The Split

The Split refers to the time 1996 - 2007 time period. It began when Tony George wanted to create a series that focused only on oval racing. CART began adding more road courses to there schedule in the early 90's to the dismay of Tony George who decided to create his own league named the IRL (Indy Racing League) starting in 1996 with only 3 races on the schedual for the inaugural season Walt Disney World Speedway and Phoenix Internation Raceway joined open wheels biggest race the Indy 500 for the 1996 season. The CART series protested the 96 Indy by staging a race at Michigan the same day called the US 500 which featured most of the well known drivers in American open wheel racing.

Attendance took a huge toll within a few years, both CART and the IRL were soon struggling to stay affloat. In the early 2000's most of the big teams in CART began switching to the IRL which began to run road course races as well. Prior to the 2008 season it was announced that the IRL and CART would both merge to create the IndyCar Series.