Talk:IndyCar

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WikiProject Disambiguation This page is part of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

This article is part of the WikiProject American Open Wheel Racing, a collaborative effort to improve and standardize articles related to open wheel Indy car racing in the United States, with an emphasis on the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series. The projects encompasses a wide range of open wheel topics, including Champ Car. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

See also Talk:Champcars for much more on the same subject.

This article should absolutely NOT be merged with Champcars. In the truest sense of the word, Indycar can only currently refer to cars which run the Indy 500, which are the IRL-spec. In the interests of fairness and historical accuracy this provides just a generic meaning for the word, and points to both acceptable classes of car. Kurohone 05:38, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that this is today's status, whereas in the past the terms "IndyCar" and "ChampCar" were synonomous. For instance, before the creation of CART, USAC sanctioned not only the Indy 500, but a whole long series of races (venues varied, but it usually included Milwaukee, Riverside in California, a couple of tracks in Pennsylvania, etc - I'll have to go get all my USAC yearbooks from the 60's and 70's for details) - and those cars were called Champ Cars (also Gold Crown cars - the Silver Crown series of today existed back then, and the Champ Cars were one step up).
After CART split off, USAC still sanctioned one race (the Indy 500), but the car specs for CART and the Indy 500 were identical. And those cars were also called Champ Cars. Etc, etc.
So, yeah, it does need to be one article. Now, I'd have put it at IndyCar, myself, but it doesn't matter that much to me. Noel (talk) 06:04, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've also removed the External Links which only pointed to IRL sites...the IRL article already has links, we don't need duplication on what is essentially a redirect stub. Kurohone 05:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jnc, from 1996 to the present, the term cannot be applied to Champ Cars - per lawsuits and legal action the ability of CART to use "IndyCar" was removed - hence the series was renamed to the FedEx Championship Series. IndyCar is today a trademark of the IRL and to apply the term to Champ Cars is technically and legally incorrect. "Champ Car" is the technical and legal name for the cars which race in the Champ Car World Series. It should NOT be one article - Champ Cars and IndyCars are TWO different cars built to two different sets of specifications which race in TWO different incompatible series. --FCYTravis 20:18, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I understand that that is true for 1996-today, but it most definitely not true of prior time periods. And the Wikipedia doesn't just document today, but also history. And historically, "Champ" cars ran the Indy 500, and were thus "Indy" cars.
For instance, I am looking at the official 1967 USAC Yearbook, and it describes the cars as "Championship", see. e.g. page 14. You will find the Indy 500 for that year on page 34 - run in the "Championship" car division. (The Yearbook also includes "Sprint Car", "Stock Car", and "Midget" divisions.) The shorted form "Champ" is also used in official USAC publications - e.g. I'm looking at "USAC News" for January 31, 1969 (Volume 1, Number 4) where on page 1 the series is described with "Champ". So it's not just slang.
Interestingly, I just looked carefully through the 1966 and 1967 Official Program for the 500, and they don't call them either - they just call them "cars".
Clearly, the article needs to explain the situation for the post-1996 period, that the terms are not synonomous then. However, in other periods they were synonyms, and the article needs to reflect that too.
Sure, we could have separate ChampCar (1996-present) and ChampCar (whenever-whenever) articles, with a disambiguation page at ChampCar, but that would IMO be really silly. Noel (talk) 23:39, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think the ChampCar page as it currently exists is starting a reasonable point in that direction, by listing the pre-1979 USAC champions under them. Basically, until 1996 'IndyCar' was a just a popular-usage misnomer; noone 'offically' called their cars that, to my knowledge. But few people outside fans know that it was incorrect. This page I think should provide a gentle nudge towards one of the two 'correct' car types, and certainly not be tied to anything specific. Kurohone 04:07, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Check out e.g. Doug Nye, McLaren: The Grand Prix, CanAm and Indy Cars (1988); Alan Henry, March: The Grand Prix and Indy Cars (1989); Mike Lawrence, The Story of March (1989; Chapter 17 "March Discovers America" speaks of them building an "Indycar" in 1981); Doug Nye, The Single Seat Lotus: Formula 1 and Indy Cars (1978). Most of these books were done with the assistance of the factories, so I think it's incorrect to say that "noone 'offically' called their cars that". Heck, Colin Chapman even wrote the intro for the Lotus book, you don't get much more official from Lotus than that! Noel (talk) 05:38, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
PS: Having said that, I am generally in agreement that the page should point people toward the correct page, for people who are interested in the post-'95 cars. Clearly, for that period the two are different things. I would have been happy to put it all on one page, but if people prefer two separate ones for the post-'95 period that's fine with me. Noel (talk) 06:29, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
IndyCar most certainly WAS an official name before 1996 - the series operated by CART was called the IndyCar World Series from 1980 to 1997 - it was just the IndyCar Series in 1979. The entire branding was based around IndyCar until the formation of the IRL in 1996 forced legal battles over the name, which CART had licensed from IMS. The result of that litigation was that CART changed the name of its cars and series to "Champ Car" and "Championship Series" respectively - and the IRL was prohibited from using "IndyCar" as the name of its series until 2003. In 2003, the IRL took advantage of the legal allowance and renamed itself "IndyCar Series." End result: they are TWO SEPARATE SERIES with TWO SEPARATE CARS with TWO SEPARATE SANCTIONING BODIES. IndyCars are not legal to race in Champ Car races and Champ Cars are not legal to race in IndyCar races. I do not see why you persist in the fiction that Champ Cars are IndyCars. That was ONCE true - but it is NOT true today. By your logic, we should merge F1 into IndyCar because from 1950 to 1959, it was legal to race F1 cars at Indianapolis. --FCYTravis 04:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It's not a "fiction" - I went to great trouble to pull down the official publications of the relevant sponsoring bodies and give you title and page citations to their use of the term.
Which you basically concur with, saying "That was ONCE true". Yes, exactly. And an encyclopaedia contains information about the past as well as the present. And in writing about those past cars, their formal name is "Championship" or "Champ" cars. Noel (talk) 05:45, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
To reply to myself - CART renamed its series "Champ Car" based on that long USAC and AAA tradition. Certainly the "Champ Car" article should and DOES mention that part. The series claims the pre-1979 races as part of its heritage - essentially, Champ Car is the continuation of the lineage of the AAA and USAC National Championship Trail. All of which is included in the "Champ Car" article. I would not be opposed to creating a new page called "Champ Car World Series" and adding the more series-specific information there, but merging "Champ Car" and "IndyCar" conflates and synonymizes two different spec cars built for different series, to different rulesets and run by completely divergent and usually-conflicting sanctioning bodies. There is a lot of history and politics involved in the history of USAC, CART and the IRL, and because of that, we need to be as specific as possible to avoid confusing readers as to what is what today. IRL = IndyCar. Champ Car World Series = Champ Car. --FCYTravis 05:10, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'll bet that the IRL would make exactly the same claim to the heritage - and would no doubt claim that its ties to the Indy 500 give it the better title. (I personally don't give a hoot - the whole dispute leaves me cold.) So that line of reasoning's not too useful.
Interestingly enough, they don't - reason being that CART "got there first." The IRL has never claimed that its champion is part of the "National Championship Trail" lineage. If you go to the IRL Web site there is not a single mention of races other than Indy before 1996. They've never claimed to be a part of it. Conversely, official Champ Car releases, Web sites and documents contain links back. Case in point - the 2003 Media Guide contains complete records of the National Championship dating back to 1909, including champions, race winners, track records and schedules of every National Championship season conducted by the AAA, USAC, SCCA/CART and finally CART. Included even are results of the rump 1979 USAC season run in competition with CART. The history clearly shows that there is one series that has linked itself with the National Championship Trail history, and that series is Champ Car.--FCYTravis 07:05, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't know offhand what to do with the pre-'95 history and all. I'll have to ponder that for a bit. The thing is that pre-'95, there was only ever one national champion in any year. Yes, the sanctioning body changed over time (AAA -> USAC -> CART), but there was always only ever one person each year, for all those decades. It would be nice to keep that all together in one place. Post-'95 there are two competing ones, and that's where it gets difficult.
Now that I've thought about it some, though, there's a problem, which is that if we put the '79-'95 champions on a unified "national champion" page, and have two pages for post-'95, then the CART people are split across two pages (pre and post '95). ::: So this is what seems best. Let's move the list of champions to a new page, List of US Open-wheel National Driving Champions (by analogy with List of Formula One Champions, etc), although it doesn't have to be exactly that title - anything roughly like that would be fine with me. Then, on that page, we have 4 sections: "AAA", "USAC", "CART", and "Post-'95", with for each of the first three, a couple of sentences at the head describing the way things were, and then the list of winners (and years) for that regime. In the "Post-95" section we have a header at the top describing the split (as long or short as you want), then two sub-sections: "CART/OWRS" (or whatever), and "IRL", and then the two separate lists. (If this sounds similar to the way Wikipedia deals with competing royal houses, it is, quite deliberately!)
Then the IRL and CART-OWRS pages can be about their cars, etc How does that sound? Noel (talk) 06:22, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable and appropriate way to do things - and it will certainly "shorten up" the Champ Car and IndyCar pages without the clutter of endless lists at the bottom.--FCYTravis 07:08, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] IndyCar/Indy Racing League

The majority of the IndyCar article is already covered under Indy Racing League, to a casual fan they are both one in the same.

The article for ChampCar is what a single IRL article should look like.

  • Since the term "IndyCar," and thus the term "IndyCar Series" now flatly refers to the "Indy Racing League," there is no need to have a seperate page. The spirit of the page is not directed towards "Indy cars" (i.e., open wheel cars in general...that topic is better served over at American Championship Car Racing and Open wheel car) I support the merging of the topics.
    • As a side note, I think "Indy Racing League" should remain as the page, and "Indycar" should redirect to "Indy Racing League" Doctorindy 17:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Reading some of the discussion above, which appears to be about 2 years old now, there needs to be some clarification on what IndyCar currently refers to, and how it was used previously. I think there is enough text in both articles to merge and creat a clearer picture about the history of the use of the name. As I have been generating pages for each of the Indycar series races, I have made it clear that open wheel races held prior to the IRL (sanctioned by AAA?USAC/CART/CCWS) were "different," but generally a lot times they can be regarded as the same "event" throughout the years. Doctorindy 17:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
      • How about the IndyCar becomes a disambiguation page, with all the information about the modern IRL IndyCar Series on the Indy Racing League page, and all the information about the former CART PPG IndyCar World Series is on the Champ Car page?65.49.221.155 05:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Sounds like a worthy idea to think about. The entire organization of American open wheel racing on Wiki is still a mess, and that could mark at least some progress in cleaning it up. Doctorindy 21:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
          • It would also be possible to simply have the history of the IndyCar name in this article, and then point people to the articles for the respective series (IRL Indycar post-2003, and CART PPG IndyCar pre-1997) --CorSter 04:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • (deindent) The disambiguous link type article is an interesting solution! Maybe there could be a series of links to articles, with a small paragraph (or less) describing what the link covers. Here's a first stab at the concept, the names need to be adjusted:
    • AAA - (19?? - 19??) original sanctioning body of the racing genre
    • USAC - (19?? - 196?) sanctioned the series until ...
    • CART - (196? - 199?) A description of the series before the split
    • IRL - (199? - present) Tony George decided to create his own sanctioning body for sanctioning the Indy 500.
    • Champ Car after split - A description of the current series after the split
      • I think the generally accepted dates are
        • AAA 1909-1955
        • USAC 1956-1979 (two series in '79)
        • CART 1979-2003 (two series in '79)
        • IRL 1996-present
        • Champ Car 2004-present (post CART years)

Doctorindy 20:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


I will post messages on WikiProject NASCAR and WikiProject IROC to illicit conversation here.

I think that the Open wheel car article needs to remain as it is, as it explains the variety of cars that fit in that category. Royalbroil 04:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "I am Indy"

I was wondering if I should create a separate article regarding Indy’s official theme song, “I am Indy”. The song is the first official theme song for a modern professional sport. The new article could explain its purpose in Indy’s marketing campaign, list its lyrics, and have more information about its authors. Does this sound good idea? Would it be better to just create a separate subheading within this article? Master Strike 19:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have more than a few sentences, then Be bold and Go for it! There are probably thousands of notable songs on here. It should meet the WP:MUSIC guideline by the criteria: "Has performed music for a work of media that is notable, e.g. a theme for a network television show. (But if this is the only claim, it is probably more appropriate to have a mention in the main article and redirect to that page.) " Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia! Royalbroil Talk  Contrib 13:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay but I might need lots of help since I'm still new to Wikipedia. Master Strike 19:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

I think we have some agreement about making IndyCar a disambig page. I can think of three links off the top of my head..

  • Indycar---> or "Indy car", referring to the style of car....direct to Open wheel car
  • Indycar---> referring to the CART series basically called the "Indycar World Series" (1979-1991) and "IndyCar" (from 1992-1997)....direct to Champ Car
  • Indycar---> Referring to the IRL, which adopeted the name 2003-present....direct to Indy Racing League

I think that all of the text present in the current IndyCar article can be merged into the Indy Racing League article, specifically under the heading "History of the IndyCar name" and under a seperate header describing the current IndyCar Series in short detail. I notice there is only passive mention of the "IndyCar Series"

If there is no noticeable objection in the next few days, I'll procede with the merging/redirecting of the articles shortly. Doctorindy 17:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree about creating a disambiguous page. I think it should have an atypically long description compared to most dis. pages. It should include the names and dates, and a sentence or two per link. In my mind a fair bit of the data should remain, with the exception of the longest paragraph, but the format of the article should change. The song should be broken out into its own article (per above). We can work out those details after you create the disambiguous page. I propose creating a temporary subpage such as Indycar/Proposed due to my unusual suggestion. We can work out the details there. We can have the page deleted after we work it out. We should keep the discussion here, to make the deletion easier. Royalbroil Talk  Contrib 14:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with this 100%--74.108.99.181 00:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I love the direction that this article has taken. Great job of grabbing the lead, doctorindy! Royalbroil Talk  Contrib 00:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intention?

What is this article about? It is marked as a disambiguation page, but it doesn't disambiguate anything, and doesn't follow WP:MOSDAB. The page contains several assertions that are unreferenced, and seems quite POV -- quite an accomplishment for a disambiguation page. Indy Cars have a long history; why isn't it written-up here? -- Mikeblas 14:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The history of IndyCars are under the CART (Champ Car) and Indy Racing League pages, respectively, based on the series that sanctioned them at the time (CART prior to 1996, IRL after 1996). CorSter 06:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
This page was created after a very long discussion (see above). The page has its unusual format because the history of the series involved required a long discussion to explain the difference between each. There are numerous series involved including forks in the evolution of the cars. There are currently two series running the cars. It is an unusual disambiguous page due to the unusual circumstances. Note that WP:MOSDAB is a guideline, and this is the occasional exception. The page is the core of WikiProject American Open Wheel Racing. No clean way to deal with the problems was found. You can propose a better way to deal with this page at WP:AOWR. Royalbroil 12:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of the IndyCar name

This new section was added by User:GoldDragon. We arrived at the unusually long disambiguous page as a earlier compromise, which was against the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) guideline. Since guideline can be broken with consensus, this is fine, and the discussion has been used to justify its former state. Now there is much more text, discussion should determine whether or not this section should be kept. Or should the page be not marked as disambiguous? Please comment below. Royalbroil 12:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep the section. The only change is adding the history of the term. The disambiguous portion of the page is still used and relevant. I could see removing the disambiguous template from the page though. I could go either way on that topic. Royalbroil 12:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Merge the separated sections into a cohesive single article. As the term originated from the people/fans, not from a corporate entity, and referenced the literal "Indy cars/machines," its development over time should be elucidated furst, and the current uses of it should be catalogued thereafter. --Chr.K. 23:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand. You want the text simplified. What do you want to merge it into? Royalbroil 05:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
The article is currently divided into two major sections: the disambiguation, and then the history. But as the term has only one single origin, both sections can and should be merged into one whole, starting out with an explanation of where the term came from, then proceeding to explain the development of the different forms it might now be applied to. I.e., disambiguation is not what is necessary so much as elaboration, as to how the subsets developed into present form. --Chr.K. 01:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok. You want to change the page from a disambiguous page plus history into history text with wikilinks. Then it would no longer be a disambiguous page. How would this new direction for this article differ from the current American Championship Car Racing article? Royalbroil 04:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
The American Championship Car Racing article currently focuses primarily on the history of the sport, especially the politics that have made it what it is, with very little information on the technical specifications that distinguish the machines themselves from either Formula One or any similar type of open-wheel racing cars. Emerson Fittipaldi once gave an ITV interview wherein he described such differences, most notably how the Indycars are heavier than their international counterparts in order to account for the much higher speeds they reach, and how the engines are designed to take a steadier constant stress than their F1 counterparts but accordingly sacrifice velocity derivation and gearshifting time in order to achieve such. Maybe this means there should instead be an American Championship Car article which includes direct comparisons between the two major American open-wheel racing series technical regulations as well as between American and international standards, but on the whole, we have a split page, wherein its both the beginnings of historical explanation of how the term has become what it has in the modern day, but also in dividing matters up at the top of the page. Is this page to be disambiguation of the name, or specification of the THING itself? To effectively glue both together, either in this article or others, seems to me a bit...amateur in style, not to offend anyone? I think we can do better. Thoughts. --Chr.K. 20:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your patience. I think I finally understand now. You are suggesting that the article should have a section showing the history of the term, then the article would have a section discussing the current use of the term. Your proposal sounds reasonable. A comparison article between numerous genres of motorsports has been suggested at WP:MOTOR here. Please bring it up there for the conversation needs reviving anyhow. It would be appropriate to compare the two series in this article even if it would duplicate something that would exist somewhere else. Royalbroil 00:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Updates

I've made a few updates to the page; first off, I moved IndyCar Series above IndyCar World Series since the latter is a league that is no longer operating. Secondly, I changed to the wording of the World Series section to the past tense to reflect that it is not in existence, and also mentioned that it CCWS merged with the IRL. Charles 22:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move

An uncontroversial move of this article took place without discussion or mention on this talk page. I dispute the move, so I moved the article back pending a discussion. The IRL's official website and other media outlets at a google search [1] all use the CamelCase "IndyCar". Royalbroil 03:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, IndyCar is the form of the term that is technically correct in any sort of print. -Drdisque (talk) 03:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)