American Championship Car Racing - Car Names and Trademarks

Car Names and Trademarks

Race cars participating in national championship events have been referred to by various names. Early nomenclature was to call the machines "Championship Cars," which was later shortened to "Champ Cars." The ambiguous term "Big Cars" was also commonplace in early years. A term that reflected the machines being larger and faster than junior formulae such as sprints and midgets. That term has disappeared from use, and in fact many used it instead for sprints. In the post WWII era, the term "Speedway Cars" was also used, a loosely descriptive term, distinguishing the machines as those driven at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and other major speedways, as opposed to those driven at local dirt tracks, for instance.

In most years since the USAC era, the term "Indy cars" (after the Indy 500) has been the preferred moniker. Apropos to that, when CART was founded in 1979, its acronym stood for Championship Auto Racing Teams, which reflected the historical use of the term "Championship Car." Soon thereafter, CART started exclusively marketing itself with the two-word "Indy Car" term, advertising itself as the "CART Indy Car World Series."

Through the 1980s, the term "Indy car" referred to machines used to compete in events sanctioned by CART, as well as the machines competing in the Indianapolis 500 (singly sanctioned by USAC). All references to the name "CART" were being increasingly discouraged as the series sought to eliminate possible confusion from casual fans with Kart racing.

In 1992, the CamelCase term "IndyCar" was trademarked by IMS, Inc. It was licensed to CART through 1997. After the inception of the IRL in 1996, the terms of the contract were voided after a lawsuit. As part of the settlement, the term was shelved by a six-year non-use agreement. Following the settlement, and the lack of direct connection to the Indianapolis 500, CART decided to revert back to the former term. It re-branded itself as Champ Car and the machines were referred to as "Champ cars."

Complicating the situation resulting from the open-wheel split, Champ Car races held outside the United States were still permitted to use the Indy moniker (e.g., Molson Indy Toronto and Lexmark Indy 300). Foreign venue promoters took advantage of the marketing power of the Indy 500 name for their events, even though the Champ Car series they were promoting no longer had any ties to that race. The exceptions created confusion, and Champ Car gradually phased out the usage to distance itself further from the IRL.

After the settlement expired in 2003, the IndyCar term was brought back. The top level of the Indy Racing League was re-branded as the "IndyCar Series." The machines in the series were also referred to as "IndyCars." Despite the official acknowledgment, media and fans alike would continue to use the term "IRL" to describe the series, and to a lesser extent, "IRL cars" to describe the machines. Removing the "IRL" term from use proved difficult.

In 2008, when Champ Car merged into the Indy Racing League, the term "Champ Car" was abandoned, and all open wheel racing fell under the "IndyCar" name once again. On January 1, 2011, the name "Indy Racing League" (and "IRL") was officially abandoned, with the sanctioning body re-branded as IndyCar.