Branded as the 1996 Marlboro 500 for sponsorship reasons, the race was won by Andre Ribeiro, his last Indy Car victory.

Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, formed the Indy Racing League as an alternative to CART.

In 1996, however, following his creation of the IRL, George stipulated that 25 of the 33 starting positions at Indy would be reserved for the top 25 cars which ran events in his series.

George, on the other hand, viewed the refusal of CART teams to compete for the remaining eight positions on the Indy grid as a walkout/boycott.

On December 18, 1995,[2] CART teams, convinced that they were being deliberately locked out from the 1996 Indy 500, and the victims of a "power grab" by Tony George,[3] announced their intentions to boycott the event.

They jointly announced plans for a new race, the Inaugural U.S. 500, to be held at Michigan International Speedway the same day.

Despite the creation of a second 500-mile race, the Marlboro 500 continued unchanged in late July as it had for the last 16 years.

[6] In the first day of practice on Friday, July 26, Andre Ribeiro posted the fastest lap with an average speed around the entire track of 235.714 mph.

[8] In Saturday morning's practice session, Paul Tracy spun and hit the wall with the rear of his car.

Moore's car slid up the track and hit Fittipaldi's in the left rear and spun him backwards into the wall.

Complaining of back pain, Fittipaldi was airlifted to a local hospital where he was diagnosed with a fractured seventh vertebra and partial collapse of the left lung.

New CART rules stated that you could not blend back into the line of cars after exiting the pits, but instead had to wait for the entire field to go by.

Johnstone collapsed on the ground next to his car and was airlifted to the hospital with bruised knees and a sore neck.

[15] Under caution for the Johnstone crash, Scott Pruett retired from the race with an engine valve problem.