Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a
sanctioning body
A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken g ...
for
American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to
Championship Auto Racing Teams
Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) was a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 1979 to 2003. It sanctioned the PPG Indy Car World Series from 1979 until dissolving after the 2003 season.
CART was founded in ...
(CART), which sanctioned the 'PPG Indy Car World Series from 1979 until dissolving after the 2003 season.
Vehicles
![Sebastien_Bourdais_2005_Long_Beach](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Sebastien_Bourdais_2005_Long_Beach.jpg)
Champ Cars were single-seat,
open-wheel
An open-wheel single-seater (often known as formula car) is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have thei ...
racing cars
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
, with
mid-mounted engines. Champ cars had sculpted undersides to create
ground effect and prominent wings to create
downforce
Downforce is a downwards lift force created by the aerodynamic features of a vehicle. If the vehicle is a car, the purpose of downforce is to allow the car to travel faster by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip. ...
. The cars would use a different aerodynamic kit on the occasions they raced on an oval.
With funds low, development was effectively frozen with a focus on developing a universal chassis, and the series generally ran on CART-spec 2002
Lola
Lola may refer to:
Places
* Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama
* Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States
* Lola Prefecture, Guinea
* Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture
* Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands
People
* Lola ...
chassis from 2003 to 2006. The new chassis was developed by
Panoz
Panoz is an American manufacturer of sports automobiles founded in 1989 as Panoz Auto Development by Dan Panoz, son of Don Panoz. Panoz products have included the Panoz Roadster and AIV Roadster, the Panoz Esperante, and the Panoz Avezzano.
Pa ...
and debuted in 2007 as the
Panoz DP01
The Panoz DP01 is an open-wheel car that was produced by Élan Motorsport Technologies at Braselton, Georgia, United States. It was developed for use in the 2007 Champ Car World Series season, replacing the aging de facto-spec Lola chassis. The ...
. The chassis was well received by drivers and fans.
The series leased 750hp
2.65 L V-8 turbocharged Cosworth XFE engines to teams, which had been purchased by CART for the 2003 season.
History
CART, after the departure of a number of top teams and engine manufacturers to the rival
Indy Racing League
The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...
, declared bankruptcy after the 2003 season.
Gerald Forsythe
Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and Iri ...
,
Kevin Kalkhoven
Kevin Oscar Newton Kalkhoven (1944 – 4 January 2022) was an Australian venture capitalist and auto racing magnate based in California. He served as CEO of JDS Uniphase and was an investor in Cosworth Group Holdings Limited, an automotive tech ...
, and
Paul Gentilozzi founded Open-Wheel Racing Series LLC to bid on CART's assets and continue the series as its own entity. The IRL intended to bid a higher amount but had only committed to purchasing the series' Cosworth engines and the sanctioning contract for the
Long Beach Grand Prix
The Grand Prix of Long Beach (known as Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach since 2019 for naming rights reasons) is an IndyCar Series race held on a street circuit in downtown Long Beach, California. Christopher Pook is the founder of the event. It w ...
, effectively to make the series untenable and allow a takeover on their terms. OWRS was successful, as its bid allowed the highest probability CART vendors would get paid.
Once CART's assets were secured, the series began a major push to be able to field enough cars and drivers for the April Long Beach Grand Prix, with the final drivers announced just before practice began. The series featured three longtime CART teams,
Forsythe Championship Racing
Forsythe/Pettit Racing was an American racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series owned by Gerald Forsythe and Dan Pettit. The Champ Car effort ceased operations after the 2008 unification of North American open wheel racing.
Histor ...
,
Newman/Haas Racing
Newman/Haas Racing was an auto racing team that competed in the CART and the IndyCar Series from 1983 to 2011. The team operations were based in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Newman/Haas Racing was formed as a partnership between actor, automotive enth ...
, and
Dale Coyne Racing
Dale Coyne Racing (DCR) is an American professional open-wheel racing team that currently competes in the IndyCar Series. The team was founded in 1984 and is owned by former driver Dale Coyne. From 1995 to 2000, the team was known as Payton-Coyn ...
. OWRS also became owners of the
Trans-Am Series
The Trans-Am Series is a sports car racing series held in North America. Founded in 1966, it is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA).
Primarily based in the United States, the series competes on a variety of track types includ ...
and the
Atlantic Championship
The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...
. Champ Car was able to maintain a full field and most of CART's street circuit sanctioning agreements for 2004.
Champ Car eventually moved into a 'de facto' all road-course format. The series would experiment with dramatic rule changes, including special compound tires that were to be used for a fixed portion of the race, standing starts, and timed races.
Both Champ Car and the IRL continued to suffer from reduced fields, sponsorship, and television ratings. Merger talks in 2006 were halted after disagreements regarding Champ Car's upcoming Panoz chassis and leaked details of a shared new series upset IMS. The
2007 season saw the withdrawal of Bridgestone and Ford as presenting sponsors and some race cancellations.
By January 2008, both the IRL and Champ Car feared they did not have enough participating cars to maintain their TV and sanctioning contract minimums. After successful merger negotiations, in mid-February 2008, Champ Car authorized bankruptcy to facilitate a February 22 agreement in principle to merge with the IRL.
The IRL purchased the CCWS's sanctioning contracts, the Champ Car Mobile Medical Unit, the series history, and
goodwill for $6 million, with Forsythe and Kalkhoven signing a
non-compete agreement
In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition again ...
in exchange for $2 million each.
While the first "merged" event of the rechristened "
IndyCar
INDYCAR, LLC, is an American-based auto racing sanctioning body for Indy car racing and other disciplines of open wheel car racing. The organization sanctions five racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with its centerpiece the Indianapolis ...
Series" was the
GAINSCO Auto Insurance Indy 300
The Grand Prix of Miami refers to an intermittent series of American open wheel races held in South Florida dating back to 1926. AAA held one board track race in 1926, and then the facility was destroyed by a hurricane. The popular CART IndyCar ...
from
Homestead-Miami Speedway on March 29, 2008, due to a scheduling conflict with the
2008 Indy Japan 300, the
2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach was held on April 20, 2008, as a Champ Car sanctioned event using CCWS-spec Panoz-Cosworth cars and the winners getting IRL points, with the event described as a final celebration of CART/CCWS.
Television
Spike TV
Paramount Network is an American basic cable television channel owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Media Networks. The network's headquarters are located at the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles.
The channel was o ...
aired all races in 2004, with select races aired on high definition channel
HDNet.
In 2005 and 2006, coverage was split among NBC, CBS, and Speed Channel. In 2007, coverage was split among NBC, CBS, ABC, ESPN,
ESPN2
ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%).
ESPN2 was initially fo ...
and
ESPN Classic
ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns 20%).
The channel was originally l ...
.
Champions
References
*
{{Reflist
Auto races in the United States
Organizations established in 2004
Organizations disestablished in 2008
Defunct auto racing series