What is the difference between IRL and the Champ car series?
There was only one series up until about 10 years ago (can't remember exactly when). It was called IndyCar or Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). Tony George, whose family owns the Indianapolis 500 race and the Brickyard (track) separated from the series to start his own (the IRL) by using the Indy 500 as leverage. His personal goal was that American racing a la NASCAR should be only on ovals with the Indy 500 as the top jewel in crown. CART in the meantime had become an international series with mostly international drivers (but was and is still an American series).
There was a separation by the owners in CART and the series split. Tony took the name IndyCar away (since you can't call a car that never races the Indy 500 and IndyCar and he owned the name) and created the Indy Racing League. The remaining CART owners had to come up with a new name - so using the C in CART came up with ChampCar. The split was rather bitter as the Indy 500 was no longer a race one just tried out for. The majority of the 33 slots went to teams & drivers who joined the IRL with a few slots left for all of the CART drivers and teams to compete for.
It has of course evolved over time and most of the drivers originally with CART are now racing IRL. The CART/ChampCar series remains international both in number of drivers as well as locations of the races and races on 3 kinds of tracks - ovals, road courses and on the streets of some cities. IRL remains 100% oval racing and 100% American. Essentially just like NASCAR except for the type of cars.
While the cars were the same at the time of the split - there are some differences now as the IRL cars race the same race to race on ovals, but the ChampCar teams have to adjust the cars each time to the type of track.
That's all I can remember - hope it helps! If you want to know more - you can access the archives of AutoWeek magazine. It was extensively covered there...
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