OPEN WHEEL AMERICA

The brainchild of Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George, the Indy Racing League was established in 1994 to provide American drivers with better opportunities to compete in the Indianapolis 500. After seeing top young talent like Jeff Gordon head to NASCAR because of a lack of sponsorship, and noting the greater European influence and expense of the CART World Series, George wanted to make the sport affordable once again for young Americans.

George's new series began competition with an abbreviated three-race schedule in 1996: a race at the new Walt Disney World Speedway in January, a race in Phoenix in March, and the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend, as always. One of George's two innovative (but poorly received and ultimately scrapped) ideas was for the season to end with the 500, allowing for the possibility of crowning the race winner with the series championship on the same day. Ultimately, the idea was dropped; teams had worked off of calendar-based contracts (as was, and remains today, the case in every other racing series), and changing proved too much of a hassle.

The other idea that George implemented was a rule guaranteeing the top 25 teams in IRL points entry into the Indianapolis 500. This rule addressed two concerns: First, it ensured that CART teams would not be able to steal the show from IRL regulars unless they ran the other two races as well (none did); second, it ensured that stars would not be left out of the race, as 1994 CART champion Al Unser Jr. was in 1995 when he and Penske Racing teammate Emerson Fittipaldi inexplicably failed to qualify for the race. Mocked at the time, a similar rule is in place today in NASCAR's national series.

George's league was designed for a tight budget; the 1996 cars were Lolas and Reynards that ran in CART between 1992 and 1995, while the engines were mostly older Cosworth, Ilmor, or Menard powerplants. The only truly established team to contest the 1996 season was A.J. Foyt Enterprises, owned by the four-time Indianapolis 500 winner. Team Menard, longtime competitors in the 500, also campaigned full-time cars, while fringe CART teams like Hemelgarn Racing, Dick Simon Racing, and Project Indy also made the switch. Walker Racing and Galles Racing were the only CART teams to field cars in the 500, and neither team brought their CART drivers to the track.

Generally, unknowns and has-beens made up the fields in 1996. Buzz Calkins (an example of the former) won the series' inaugural race at Disney World, while Arie Luyendyk (the latter) dominated the Phoenix round. Other CART rejects to compete included Mike Groff, Roberto Guerrero, Buddy Lazier, and Scott Sharp; young Americans who got their start in the series included Robbie Buhl, Davey Hamilton, and Tony Stewart.

The 1996 Indianapolis 500, the series' first big race, was the culmination of one of the least conventional months of May in the race's long history. Pole sitter Scott Brayton died in a practice accident six days after scoring his second 500 pole in a row. That elevated the young Stewart to P1 on race day, leading Davy Jones, Eliseo Salazar, Eddie Cheever, Lazier, and Guerrero to the green flag. Brayton was replaced by Danny Ongais, who started at the back of the pack. Luyendyk set new track records for single-lap and full qualifying runs after being disqualified for an underweight car on pole day, but was still mired in 22nd at the drop of the green flag.

While the CART race staged at Michigan as competition for the 500 was a failure, the low-budget league produced an exciting race. Stewart won Rookie of the Year after leading the first 31 laps of the race, although he lost his engine on lap 82 and finished 24th. Luyendyk and Salazar had an incident in turn one that knocked the former out of the race and the latter out of contention for the victory. Jones, Lazier, and Alessandro Zampedri were then left to battle for the victory. Lazier took the lead from Jones with eight laps to go, in what turned out to be the winning pass.

When Cheever lost an engine very late in the event and Sharp spun in his oil, crashing out, the race went under yellow with Lazier and a lapped car between Jones and the lead. USAC declared the track safe for competition with one lap to go, giving fans the chance to see the race finish under green. Lazier's Reynard-Cosworth was simply too fast for the Lola-Ilmor of Jones, and he took his first career open wheel win despite having broken his back in practice for the Phoenix round on the schedule.

ABC's Wide World of Sports franchise broadcast the event. In accordance with the words in its introduction, fans saw both the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" on the front straightaway during the final lap: On one hand, they watched a crippled yet talented young American driver take his maiden win in the sport's biggest race; on the other, they watched a horrifying accident between Zampedri, Guerrero, and Salazar coming out of turn four. Guerrero spun in front of the other two cars coming out of turn four, knocking Zampedri's car up in the air and into the catchfence as Salazar smacked the outside wall beneath him. For years, footage of the incident captured with a camera on the speedway wall was used in Wide World of Sports promos. Zampedri suffered serious injuries to his feet and finished last in the race the following year.