But rather than just say, “You know what, those [CART] guys, it was a bad deal for the fans, but they made the right call.” He’s the only one that would never say that.

Invited to take part in this feature series, Gossage declined, citing a lack of desire to rehash the past while in a partnership today with the NTT IndyCar Series.

Of note, and while in partnership with the NTT IndyCar Series, Gossage rehashed the subject in 2015 on the event’s 15th anniversary in a NBC Sports web feature. Created with the assistance of TMS, the story, which paints a flattering portrait of Gossage as a whistleblower and victim, caught Kneifel’s attention.

Another story on the event’s 19th anniversary, this time with The Indianapolis Star, and while TMS was in partnership with the NTT IndyCar Series, followed a similar one-dimensional pattern as the track president rehashed 2001 while apportioning 100% of the blame on CART.

This, too, drew Kneifel’s ire.

Chris Kneifel: If Eddie was that concerned, why did he bring the cars there to race? Right? Seriously, dude. You have the racetrack. I wouldn’t disagree that one or however many tests that were done wasn’t sufficient. Fair enough. I’m not going to argue that at all. But take the counterpoint to what he’s saying: OK, well then why did you ask these guys to come race there?

If you were that certain, if you were that positive that those cars were going to be too fast, why did you do a three-year deal with them? Makes no sense. It’s revisionist history. Control the narrative.

One might draw the conclusion that Kneifel and his mentor would be satisfied if Gossage dialed down the rhetoric from 100% blame to 99.

Wally Dallenbach: I have a basic rule. If you don’t have anything good to say about somebody, don’t say it, and that’s where I am with Eddie.

Gossage isn’t without sympathy for his views, though.

Robin Miller: You had to feel a little bit sorry for him. They did a good job of promoting the race. They had a title sponsor. The thing of it was, in Texas, CART left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. It was good for the IRL and bad for CART. But nationally, with all the positive press CART got for taking care of the drivers, they got more good publicity than they probably ever had.

It seems fitting how the some of the same people who couldn’t agree on how to save the Firestone Firehawk 600 back in 2001 are unable to find common ground or extend olive branches 20 years later.

There’s a strange piece of history sitting in Kenny Brack’s house. It’s the trophy he received — a helmet, of all things — for winning the pole at a race that never happened. In typical fashion for the Swede, a marvelous yarn was spun.

Kenny Brack: I always say that you can have records, but people always break your records; it’s just a matter of time. Very few records stand the test of time because of technology and better people and whatever it is. But if you go for records that nobody wants to hold, then you can hold them for a long time. Like my pole for this race the only time CART went there. And I have another record nobody has from Texas.

People have had many crashes there since then, but they’ve been in the 60-100 G range, and mine [in 2003] was 214! And it’s still a world record, I think, for a racing crash. I was explaining to my son, I said to him, you know, if you want to get a record, do it in something where people don’t really want to go after that record. So my Texas crash falls into that category!

But I still have the helmet they gave me for winning the pole. It’s one of the trophies that’s got quite a unique history to it. Really, there’s nothing like it.

The opening day of practice for CART at Texas Motor Speedway was April 27, 2001, and we know how that story ended. That date is also tied with another infamous failure for CART as the film that carried hopes of bringing the series mainstream acclaim and stardom went down in flames as one of the worst racing movies ever made.

Mike Zizzo: I should have known there was going to be an issue at the race. The week started with us getting a bunch of media and industry types to kick off the week by watching the premiere of “Driven” at a local Dallas-Fort Worth movie theater. What a ****show.

 

Twenty years later....2021
Dixon dominates for Race 1 victory of Texas IndyCar doubleheader Barry Cantrell/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 1, 2021 9:55 PM

Scott Dixon pulled open his playbook from when he throttled the field at Texas Motor Speedway in 2020 and put it to good use as he completely dominated the opening oval race of 2021 on Saturday night in Dallas-Fort Worth.

During the opening half of the NTT IndyCar Series doubleheader at TMS, the New Zealander swept past teammate and polesitter Alex Palou on Lap 3 and controlled the 212-lap show to earn his first win of the year, fifth at TMS, and set a new record by earning at least one victory in 19 consecutive seasons.

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Bourdais crashes out early after contact from Newgarden at Texas

Kanaan paces IndyCar practice at Texas

Texas IndyCar qualifying cancelled due to weather

Behind Dixon, a fellow Kiwi in Team Penske rookie Scott McLaughlin was the star of the show as he wheeled the No. 3 Chevy from P15 to P2, just 0.2646s behind his idol.

“Man, I love this place,” Dixon said. “It was a bit of a crazy night for us. It was cool to be racing a countryman for those last laps. Fifth win at Texas, that was pretty awesome. That was cool! We won, that’s what counts.”

McLaughlin couldn’t believe he ran runner-up to Dixon in his first oval race.

“I’ve never been this bloody happy with second,” he said. “I didn’t have enough for Scott (Dixon) at the end but it was cool battling with one of my all-time heroes. Two Kiwis, 1-2, that’s fantastic and I can hardly wait until tomorrow.”

Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward was crestfallen after starting on pole to open the season at Barber Motorsports Park, only to lose the chance to win after a poor strategy call by the team took the No. 5 out of contention. Fortunes swung in the opposite direction at Texas Race 1 as a call by the same strategist—AMSP president Taylor Kiel—to pit early in the window at the mid-point of the contest vaulted O’Ward forward.


Although he wasn’t a match for Dixon or McLaughlin, O’Ward claimed P3 and put a rough event last weekend at St. Petersburg behind the team.

“That was the call, man,” he said. “I knew we had such a fast car. I knew in clean air we could make up some positions. What a great race car. We’re ready for tomorrow. This is a very good step in the right direction.”

Consider how CGR was the only major team to skip testing at Texas prior to the event, and Dixon’s win, coupled with Palou’s educational run to P4, Marcus Ericsson’s superb form prior to a pit stop error, and Tony Kanaan’s spirited run from P23 to P11 would suggest the four-car squad outperformed expectations.

“It was a good day,” Palou said of the No. 10 Honda effort. “I learned a lot. It was the first time we’ve finished on an oval in the top five. We were good, but just needed more experience.”


For good measure, CGR led every lap, with Dixon responsible for 206 and Palou the other six.

Graham Rahal, always a strong performer at Texas, was P5, and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, penalized and sent to the back of the lead lap for hitting and crashing Sebastien Bourdais, recovered to complete the top six in the No. 2 Chevy.

Running P6 at the time, Bourdais was slowed by Colton Herta, and from behind, Newgarden tipped the A.J. Foyt Racing driver into a spin after nosing into the No. 14 Chevy’s attenuator. Bourdais was uninjured, but his car was a thorough mess after clouting the wall on Lap 55. The second and final caution arrived on Lap 158 when James Hinchcliffe spun and crashed after being passed by Felix Rosenqvist. Like Bourdais, Hinchcliffe, whose return to the series as a full-timer has been punishing, walked away uninjured. The damaged No. 29 Andretti Autosport Honda should be repaired well before Sunday’s race.

The Genesys 300 wasn’t a thriller, but it added to a number of themes that have developed through the opening three races. Honda-powered drivers are 3-0. CGR drivers are 2-1. Andretti’s team has a win with Colton Herta, who retired on Lap 190 with malfunctioning rear brakes. Team Penske is 0-3. And Jack Harvey, who isn’t out to make friends, holds P5 in the championship with the upstart Meyer Shank Racing team.

RESULTS

The battle resumes on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET.

AS IT HAPPENED

With qualifying cancelled after rain delays left a minimal amount of time between practice and the race, the field took the start for 212 laps of intense action based on championship points. It meant that some drivers would start near the front after running poorly in practice, while others who showed a lot of pace were taking the green flag from midfield or the back of the 24-car pack.

Starting P1, Alex Palou charged into Turn 1 with teammate Scott Dixon directly behind. Dixon swept around the outside on entry to Turn 1 on Lap 3. By Lap 10, Dixon held a 1.3s lead over Will Power in third. Lapping at approximately 24 seconds per lap, Dixon was nearly a half-lap ahead of last-place Dalton Kellett by Lap 15. Palou, comfortable in P2, was roughly 0.5s behind Dixon as the two circulated in tandem.

By Lap 20, Power was 1.5s back from Dixon, Colton Herta was 2.0s behind in fourth, and Simon Pagenaud was 3.0s arrears in fifth. Lap 23 showed Dixon’s margin to Josef Newgarden in P11 was 6.5s and Alexander Rossi in P14 was 8.4s. CGR was in command early.

As teams reached the halfway point in the stint, early progress from some at the back was frozen as Tony Kanaan, who started P23, was stuck in P20. Conor Daly started P24, made it to P23, and didn’t progress. The story was similar throughout the field.

Lap 42 arrived and Newgarden was 12.0s behind Dixon in P11; Lap 43 showed Pato O’Ward 13.6s back in P13 and Rossi 14.6s down in the same P14.

By Lap 50, Dixon was into lapping the tail-end cars as the field was circulating in the 202-205mph range. Graham Rahal was the first to stop on Lap 52 as the rest of the field were expected to do the same within the next 8-10 laps. Packed up behind Daly in P23, Dixon and those in his wake were slowed to a crawl—a lap of 191mph by the leader—while stuck behind the slowest runners.

The first caution flew on Lap 57 when Sebastien Bourdais crashed after being hit from behind by Newgarden. Bourdais was running P6 when it happened.

The timing of the crash impacted those who were behind by Dixon and Palou and pitted just prior to the stoppage. Power, Marcus Ericsson, O’Ward, Pagenaud, Sato, Rahal, and a few others would fall out of the top 10 once the pits opened. Newgarden was sent to the back of the cars on the lead lap for taking out Bourdais.

Dixon, Palou, and the others needing fuel and tires pulled in on Lap 64 as IndyCar took a fair amount of time to reposition certain cars while circulating under yellow.

The green waved to start Lap 72 and Dixon nailed the restart over Palou. Power was down in P13 until O’Ward got by; Pagenaud ran P15. The top Penske driver on Lap 83 was Scott McLaughlin in P6, chasing Rossi.

The race’s second stint fell into a familiar routine by Lap 95.with Dixon holding 0.6s on Palou in P2, 3.5s on Herta in P3, 4.4s to Jack Harvey in P4, and 4.7s to Rossi in P5. Lap 100 showed Ed Carpenter, Ryan Hunter-Ready, and Daly P21-P23, running a lap down to Dixon. Palou was 1.0s back from the leader.

O’Ward was first to stop on Lap 113 at the early side of the second pit stop window. As the pace slowed on ageing tires, Dixon’s margin to Palou remained stable at 0.7s or so, but the group in P3-P6 were all within 3.0s as average speeds fell to 201-205mph. Once past Dalton Kellett’s car, Dixon dialed up the speed to put 2.2s over Palou on Lap 118.

 

It moved out to 3.7s on Lap 120 as Dixon turned a 209mph lap—faster than all but the few like O’Ward who were on new Firestones.

Palou was 6.9s back to Dixon on Lap 124 and the leader pitted on Lap 126 with a handy advantage to the rest of the field. Once the rest of the drivers cycled through pit lane, the decision to leave Palou out for a few more laps allowed Rosenqvist and McLaughlin, who came in early, to take P2 and P3 as the CGR driver emerged in P4.

By Lap 140, Dixon’s lead over Rosenqvist was 2.8s, while being 5.2s up on McLaughlin and 5.9s to Palou. Stuck behind Hinchcliffe in P21, Dixon’s lead was cut down to 0.2s on Lap 154, but once he got by the following lap, it grew to 1.3s by Lap 157 as Rosenqvist and McLaughlin were left to try and find a way by the Andretti driver.

Hinchcliffe was in the wall on Lap 160 as the second caution was required to a car from Turn 2. A pass by Rosenqvist into Turn 1 happened without crowding the Andretti driver. Hinchcliffe’s car appeared to have an inadequate amount of air reaching the front wings at a crucial cornering phase and as a result, the car slid up the track, spun, and hit the wall with the left-rear corner.

The Lap 176 restart was identical to the last as Dixon charged away. McLaughlin was 0.6s back by Lap 181, O’Ward was 1.1s arrears in P3, Palou was in P4 with a 1.4 separation and Herta was 1.5s behind in P5. Newgarden, having overcome the Bourdais penalty, was P7 as the field had more than enough fuel to go full speed to the finish.

Saving tires was the only mission that mattered in pursuit of the checkered flag.

 

2021:
Saving tires was the only mission that mattered in pursuit of the checkered flag.

 

Did you say 20 second lap times?