If Turbogate enraged a few powerful owners and picked up steam in the coming months, the row over spare parts was an entirely different and far more dangerous animal.

Unlike the turbo issue, the spare parts problem was presented by a united front. For once in, well, ever, every team owner was in agreement on the need for prices to come down and worked in unison to get the problem fixed. As the spare parts discussion turned sour and Bernard began to fight back—and fight back hard, the owners dug in, grew closer and refused to relent.

Rather than realize he was up against a highly motivated paddock that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Bernard ratcheted up the battle throughout most of the summer months.

“It felt like [Bernard] was more interested in fighting for the vendors than his teams,” said one of the central figures in the spare parts battle.

“Whenever we met with him, he was defensive about the vendors and said there was nothing he could do, how the overall costs to own the car were cheaper, and so on. There was a refusal to accept we weren’t just moaning or making things up.

"And we wanted to talk about more cost-saving areas with him like tires and engines, but never got the chance.”

This is only one side of the argument, obviously, but if you’re wondering where the lines of communication started to break down and tone of the relationship between between Bernard and the paddock went from being strained to heading towards divorce, this is it.

I’ll pause the narrative for a moment here and add a personal anecdote to the thread.

I sat in a team’s transporter at Edmonton and had an influential member of the paddock—one who proved to be a major architect of Bernard’s dismantling and dismissal—describe, almost step by step, how IndyCar’s CEO would be removed from power if he didn’t conform to their requests on lowering prices on spare parts and other major expenses.

It sounded aggressive and somewhat fatalistic at the time, but in hindsight, it turned out to be a script that was followed almost word for word.

“We’ll keep asking for INDYCAR to reduce the prices, but that’s only going to last for so long,” he said, suggesting there was a finite window where a peaceful outcome would continue to be sought.

“If that doesn’t happen, we’ll go to [Bernard’s] boss, Jeff Belskus, and see if he’ll listen. We shouldn’t have to go over Randy’s head, but if he won’t listen, we’ll go to Jeff and plead our case. At this point, we’re also ready to ask for Randy to be terminated if he’s going to keep telling us we’re wrong, our numbers are wrong and we don’t have a leg to stand on.

“And if he’s unwilling to listen, the only other course of action is to try and buy the series and replace Randy. I don’t want it to come to that; none of us want things to escalate to that point. This shouldn’t have to turn into a war, but I don’t think [Bernard] realizes how serious we are. We aren’t backing down on this one.”

At the time, I was mildly alarmed at such a calculated plan, but never expected things to devolve to the point--or to go on so long--that the plan would be hatched. Clearly, I was wrong.

Getting back to the timeline, what ended up happening is the group that evolved out of Turbogate carried out the ‘buy the series to remove Bernard’ portion of the plan, while things got so bad with the spare parts contretemps, the owners simply stopped working with Bernard by the time we got to Fontana.

• Rewinding just a bit, right after Long Beach—a month later at the Indy 500, to be exact—the first sign of the Turbogate/Randy-must-go group appeared. Although rumblings of what was going on behind the scenes came out in bits and pieces during the month of May, it was Bernard who ripped the lid off of the whole deal with a post on Twitter.

“It is true that an owner is calling others trying to get me fired,” he wrote. “I have had several owners confirm this. Disappointing.”

Whether you agree with Bernard’s tact or not, airing dirty laundry via social media and outing the efforts of at least one owner to the public crossed a massive line for almost every owner and driver I spoke to at the time. It was received as unprofessional and as a betrayal of trust. It left far too many wondering if anything they said to Bernard--things he considered to be objectionable--would appear on his Twitter feed.

If I had to boil down the comments from the paddock on Bernard’s tweet, it went something like “Not good, not professional, you don’t expect that kind of stuff from a CEO.”

That 140-character missive added jet fuel to a fire that, up until Bernard clicked the ‘Tweet’ button, was still controllable.

• The loss of the round in China wasn’t a big deal for most teams or drivers, but losing out on the big sanctioning fee it was supposed to bring in did not please the board.

• The last major entry to the ledger of items held against Bernard took place recently with news that he’d found a replacement for Firestone. Not only was that news a bit of a shock to IndyCar’s sole tire supplier, but it also unnerved the drivers beyond measure.

Firestone, which was held in good stead with the paddock, was a curious, if not maddening entity to be placed on the chopping block, although its senior brass had chosen to exit the series just over a year ago. Firestone announced its withdrawal in 2011, but agreed to stay after negotiating a significant price hike, and later extended its contract through 2014.

Bernard, who then looked at Firestone as more of a straight business deal than a series partner, found an interested party in Continental Tire to eventually replace Firestone and serve as a title sponsor. Privately, it was hailed as possibly the biggest deal IndyCar would have ever seen. Firestone lit up the phones to Belskus and joined the chorus of anti-Bernard calls late in September.

The drivers, who were beyond concerned about the safety implications of introducing a brand-new vendor to the art of manufacturing tires for oval racing, hammered Bernard individually as they voiced their opposition. They also sent a letter to Bernard expressing their unified stance that Firestone needed to be retained as the series’ sole tire vendor.

A response was eventually received after the drivers demanded an in-person meeting (which never took place), but this encounter, like a few others listed, left members of the paddock—specifically the driver ranks—feeling marginalized and enraged.

If the spare parts/overall costs issue severed ties between Bernard and the owners, the Firestone/Continental deal had a similar effect for Bernard with the drivers.

Bernard’s ledger, and I’ll go ahead and repeat myself here, is filled with items that involve multiple parties, differing views from all sides and can certainly be spun for or against the paddock, drivers or Bernard. Put everybody in a room and ask them who was at fault, and the fingers would be pointed in every direction.

Whether you think Bernard was right, wrong, treated unfairly, acted poorly or anything else in between, just know that at least for those who wanted him gone, everything listed above was added up, averaged and provided a conclusive answer: Randy Bernard Must Go.

Part 2...

Tomorrow, in Part 2, we’ll hear from one of Bernard’s supporters, from one of the key people who led the initiative to remove him, the catalysts that led to his urgent dismissal, will explore what could have saved Bernard’s job, will delve into how his firing was mishandled, if and what plan the series has going forward, a plea from a beloved Indy 500 winner that was made to keep Bernard, an anthem for past and future IndyCar CEOs and a few other miscellaneous items as we close the arc on Randy Bernard’s tumultuous tenure in open-wheel racing.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED