about Champ Car

The World’s longest running racing series; The American National Championship began on June 6, 1909 and has had only four governing bodies; AAA (1909), USAC (1959-1979), CART (1979-2003) and Champ Car (2004 to present). As in the 1909, the series still runs on a variety of tracks including natural terrain road courses, street courses, ovals and super-speedways.

Past Champions include some of the most influential names in racing; like Andretti, Rahal, Fittipaldi, Unser, Mears, Villeneuve, Mansell, Zanardi, Montoya and Tracy.

A Champ Car is a single seat (commonly called open wheel) racing car. For much of their history Champ Cars have been similar to Formula One cars, although there have traditionally been several key differences between the two.

  • Over the years, Champ Cars raced mainly on high speed oval tracks. The increased stress and speed of these tracks means that the cars tended to be heavier and more sluggish than F1 cars, which race exclusively on road courses.
  • Since the late 1960s Champ Cars have used turbocharged engines. Turbos were banned in Formula One on safety grounds in 1989.
  • Champ Cars use methanol for fuel rather than gasoline. This is a legacy of a crash at the 1964 Indianapolis 500 in which two drivers were burned to death by a gasoline-fuelled fireball.
  • Champ Cars continue to have sculpted undersides to create ground effect. This innovation was originally created in Formula One by Lotus in 1978, and was immediately used on the Chaparral Champ Car in 1979. F1 banned ground effects for safety reasons in 1982.

For many years Champ Cars were also called 'Indy Cars' after the Indianapolis 500. However, since 1996 they have not run at the Indianapolis 500 as that race became part of the separate Indy Racing League which uses different specifications for its cars. The term Indy Car is now trademarked to the IRL in the United States, but Champ Car races in Australia and Canada continue to bear the Indy name.

For more information on the Champ Car World Series visit: www.champcarworldseries.com

Champ Car Team