While the US racing merger is in many ways a bright new beginning, it has also marked the end of a once great and much-loved championship, as the Champ Car World Series took its final bow at Long Beach last weekend.
Born as CART, and briefly known as Indycar, the series that ultimately adopted the Champ Car appellation deserves to be remembered for much more than just being defeated by the Indy Racing League.
Its parlous final years do Champ Car a disservice. Over nineteen seasons and 458 races, CART/Champ Car produced some of the finest, fastest and most diverse motorsport ever seen. At its best, it was simultaneously a classically American series pitting generations of homeland legends against each other, a Formula One feeder, and a refuge for those disillusioned by the comparative drabness of the rest of the motorsport world.