Yahoo Autos CART Co-Founder, Indy 500-Winning Team Owner Pat Patrick Dies at 91
U.E. "Pat" Patrick co-founded Championship Auto Racing Teams and founded the Indy Lights Series.
Patrick, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, won three Indy 500s and 45 Indy-car races as a team owner.
Patrick Racing's greatest season was 1989. That year, Patrick won both the Indianapolis 500 and the CART championship with driver Emerson Fittipaldi.
Veteran IndyCar racer and 1983 Indianapolis 500 winner Tom Sneva ducked into the Patrick Racing hospitality tent at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland during a July CART race weekend in 1995.
"Great to see you!" Sneva said. "What's Up, Pat?"
Patrick, sipping on a Diet Coke, looked up, smiled, and muttered, "Costs."
Welcome to the world of one of Indy-car racing's true giants.
U.E. "Pat" Patrick, a three-time Indianapolis 500-winning team owner, co-founder of Championship Auto Racing Teams with Roger Penske, and founder of the Indy Lights Series, died on Jan. 5 at the age of 91.
Patrick was 66 years old, stopwatch in hand, on that race day in Cleveland back in '95. He was in his first season back racing with his Patrick Pacing team and long-time friend and general manager Jim McGee after a three-year hiatus. Patrick had had enough of the high costs of putting a competitive car on the track. The co-founder of Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) no longer cared for the politics of the sport, either.
A failed campaign with Alfa Romeo and driver Danny Sullivan in 1991 helped send Patrick into that first retirement. Sullivan was winless that year for Patrick Racing and never able to get the Alfa Romeo up to speed, finishing 11th in the CART drivers' standings. Patrick walked away that offseason, frustrated after a failed attempt to obtain the powerful Chevrolet Ilmor engine. That engine had won 34 consecutive Indy car races heading into the start of the '92 campaign.
Without a competitive package, Patrick figured, why bother? To Patrick, fielding a car to race in the middle of the pack was like running in place.
"It was just a frustrating ordeal," Patrick said in '95 when looking back on his Alfa Romeo days. "There was only one engine at the time (worth running), and they refused to lease me that engine. Ford came out in '92 and offered me their engine, but I was concerned about getting involved in another development program having just come off the Alfa Romeo deal.
"When I walked away, I thought I was done. I really did."
Patrick's return to the sport began in December of 1993 when he and longtime Firestone factory driver Scott Pruett signed on for a year-long, no-racing-involved, Indy-car testing program for Bridgestone-Firestone. Pruett and Patrick spent countless hours in 1994 tire testing.
It was a year of no racing. Just testing.
Patrick's commitment to Firestone's development of Indy car tires is still a point of pride with the manufacturer.
