1996 Champcar season

The 1996 Champcar World Series season is the first season after the American open-wheel split and also the first to be branded under the Champcar World Series banner after partially losing the rights to the Indycar name used before. Overall it is the eighteenth in the CART era of U.S. open-wheel racing

The American Open Wheel Spilt

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner, Tony George founded his own open-wheel series with the intention of competing with the already established series sanctioned by CART. George had been unsatisfied with the direction U.S. open-wheel racing seemed to be heading in with spiraling costs, and a dwindling number of American drivers. Thus he formed the Indy Racing League with its first season set to run in 1996 with the aim of keeping costs low by banning teams from constructing their own cars and encouraging teams to stick to American drivers as he felt this was the way CART should have remained. Many fans have dismissed the new series as little more than a "gloried 'Murica series", "backward redneck" and even "borderline-racist" referring to George seemingly attempting to keep international drivers out of his series.

Indeed it seemed that the Indy Racing League would be unlikely to challenge CART as the main open-wheel series in North America as only three CART teams; A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Project Indy and Della Penna had entered the new series and all three of them have also still entered a car in Champcar as well. The rest of the teams consisted mainly of low budget operations that most fans had never heard of and the same could be said of the drivers. However George had one trump-card up his sleeve in the Indianapolis 500. His intention was to keep the CART teams out of the crown jewel event by allowing only a small amount of the grid to go to teams outside the IRL and taking the event off the CART schedule. However he could only succeed in guaranteeing his series, ten of the 33 starting births in the race with the rest to be set by speed, whats more he was unable to completely steal the event away from CART and the Indy 500 would now feature on both the IRL and CART's schedules. Many fans consider this a relief and a victory for the integrity of American open-wheel racing as this meant that the great race would be contested by the best drivers from both series.

This looks to be a huge blow for George's plans as he had planned on mandating production based engines from the 1997 season but he was forced to abandon these plans in order to keep the IRL teams were to remain competitive with the CART teams in the Indy 500, causing costs for the IRL to be not much lower than in CART. However George achieved one victory in managing to end CART's license to the Indycar banner though the IRL were restricted from using it themselves until the 2003 season. CART as a result have now rebranded themselves as the Champ Car World Series rebooting the term, Champcar that had been used before the CART era began in 1979.

Teams and Drivers

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Engine	Tyres	No.	Race Drivers	Sponsors	Rounds
Marlboro Team Penske	Penske-Cosworth	PC-25			2	Jos Verstappen (R)	Marlboro/Food 4 Less
					3	Christian Fittipaldi	Marlboro/Food 4 Less
Target Ganassi Racing	Ganassi-Honda	CG-96			4	Michael Andretti	Target/Mobil 1
					12	Al Unser Jr.	Target/Mobil 1
Walker Racing	Walker-Mercedes	W101			5	Roberto Moreno	Miller/Kmart
					15	Bertrand Gachot (R)	VISA/Kmart
Newman-Haas Racing	Newman Haas-Honda	NH01			6	Alessandro Zanardi (R)	Texaco/Havoline
					11	Greg Moore (R)	Budweiser
Pac-West Racing	Reynard-Cosworth	96I			7	Mauricio Gugelmin	Delco
					17	Eddie Cheever	LCI International
Jim Hall Racing	Hall-Mercedes	JHR1			8	Kenny Bräck (R)	Pennzoil
Hogan Racing	Penske-Mercedes	PC-25			9	Parker Johnstone	Alumax/Copec
					99	Robby Gordon	MCI/Copec
Galles Racing	Reynard-Honda	96I			10	Adrián Fernández	Tecate
					55	Gil de Ferran	SmithKline Beecham
A.J. Foyt Enterprises	Lola-Mercedes	T96/00			14	Michele Alboreto (R)	TBA
Bettenhausen Racing	Reynard-Mercedes	96I			16	TBA	TBA
Brahma Team Rahal	Rahal-Honda	R1			18	Bobby Rahal	Brahma
					28	Raul Boesel	Brahma
Payton-Coyne Racing	Lola-Toyota	T96/00			19	TBA	TBA
					34	TBA	Mi-Jack
Patrick Racing	Patrick-Honda	P96			20	TBA	Firestone
					40	Jimmy Vasser	Shell
Forsythe Racing	Forsythe-Cosworth	F196			22	TBA	Indeck/Menards
					33	TBA	Motorola/Menards
Arciero-Wells Racing	Arcerio Wells-Cosworth	001			25	Hiro Matsushita	Panasonic/Cristal
					52	TBA	Copenhagen/Cristal
Players Team Green	Green-Honda	NH01			26	TBA	Players
					27	Paul Tracy	Players
Castrol Tasman Motorsports	Tasman-Toyota	100			31	Scott Pruett	Castrol
					32	Max Papis (R)	Castrol
Valvoline American Racers	Eagle-Cosworth	MK-V			36	TBA	Valvoline
					98	TBA	Valvoline
Della Penna Motorsports	Reynard-Mercedes	96I			44	TBA	Herdez
Comptech Racing	Reynard-Cosworth	96I			49	TBA	Hollywood Cigarettes
Project Indy	Reynard-Toyota	96I			64	TBA	No Touch