NEWMAN/HAAS AT A TURNING POINT The 2002 CART season bore witness to seismic shifts in Indy Car competition, prompting many racing veterans to regard it as the one of the last seasons in which the league maintained a relative degree of purity.

CART’s six-year-old competitor, the Indy Racing League, was increasingly gaining traction, finally managing to lure away one of the format’s greatest competitors, the potent Penske team.

This year also saw increasing use of Toyota’s RV8 engine, a 2,650-cubic-centimeter aluminum V-8 that posed a serious challenge to both Honda, which had powered the last six CART champions, and Cosworth, the engine supplier that had dominated Indy Car racing for decades.

The season was also quite grueling to drivers and crews alike because of its demanding travel schedule, with eight of the 18 races held outside of the United States in an attempt to popularize the sport worldwide.

The Newman/Haas Racing team was not to be deterred, however, having fielded some ...