Divided and steeped in self-interest, the parties in charge of putting on Sunday’s Firestone Firehawk 600 left the track for their homes and hotel rooms having failed each other in spectacular ways.

For those who might have prayed for clarity and a fostering brotherhood when meetings resumed in the morning, disappointment was waiting patiently back at TMS.

Wally Dallenbach: We had meetings and meetings and meetings right through the morning of the race. I said, “I’m not going to be responsible for going out there and running at 230mph or whatever and have somebody get killed.”

The schedule called for a final warm-up session from 10-10:30 a.m. TMS also opened its gates at 10 a.m. and started the process of welcoming the first wave of fans into the facility. Kept in the dark, the first alarm bells rang for the crowd when the warm-up was cancelled.

Fans arriving expecting to see the CART warm-up had to settle for pace cars instead… Lesley Ann Miller/Motorsport Images

Having given themselves more time to lobby and debate, CART, TMS, and the engine manufacturers had a hard deadline to meet. With a 2 p.m. race start approaching, 60,000 tickets sold for the audience at TMS, and ESPN ready to air the race live to hundreds of thousands of viewers, the time bomb they’d created was either going to be defused or go off by early afternoon.

Chris Kneifel: I remember a conversation with Joe Heitzler, who was our CART leader at the time, and like me, Joe inherited Texas Speedway, taking on someone else’s dirty laundry. I remember he asked me, still trying to figure out a way to save the event, “What would happened if we just raced?” And I told him, “Joe, what will happen is if something goes wrong and it’s a multiple-car situation, it would be the equivalent of having a plane crash.”

I said, “We would have a plane crash and it wouldn’t just be drivers on the track. It would likely involve spectators or track workers, TV camera people, if the worst-case scenario happened if we raced. And I’m not on board with it. ‘Put the cars in the trucks and let’s leave’ is what I’ve been saying for a long time. We shouldn’t be here. And the best way to fix it is to leave, and deal with the rest later.”

Mike Zizzo: Joe asked me what I thought in that last meeting. I said, “I’ll be honest with everyone in this room. With everything we know about G forces and the speeds from Dr. Olvey and others, if we lose a driver, CART will be no more. We have to take that into consideration.”

Dr. Steven Olvey: The only choice was to call the race off.

Robin Miller: I called ESPN and said, “They may not run this race, so we better be ready to go live with something,” and Marlo Klain and I were live on “SportsCenter” Sunday morning.

Mike Zizzo: Everyone was making an effort to put on this race from the CART perspective. Everyone was trying to find a solution while keeping it safe for the drivers. I think that gets lost in the story sometimes. We didn’t just throw in the towel, and that’s why we waited so long to make a decision.

Presented with multiple ways to slow the cars to speeds below the G-LOC threshold, and put on a show for a new Texan fan base, CART, its team owners, engine suppliers, and TMS fired the last bullet into their collective feet. Some of the sport’s greatest negotiators and promoters were in that room. And yet, all the late-night hours spent on Saturday and again on Sunday morning were ultimately wasted: The engines would remain silent when 2 p.m. arrived.

Chris Kneifel: And looking back at it, it’s the best decision that I was ever part of.

Wally Dallenbach: We pulled the plug on it and it was an ugly move. We saved some lives that day, and that’s all that matters to me.

Kenny Brack: We were caught between a rock and a hard place, because there were fans in the stands, and we had to go home. It wasn’t pleasant.

Dr. Steven Olvey: And it cost CART millions.

Mike Zizzo: Social media didn’t exist back then. There wasn’t an instantaneous way to get the word out and make sure we didn’t inconvenience fans by any means. And sure, we knew they’d be disappointed much like all of us, but at least they wouldn’t be arriving to the race with anticipation of this great event happening. But the tools didn’t exist like they do today to hit social media and get the word out in an instant.

Chris Kneifel: The only thing that I wish is that the decision would’ve been made public 24, maybe 36 hours sooner, but I don’t have any regrets at all in terms of us not racing there because it wasn’t right. There was nothing good happening there.

Mike Zizzo: To this day, that’s probably the one thing I just wish we could have done different. Get the information out on Saturday. I think it would have been a lot less heartburn for everyone involved because from a Texas Motor Speedway perspective, you have 60,000 fans coming to your venue and then you feel a bit embarrassed as CART pulls the plug on the event while they’re sitting there. There was a lot of hard feelings the way it all unfolded.