The Indy 500 was in decline after 1996 but still a very big deal. Much more name recognition and news value than CART, however beloved it was within racing circles at the time. That's why so many teams and sponsors from CART wanted to be there.
Brack's Indy 500 win was a much bigger deal than his IRL championship the year before though, I'll give you that.
I've always considered 2002 to be the crossover point in stature between CART and the IRL. Even though the 500 itself was still a fairly big deal in the early split days, the series was emphatically not. Certainly, in 1998, the IRL was still the poor relation to CART and none of the top teams would touch it with a bargepole.
The speed at which the tables turned is quite extraordinary when you look back at it. In 2000, Ganassi went to conquer Indy, but apart from that CART was still as strong as ever. In 2001, major races had switched series, and more teams were taking part in the 500, but CART still had a full field. Yet in 2002, CART's grid had been decimated to less than 20 regular cars, Penske was full time in IRL, and even more races were making the switch. Come 2003, the manufacturers had switched too, and CART was a one-make series, and more teams had switched full time, including Ganassi, Andretti-Green, Rahal, etc.
By 2004 the crossover was complete. CART had gone bust and only the stalwarts remained in the CCWS, with a reduced schedule and whoever could scrape together a programme. But the IRL was chock full of big names.
Since the unification, Indycar have been quite clear that both series count towards their history, but I think most would consider one above the other for most of those years, with one champion being the champion of the top series. From 1996 to 2001 it was CART, and from 2003 to 2007 it was IRL. So the big debate should be, whether Sam Hornish or Christiano da Matta should get the real plaudits for 2002.
