Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American Open Wheel Racing

Proposed change to Template:Infobox Grand Prix race report

An editor has proposed a change to Template:Infobox Grand Prix race report. Interested editors are welcome to contribute to the existing discussion. It's relevant to this WikiProject because that infobox is used in the Indianapolis 500 articles from 1950 to 1960, when the race was a round of the World Drivers' Championship. DH85868993 (talk) 00:07, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Indy 500 infobox discussion

Hi, for a long time I've noticed that information about winning chassis and engine manufacturer on Indy 500 pages can be buried quite deep in the article, even though this is IMO quite an important information. I was wondering how people feel about adding a winning chassis and a winning engine entry in the infobox? An alternative I was thinking about would be to add a caption entry, and add info about the winning car there, since the infobox picture for most 500 pages represents the winning car. SunflowerYuri (talk) 10:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't see a need to revisit the consensus regarding what information is in the 500 infoboxes.

RegalZ8790 (talk) 04:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Chassis/engine information is pertinent, but it would be a lot of work to add it to an already lengthy infobox. Since chassis/engine information is found in the box score (along with other information), I think the discussion can be tabled for another day. Doctorindy↔Talk 14:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Champ Car redirect

I've just noticed that back in June 2020, the target of the redirect Champ Car was changed from Championship Auto Racing Teams (which covers 1979-2003) to Champ Car World Series (which covers 2004-2008). I couldn't find any related discussion. (There was this move discussion in January/February 2020 which resulted in Champ Car redirecting to Championship Auto Racing Teams, but I couldn't find a discussion for the target being changed to Champ Car World Series).

Anyway, as a result of the retarget, many links which used to link (via the redirect) to Championship Auto Racing Teams now link (via the redirect) to Champ Car World Series instead. As an example: Jackie Stewart contains the following wikitext:

Later, Stewart covered [[Champ Car|CART IndyCar]] races starting at [[Grand Prix of Long Beach|Long Beach]] in 1987 on [[Sportsworld (U.S. TV series)|NBC SportsWorld]], along with Paul Page. He returned in 1988, along with Charlie Jones. Stewart only covered road course and street races in his brief time at NBC. He did not return in 1989 and was replaced by [[Johnny Rutherford]] and [[Tom Sneva]].

Clearly, in this case, the text "CART Indycar" should link to Championship Auto Racing Teams (1979-2003), not Champ Car World Series (2004-2008). How should we handle this? Simply revert the (undiscussed?) change (noting that Talk:Champ Car still redirects to Talk:Championship Auto Racing Teams)? Or go through and update all the articles which link to Champ Car? (there are currently 1680 links to Champ Car but some of these would be via templates). DH85868993 (talk) 00:58, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I see the same change was also made to the redirects ChampCar, OWRS, Champ cars, Champcar, CCWS, Champ car, Champcars, Champ Cars, ChampCars and ChampCar World Series. DH85868993 (talk) 01:05, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Pinging Carfan568, who made the changes. DH85868993 (talk) 01:02, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I had forgotten I even made those changes since that was a while ago, but I probably thought that Champ Car was a more logical redirect to Champ Car World Series than Championship Auto Racing Teams since the name was more similar (both CART and CCWS were originally covered at the Champ Car page before they were split into their own pages). If you think my changes should be reverted, I would have no problem with that, and I don't think there was any previous discussion about this. Carfan568 (talk) 15:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

My initial thought was that it would be best to just revert the changes, thereby immediately "fixing" all the links. However, it does seem more intuitive for Champ Car to redirect to Champ Car World Series rather than Championship Auto Racing Teams, so perhaps fixing the links in the articles is a better solution. (Also noting that since June 2020, some new links to Champ Car (or the other redirects) may have been added which should link to Champ Car World Series, therefore linking these to Championship Auto Racing Teams (by reverting the redirects) would be incorrect. Let's see what other people have to say. DH85868993 (talk) 09:21, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

My thought would also be to fix the links. Furthermore, several of those redirects are a bit superfluous and/or incorrect. For instance, ChampCar World Series. Correct would be Champ Car World Series.

IMO, Champ car should redirect to American open-wheel car racing, and Champ Car to Champ Car World Series.

Regarding Jackie Stewart, my thought is the article should just read "CART". Alternatively, "Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART)." RegalZ8790 (talk) 19:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I welcomed the change. It is logical and technically more accurate. While Champ Car World Series ("Champ Car") was the successor organization to Championship Auto Racing Teams ("CART"), they actually are and should be treated as two distinct manifestations. I think we should fix the links. Incidentally, I have been casually fixing such links when I encounter them. The phrase "Champ Car", whether describing the sanctioning body or the vehicles themselves, largely disappeared from use in the 1980s and early 1990s. It did not really re-enter the lexicon until the Split in 1996. Specifically the folks on the CART side started using the term "Champ Car" again around 1997 in an effort to distance themselves from the IRL. Doctorindy↔Talk 21:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, do you mean "I welcome" in your first sentence? Or are you in favor of how things are currently?

Personally, I think we should distinguish between "Champ car" with a small 'c', and "Champ Car" with an upper case. The former to me is simply a colloquialism of "Championship car," which as you mentioned is a term that has largely fallen from everyday use. This term I understand to refer to the type of automobile.

As for "Champ Car," I agree with you that the most common usage is when referring to the CCWS as a series or sanctioning body.

I feel the two terms should redirect to separate locations.

RegalZ8790 (talk) 01:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I saw that the change had been "soft-implemented" (if that makes sense) a while ago, and I liked it, as I agreed that it made sense. Although no discussion was untaken about doing it, I was supportive of going along, and began making an effort to fix wikilinks where I encountered them. So in summary, I support having Champ Car re-direct to Champ Car World Series, and mentions of the CART series (1979-2002) need to be Championship Auto Racing Teams, preferable with piping to make it CART. Now to address the other angle. I believe the discussion was brought up a long time ago. That is, the difference between INDYCAR, IndyCar, Indy Car, Indy car, Champ Car, Champ car, ChampCar, Championship Car, Championship car, Open wheel car, etc. That probably needs its own discussion. Doctorindy↔Talk 19:48, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

US 500 article / merge proposal

There is disorganization and a little bit of confusion/redundancy with respect to the article for the U.S. 500. It's spread over three articles. A while back, a bunch of content from the Michigan 500 article was removed and dumped into the U.S. 500 article. Specifically, the "fall race" results from 1973-1986 at Michigan was added to the US 500, but those events have zero connection. I guess the specious connection being that it represented the 'second race' at Michigan besides the Michigan 500. Even that makes little sense as the summer Michigan 500 didn't start until 1981...there were two races for many years before there was a 500. And the 1996 US 500 was a one time only race (due to the Split). That "fall race" information really has no business being part of the US 500 article.

There's also more to it. There's a separate article 1996 U.S. 500. That is intended to detail the race on 5/26/96. It's ok, but I think it deserves more attention/expansion. There's lot missing that could be added to bring it up to standards. Qualifying results, expanded prose, etc. As for the name, the U.S. 500 in it's original form only happened once...5/26/96. After that, the race event was dropped from the schedule, but CART decided to keep the fancy "US 500" moniker and reused it for the July 500 miler in 1997-1998-1999. It was never used after that.

I think some work needs to be done. I suggest the "fall race" information should be moved back to and reintegrated into Michigan 500. That article would serve as a cover-all article for all Indy car races at Michigan (as it more or less used to be), given that fact that they no longer race there, haven't been there in 16 years, and there's no future race on the horizon. I might even support renaming the article something to the effect of IndyCar Series at the Michigan International Speedway...something that has been done, for example, with IndyCar Series at the Milwaukee Mile.

Then, I also suggest U.S. 500 and 1996 U.S. 500 be merged into one single article. Two articles for one event just does not make sense, it's redundant, and at the same time, some information appears in one but not the other. I think using the latter article title is better 1996 U.S. 500. A small mention can be made that the name was re-used three more times, but make it clear there was only one running of the US 500. Doctorindy↔Talk 22:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I support a merge of U.S. 500 into 1996 U.S. 500.

I feel a bit differently on combining the remaining content into one article. I feel the Michigan 500 deserves its own stand-alone article. The 500-milers were always more prestigious than the other races.

RegalZ8790 (talk) 02:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Support Merging all MIS Indycar content to two articles, one about the 1996 US 500 and one about all other races, US 500 would be mentioned and linked in the all other races article. -Drdisque (talk) 21:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment: With no objections, work is progressing. 1996 U.S. 500 has been thoroughly expanded. U.S. 500 will re-direct to 1996 U.S. 500, with a hatnote linking it to Michigan 500. All MIS races will be merged into the Michigan 500 article, with clearly defined sections. Doctorindy↔Talk 18:42, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment: After further consideration, it made more sense to make U.S. 500 a disambiguation page, With hatnotes on both 1996 U.S. 500 and Michigan 500. Doctorindy↔Talk 19:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Good idea. The expanded article on the 1996 race is looking great. RegalZ8790 (talk) 04:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC)