While some events switched allegiance to CART, the Triple Crown of 500 mile races comprising Indianapolis, Pocono, and Ontario maintained loyalty to USAC.

[2] On April 19, 1979, the USAC board of directors voted unanimously to reject the entries for the 1979 Indianapolis 500 of six key teams: Penske, Patrick, McLaren, Fletcher, Chaparral, and Gurney.

"[3] USAC sent the owners a telegram informing them of the situation while they were participating in the CART race at Atlanta, the Gould Twin Dixie 125s.

[3] On May 5, judge James Ellsworth Noland issued the injunction, but restrained the teams from disrupting or interfering with the running of the event.

Seeing how the conflict was hurting Indy Car racing, both sides approached Ray Smartis, General Manager of Ontario, to lead peace talks in early June.

[7] As a result of the talks, CART dropped their plans to rival the Pocono 500 "in a good faith move in the best interest of auto racing.

"[8] Smartis presented peace plans for a unified Indy car series to USAC who rejected the idea.

[9] As CART teams boycotted the 1979 Pocono 500 on June 24, the track saw their regular attendance shrink by half.

Eight days after the Pocono 500, Ontario Motor Speedway changed their sanctioning for September's California 500 from USAC to CART.

"[11] Days before the California 500, Smartis admitted ticket sales were down 15 percent compared to 1978, the first time pre-sales did not stay consistent with past years.

Five cars had their times disqualified for their rear wings being too high: Gordon Johncock, Wally Dallenbach, Tim Richmond, Vern Schuppan, and Tom Frantz.

[15] In Friday's second day of time trials, Al Unser improved his speed to 202.202 mph but was not fast enough to knock Mears off the pole.

But on lap 72, the bracket holding Unser's front wing broke and his crew lost several minutes repairing it.

Penske cars finished 1-2-3, the first time in major American racing that a team swept the top three spots.