Indy 500 Runs Solo Next Year

The Indianapolis 500 will have its racing date to itself next May.

Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc., the older Indy car sanctioning body, will not go head-to-head with the Indianapolis race, centerpiece of the newer Indy Racing League, but that does not mean the two racing organizations are any closer to peace.

The CART schedule, released Monday, shows a race at the yet-to-be-built Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill.--across the Mississippi River from St. Louis--on Saturday, May 24, the day before the Indianapolis 500.

The U.S. 500, which this year was run at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., on the same day as the Indy 500, will remain at the same track but will be run July 27, a traditional date for the track’s Indy car race. This year, there were two Indy car races at MIS.

Roger Penske’s new California Speedway in Fontana, which will open June 22 with a NASCAR Winston Cup stock car race, will be the site of CART’s season finale on Sunday, Sept. 28. It will be a 500-miler on the two-mile banked oval on the grounds of the old Kaiser steel mill.

“Our last race gives us the strongest schedule possible on the West Coast,” said Andrew Craig, CART president. “We now have five races--Vancouver, Portland, Laguna Seca, Long Beach and Fontana--in the West and we end our schedule in the biggest car market in the United States. That is great for Indy car racing, great for racing in general.”

Craig said the changes involving the U.S. 500 were made because “by racing on Saturday [instead of Sunday] we make a clear point that it is not necessary to race head to head with Indianapolis. On the other hand, we recognize that it is very important to race on Memorial Day weekend. We can’t leave holiday weekends alone.

“The message from our fans was clear, they wanted this important new race to remain in the Midwest. We felt the best way to proceed was to combine the new tradition of the U.S. 500 with the established tradition of the Michigan date.”

The Gateway track, a planned 1.25-mile oval five miles from downtown St. Louis, is being built by Chris Pook and the Long Beach Grand Prix Assn., which will also produce the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 13. That is one week after a street race in the Gold Coast of Australia.

On May 11, the first weekend of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, CART teams will be in Brazil for the Rio 400.

Realistically, because of IRL rules changes for the 1977 season, the two groups have no areas for compromise. Indy car fans will see two totally different series.

The IRL will have new rules, new chassis and new engines starting with the Indy 200 at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., on Jan. 25. The main difference is a switch from turbocharged racing V-8s to normally aspirated four-liter production engines built by Oldsmobile and Nissan.

CART, which expanded its season to 17 races, will retain its existing rules. Its engines are turbocharged V-8s from Ford, Mercedes-Benz, American Honda and Toyota.

Among CART’s leading drivers are Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal, Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi.

The IRL is an all-oval track series with such drivers as Buddy Lazier, Arie Luyendyk, Tony Stewart, Roberto Guerrero, Buzz Calkins and Eddie Cheever.

Last season, several drivers--Richie Hearn, Robby Gordon, Mike Groff and Davy Jones--drove in races in both series because rules were similar and both groups used cars built by Lola and Reynard.

“To run with CART and try to run at Indianapolis would mean a team would have to set up an entire program, because of the new [IRL] rules, just to run one race,” said Bruce McCaw, a CART board member and owner of the Pac West team. “I can’t see anyone doing that.”

Next year, the new IRL chassis will be built by Dellara of Italy and G Force of Britain. Riley & Scott of Indianapolis will also build IRL chassis, but not before next April.

“Our cars will be safer, slower and louder than what Indy car fans are used to,” said Tony George, IRL president and owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “The normally aspirated engines won’t sound like a stock car, but they won’t sound like the old Indy cars, either. Something in between.

“There is no top-speed target, but our engineers speculate that the cars will be down in the 218-222 range for the Indianapolis 500,” George said.

Scott Brayton set a qualifying record of 233.718 mph last May, but later was killed while practicing.

The IRL has also scheduled races at two new venues next year, a night race June 7 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and June 29 at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado Springs.