Chip Ganassi has more angles than an octagon, more tales than Aesop. So, where do you start with him?
This May he is taking on the Indianapolis 500 with a Swede (Kenny Brack), a Brazilian (Bruno Junqueira) and a Scotsman who now lives in San Juan Capistrano (Jeff Ward). At least, that was the plan Thursday.
“Let’s get those three guys into the field on Saturday (Pole Day) and we’ll go from there,” Ganassi teased Thursday, wearing his best showman’s smirk. “To say absolutely, positively [we won’t have more drivers] might be overstating it. You never know. You never know.”
You never really do know with Chip Ganassi, who last spring planned to race at Indy with rookies Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian. They were his regular drivers on the CART circuit then, but just five days before Pole Day he dumped them in exchange for 500 veterans Jimmy Vasser and Tony Stewart.
That pair made the field easily on the first day of qualifying, but then Ganassi again flashed his unpredictable side. He rolled out his backup cars the next day for Junqueira and Minassian to put them in the field as well.
“That was a hip shot last year,” Ganassi said Thursday, and it would be no shock if another didn’t come here. He is, after all, the guy who owns teams on the CART, Winston Cup and Indy Racing League (IRL) circuits, as well as a stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Motor Speedway (CMS).
Clearly, then, convention nor tradition constrains him, nor do situations that appear shaky to all others deter him. That is clearly the case at CMS, the dual-purpose horse and auto racing complex he helped get built in Cicero and the site of CART events the last three summers.
Months ago it announced it would not be promoting auto races this summer, and more recently it was revealed it was trying to move its horse-racing schedule to neighboring Hawthorne Race Course. Trouble? Not to Ganassi.
“That would make it bigger and better for all of us,” he insisted.
CART, not wishing to abdicate the Chicago market, has announced it will promote a race at CMS on June 30, and if the horses do move to Hawthorne, said Ganassi, the place can be used for concerts, for testing and for driving schools as well.
“We (CMS) still have the franchise for racing in the metropolitan area,” he said. “If CART [which is moving away from ovals and toward more street races] wants to move downtown, we’re a part of that. Maybe someday it will move downtown. Either way we’re part of that because we have a sanctioning agreement for that area.”
But that is in the future and 200 miles away. On Thursday his area of interest is Indy and his drivers, who are led by the talented Brack. He is one of Ganassi’s CART regulars, he won here in 1999 while driving for A.J. Foyt and he showed up this year with a black stripe cutting through his blond hair.
“We call him the reverse skunk,” Ganassi said.
“It’s a thing that started before [the CART race in] Germany last year and I kept it,” Brack said of the look. “It has been good luck to me. I won races with it.”
“If he wins this year,” Ganassi cut in, “I’ll do the same with my hair. What hair I have left.”
Then there is Junqueira, his other CART regular who last year took advantage of his boss’s unpredictability to finish fifth in his first 500.
“The race,” he said, “was really difficult for me because I had not much experience on the track and not much experience on ovals. I was a rookie, a really true rookie, that was my second oval race, and the first half of the race I tried to learn, keep the car on the track. Then I start to make up some ground on the second half of the race . . . and for me the result was really good.”
Finally there is Ward, Ganassi’s IRL regular who has finished second (1999), third (1997) and fourth (2000) in the 500 in only five starts.
“As a driver,” he said, “you want to put yourself in a position to win races and I’ve been working hard in the IRL to get to this position. I’m extremely fortunate to be part of a team that has won championships. That builds a ton of confidence in myself coming into this race.”
Confidence, of course, is no problem with Ganassi, who won here in 2000 with Juan Montoya and (as part owner) in 1989 with Emerson Fittipaldi. Now he’s going for another title May 26 with an experienced crew that might have some additions.
“But [adding more drivers] is not on the front burner at this point,” he said.
“We have a job to do. We want to win the race and I’m blessed to have three veteran drivers. I think any one of the three can do it. So let’s focus on that today.”
