[MotorSports News]

Target Chip Ganassi Racing owner Chip Ganassi and longtime team managing director Mike Hull talk about Dario Franchitti's second IndyCar Series championship in three years (the first with the team) that he clinched with a victory in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the championship battle and they provide a season overview:
Chip Ganassi: It was an interesting race. We were waiting for a yellow, not thinking that, 'My gosh, can this thing go the whole way without a yellow?'
But having said that, you think about that at the first pit stop, you think about it a little bit more at the second pit stop, you think about it a hell of a lot at the third pit stop, and the last 10 laps you just can't believe it, how this thing worked out.φ
We were lucky that Ryan (Briscoe) stopped on early on as he did. And we thought, 'Oh, my gosh, those guys are going to need some yellow.' And then (Scott) Dixon was in two laps later, I think, on the first one.φSo that starts to play out some different things. Obviously, you're not wed to anything at that part of the race, but still it makes for some interesting thought.φ
Q: How about the season as a whole?φ
Chip Ganassi: When I look back at the season, I don't know. Obviously, we started out in the beginning of the season wanting to win the championship. So when you look back at the season, I'm the luckiest owner in the paddock.φI've got two great drivers; I've got a great sponsor in Target, a great partner if you will, just everything goes together, and especially in these times.φ
We challenged our team this year to do things on a more tighter basis maybe withφ‑‑ I don't think anybody would be surprised that the purse strings were a little tighter this year around the race game than they were in the past -- and Mike Hull and I challenged the team to work on a little tighter budget, and the guys all came through and did it.φAnd it didn't affect the performance.φ
So when I look back on the season, that's kind of what I see.φYou can talk about 10 wins, and it's great to be a part of that. But, more importantly, I look at it on a longer‑term basis, and I know that our team was challenged at the beginning of the season to perform with maybe not the tools that I've been able to give them in the past to perform with, and they still came through.φ
Q: φChip, would you discuss your decision last year and what timing there was to bring Dario back here?φHow much did the bad luck and the bad results from NASCAR have to do with you wanting to get him back in a car here?φ
Chip Ganassi: I remember we were in Detroit whenever that race was, Labor Day weekend.φIt was in Detroit Labor Day weekend.φAnd Dario was there.φI knew he was going to be there watching his brother race.φ
We were in the beginnings of the financial crisis then. This business is always the first one to pick up those trends, and the last one to let them go. And sure enough, we were on the front end of that, not being able to find sponsorship for him in NASCAR, and it was a heart breaker.φWe had to make a lot of tough decisions, and there were a lot of great people that I had to look in the eye and tell them we didn't have jobs for them, and that's a difficult thing to do.φ
This championship rests on their shoulders, as well as the team members that are here.φThe seat became available there around Labor Day weekend, and he was in Detroit.φAnd I said, 'Hey, if you want the seat, it's yours, just let me know in a couple hours.'
Q:φTalk about him as a champion. This is probably more impressive than the last one, just given the comeback, and his place in history a little bit.φ
Chip Ganassi: I've always said there are a lot of guys that can win races, but there aren't nearly as many that can win championships.φThat's the kind of guy Dario is.φI mean, he sneaks up on you, and you can look back on this season. I think if you look at his lap chart about where he runs in the races, he's kind of always back there in third, fourth ‑‑ but then for some reason at the checkered flag, he's always up there where the points are for some reason, where the big points are.φHe's that kind of guy.φ
It takes quite a driver to have the ability to maintain his composure during a race like (the season finale) and how the race played out.φThat's strictly a level of maturity and a level of confidence in yourself and being a champion before and knowing what it takes to be a champion.φThat's how you win races.φ
Q: Mike, do you want to chime in on Dario and his performance this season?φ
Mike Hull: I'd say a couple of different things. First of all, what happened in Detroit was absolutely awesome for us.φWe had the unfortunate news in that week that Dan Wheldon had decided he didn't want to drive for us this season, and we fully anticipated that he was going to sign a contract and drive our car.φAnd we didn't find out until Wednesday night. Chip called me on the phone and said, 'You're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you; you'd better sit down.'φI said the same thing we always do, find the best available talent we can and continue on with where we're going.φ
When Dario came to watch Marino drive at Detroit, he and I were sitting down on the back step of the trailer after the first practice session, and he said, 'Man, if I had to drive against the Dixon I see today versus the Dixon that I drove against last year, I'd have my hands full.φI'd really like to be his teammate.'φAnd I said, 'Really?'φHe said, 'Yeah.'φ
I said, 'OK, what about that NASCAR thing?'φAnd he said, 'Well, if I could be on a proper IndyCar team, that would be the best place in the world for me to drive.'φAnd he said but there isn't a drive available.φI said, 'Oh, OK.'φSo I called Chip after the conversation and Chip said, 'Invite him to dinner tonight and let's make a deal.'φSo on a cocktail napkin we made a deal.φChip's right; we gave him two hours to sign at the end of the cocktail napkin.φIt was less than an 8 by 10 piece of paper that we actually made the deal on, and those are the best deals you make in racing, and it certainly turned out to be that deal.φ
In terms of Dario, what's unique about where we are today with Chip Ganassi Racing versus where we've been with other drivers in open wheel racing since I've worked for Chip, and that's been a few years now, we've had really talented guys drive our cars, very talented.φAnd that is an enormous difference.φ
But the difference that we have today, and I believe the reason that we won (the championship), is because we have two drivers who have accomplished very similar things in their careers, and that puts the pressure in a different area, for their drive, their drive style and where they're trying to go.φThey both won the Indy 500, they've both won championships, they've both won races around the world.φTheir open‑wheel experience is very similar one to the other.φ
So there's no pressure there to win again, and sometimes that's a bad thing because it creates complacency.φBut in these two guys, they absolutely rejoice in what the other guy does, and that's very unique.φ
We'll be at a meeting with the two drivers and the engineers and some of the managers, and in years past with talented guys, there would be that one percent inside the vest that wouldn't be given up, literally.φWe'd see it on the racetrack.φ
But with these two guys, it's 101 percent.φThey never have held back from each other.φAnd that's the reason that we've done what we've done this year.φA couple of people told me, 'Well, this is your championship to lose,' and my feeling about it was actually the opposite; this was our championship to win, because we've had everything that it took.φThere were two strategies employed on the racetrack (in the season finale), and I thought it was rather ironic that the guy that I look after on a normal basis on a timing stand who's known for harboring fuel in his car had to race for it, and the guy that races for it saved fuel.φBut it just played out that way, and each of them are so engrained in the other one, they understood how the other person races and they took full advantage of it.φSo that's what I'd say.φ
Q: φWhen you think back to when you signed him on that napkin, your expectations then, what were you really thinking about him, what he could do after everything happened with the NASCAR side and his injury and really just getting back into possibly a different series?φ
And the second question is how did Dario kind of transform himself this time around that made the difference today?φ
Chip Ganassi: There was a guy we used to have around the team.φHe was a mentor to Mike and me, a guy by the name of Morris Nunn. When you needed a driver, Morris said,φ'You've always got to take the best guy that's available.' No matter what, you've always got to take the best guy that's available, because if you do it for some other reason, you're going to get in trouble eventually.φThat's what we did.φ
So when you have an open seat and you've got the best guys available out there and you take a run at him and say, 'Hey, we want you to drive a car for this amount of money, and this is what we want, can you do it, yes or no?'φAnd you know right there what's going to set the tone.φIf he says yes, it'll set the tone.φIf he says, 'Well, let me think about it for three days,' it's kind of like, well, the guy doesn't really want it.φ
Dario said, 'Look, I really want to do this.'φI remember him saying, 'I want to do this, but I've got to think about it for a little bit.φCan I think about it for a little bit?'φ
So I think you're thinking aboutφdoing well.φIf you don't think of putting your team together to go and win something, whether it's races or championships, if you don't put a team together to do that, I don't know what you're doing in this business, so you've obviously got to be thinking about that in the back of your mind, thinking this is why I want to do this, because I want to win.φYou don't put it together to lose.φ
I can't really say I was thinking about winning a championship.φI thought, well, it would be great if we could win the championship with him.φBut we knew that if he was going to win a championship, he had another guy that was in a pretty good car that he was going to have to beat.φWe knew that guy pretty well, too; he was on our team.φ


10/25 :: Sign on the napkin