In kind of skimming the posts on this thread, the ones regarding other racing series are kind of false with some truth thrown in.
First of all.. NASCAR didn't proactively introduce restrictor plates. Bobby Allison lost a motor in the trioval of Talladega and cut a tire running over debris. The resulting spin sent the car high in the air and into the catch fence, which tore down quite a large section of it leaving everyone behind it exposed for the rest of the field crashing past. Some fans were hurt but none killed. NASCAR realized - oh ****, if that car went through the fence, we're done as a sport. They devised a temporary fix by putting on a restrictor plate. The easiest and cheapest way to control speeds. Note this happened in 1987 and it is STILL a "temporary" fix. Sounds kind of like 1,000 foot racetracks.
They caused an even more entertaining race by keeping the cars grouped together in large 200mph packs to thrill the fans. The unintended consequence was 20+ car smoldering wrecks, and the cars still flipped and flew when they turned sidways. NASCAR tried a bunch of diferent aero devices and restrictor plates to try to seperate the cars and give a little more control to the drivers. Recently they've figured out how to do a 2-car tandem to break up the big pack racing. Now NASCAR is doing everything it can to get them back to it after working so hard to get them away from it. Turns out 4 races of the year ARE all about huge wrecks and flying cars. That's what they pay to see.
Tony George got rid of turbos in the interest of safety? That's pretty false. In fact the first year of the IRL they still ran turbo cars and set record speeds in Indianapolis. Unfortunately pole sitter Scott Brayton also lost his life in a practice accident. Some say speed, others say car design. I'd tend to go with the latter since he was running mid 225mph race pace when the accident occured, and not 235mph qualifying speeds. This was also before the invention of the SAFER barrier. Tony DID want to break away from IndyCar because at that time, CEO Andrew Craig and other board members didn't really care to include him in all their big boy games. He took his racetrack and went elsewhere with the excuse that "we need more american drivers, american ovals, american engines, and american built cars." Well by the 10th anniversary IRL season guess what? Foreign drivers, road courses, Penske, Ganassi, Honda, Toyota, and an occasional hold out Chevy were where the series was. IRL won and CART lost because Tony George had his families millions to bankroll the series and the most prominant race. In the end he realized his idea of american everything didn't pan out, but all he really wanted was control, and he got it. Then was voted off the IMS board and doesn't have a team anymore either. Speaking of power trips, don't forget that is where CART came from in the begining. All the owners told USAC to f-off and banded to form their own series.
The idea of the slower cars being more accessible to others did work. You had guys like Steve Kinser, Dr. Jack Miller, Jim Guthrie, Marco Greco, Racin' Gardner, etc.. run the indy 500. Guess what? Nobody cared and people stopped showing up. Also the whole Jeff Gordon heading south theory doesn't hold water because IRL had their series star Tony Stewart head the same way.
By the way have you ever compared the safety records of either series since the split in 1996? The new design IRL car with its solid indestructible gearbox broke more drivers backs than anything seen before on rear impacts. The cars still flipped flew and broke apart into a million pieces. CART killed 3 drivers, one each at a superspeedway (Greg Moore Fontana 99) street course (Jeff Krosnoff Toronto 96) and permanent road course (Gonzalo Rodriguez Laguna Seca 99). IRL killed 4 Scott Brayton Indianapolis (with the CART turbo style car) Tony Renna Indianapolis, Paul Dana Homestead, and Dan Wheldon Las Vegas. Both series killed fans. CART killed 3 in Michigan 98, and IRL killed 3 and hurt 9 in Charlotte 99. As you can see, turbo or no turbo, big speed or little speed, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE.
What does this even have to do with NHRA? The owners and series butting heads and having a power struggle is good for nobody, a temporary fix is never temporary, and slow or fast racecars will still kill people.
