Indy Races’ Temple May Be Doomed Rift Creates New Race, Threatens Indy 500 Future

Jumping from the cockpit of his sleek Indy race car, Al Unser Jr. could be mistaken for a walking billboard. Seemingly every inch of his red jumpsuit is covered with corporate logos.

Unser’s garb is a fitting symbol for IndyCar racing. Its high-decibel, high-tech machines - capable of 240 mph on the straightaways - have fostered a $1 billion-a-year enterprise that has become one of America’s fastest-growing sports industries.

But as the 80th installment of the Indianapolis 500 - the sport’s premier event - draws near, the boom has been engulfed by gloom.

Like baseball, hockey and football before it, IndyCar racing is being ripped apart by an internecine dispute. Its very future is the focus of a bitter battle for control among its strong-willed owners and promoters.

For the first time in modern history, the biggest names will not be among the gentlemen starting their engines Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the famed 2-1/2-mile oval known as the Brickyard.

Instead, heavyweight drivers such as Unser, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal and Emerson Fittipaldi and he sport’s wealthiest owners are heading to rural south-central Michigan, where they are staging an inaugural, upstart event they call the U.S. 500.

The competing races are noisy manifestations of a dispute that dates back nearly two decades but recently erupted into a civil war. This Sunday promises to be the racing equivalent of Gettysburg.

“To put it simply, this is a battle for control of IndyCar racing,” said Cal Wells III, an IndyCar team owner from Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., who will shun the Indy 500 to race in Michigan.

The nasty feud pits two philosophically opposed camps against each other.

One - embodied by Brickyard owner Tony George and his new Indy Racing League - wants to regain more control and to democratize the sport that it argues has strayed from its oval-track roots and now is too expensive and removed from U.S. fans and drivers.

The other - represented by Championship Auto Racing Teams, the rich and famous of Indy racing who seized control of the sport in the 1970s - said its formula for success has worked. CART plans to keep raising the technology ante, offer a variety of racing venues and expand abroad to attract ever-bigger crowds and purses.

The dispute’s outcome is likely to decide whether the Indy 500 - an unparalleled American pageant and party that attracts 400,000 fans and last year drew a live TV audience of 12.8 million - will continue to be what its promoters call “the greatest spectacle in racing.”

Already, the spectacle of competing races has left many fans angry and dispirited. The dispute threatens to undermine corporate support and stunt the sport’s growth. It has driven away such familiar sponsors as Valvoline, Texaco and Honda from this year’s Indy 500 and appears to have begun eroding the sport’s all-important TV audience.

The split is certain to diminish this year’s Indy 500, already clouded by Friday’s death of driver Scott Brayton during a practice run. Winning will be no less lucrative - the champion earns more than $1 million - but the weak field studded largely with little-known rookies inevitably will cheapen the achievement.

The rift in Gasoline Alley, as Indy’s garage area is called, comes as motor sports undergo a remarkable renaissance. Much of the growth is attributed to NASCAR, which has used clever family-oriented marketing to expand beyond its good-ol’-boy Southern roots and ride its modified Chevys, Fords and Pontiacs to financial glory.

The faster, more exotic Indy-style cars - rear-engine, open-wheel machines whose only purpose is speed - may not have reached NASCAR’s commercial speed. But in attendance Indy racing is the third fastest-growing sport, lagging behind only stock cars and ice hockey. Attendance at the 16-race PPG IndyCar World Series is at an all-time high, up 50 percent since 1989 to an average of 141,000 per race.

The sport’s growing appeal has helped spark a racetrack development boom, as at least a half a dozen are being built.

Overall finances are difficult to ascertain, but insiders estimate IndyCar racing generates well more than $1 billion in annual revenues from sponsors, sanction fees, event receipts, TV rights and licensing fees for accessories.

“It’s unfortunate that when things are going so well that we have to be distracted by this,” said Rahal, a former Indy 500 winner and CART director.

Disputes are nothing new to IndyCar racing. The sport’s storied history, which dates to 1911, is replete with power struggles and fist fights. But this is the first conflict that pits the epic event itself against the biggest stars and cars.

Anton “Tony” Hulman George, a third-generation owner of the Indianapolis Speedway, talks of returning IndyCar racing to its oval-track roots. He wants to make the sport less expensive, adopt rules that ensure close competition and bring more young American drivers into the top rung of the sport.

CART, whose franchise owners include Penske, E.U. “Pat” Patrick, Dan Gurney and entertainers David Letterman and Paul Newman, favors a variety of venues - ovals, permanent road courses and temporary street courses. They are strongly opposed to restraining technology.

George aims to return his family to the throne as IndyCars’ rightful rulers. His supporters blast CART as a virtual cartel awash in conflicts of interest.

The team owners in turn call George crude and backward-looking, and insist they will not relinquish the driver’s seat.

“The feelings run deep,” said Cary Agajanian, a Los Angeles attorney aligned with George and whose family has long been involved in IndyCar racing. “This is all about 80 years of history.”

Always a grueling endurance test of man and machine, the Indy 500 was brought into the modern era by Indiana baking-powder magnate Anton Hulman, who acquired the rundown track in 1945 from a group headed by World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. Hulman refurbished the brick-laden speedway and created a monthlong extravaganza that annually pumps more than $100 million into Indianapolis’ economy.

Hulman died in 1977. The following year, seven of USAC’s top officials were killed in a plane crash. Their loss left a power vacuum that quickly was filled by team owners who were upset with USAC’s arbitrary rules decisions and lack of promotion of the sport.

Led by Patrick and Penske, these owner-drivers formed CART and began an IndyCar racing series independent of USAC and the Brickyard. The two sides coexisted uneasily: CART ran its series sponsored by PPG Industries, but its teams continued to run in the Indy 500 under USAC rules.

Change came when Hulman’s grandson, Tony George, became speedway president in 1989. George - a former race car driver of little distinction - moved to modernize Indy, brought in stock-car racing and upgraded the golf course on the Brickyard’s vast infield to championship caliber.

Most important, he began planning to reclaim what CART had wrested away. But, in an interview after being honored this month by the Indianapolis Athletic Club, the 36-year-old George denied he is trying to even the score.

“This is not about revenge,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Anybody who says that is misinformed. I’m more concerned with the future than the past. This is about having a chance to create a new vision.”