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Sunday, May 25, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

A little travel never bothered Chip Ganassi. After all, from his Pittsburgh office, Ganassi runs one of auto racing's biggest and most far-reaching empires.

To the west, in Indianapolis, is Ganassi's Indy Racing League headquarters. The team, which won four championships and dominated the Championship Auto Racing Teams circuit in the 1990s, now features two of open-wheel racing's rising stars: Scott Dixon of New Zealand and Tomas Scheckter of South Africa.

	GANASSI'S OWNERSHIP SCORECARD • Championships: 4 in CART (1996, Jimmy Vasser; 1997, Alex Zanardi; 1998, Zanardi; 1999, Juan Montoya). • Victories: 46 (41 in CART, 2 in the IRL and 3 in NASCAR Winston Cup). THE IRL TEAM • Drivers: Scott Dixon, 22, and Tomas Scheckter, 22. • Crew: Team Manager Mike Hull, Chief Engineer Julian Robertson, Race Team Manager Simon Hodgson, Chief Engineer Bill Pappas, Chief Mechanic Barry Wanser (Dixon), Chief Mechanic Dave Higuera (Scheckter). • Cars: Panoz G Force chassis powered by Toyota. • This season: Dixon is eighth in points with a victory at Miami; Scheckter is 13th in points with a top finish of eighth in Miami. THE NASCAR TEAM • Drivers: Sterling Marlin, 45, Jamie McMurray, 26, and Casey Mears, 25. • Crew: Team Manager Andy Graves, Team Manager Tony Glover, Crew Chief Jimmy Elledge (Mears); Crew Chief Lee McCall (Marlin), Crew Chief Donnie Wingo (McMurray). • Cars: Dodge Intrepids. • This season: Marlin is 10th in points, twice finishing races in sixth; McMurray is 24th in points with two fifth-place finishes; Mears is 37th in points with a season-best finish of 15th at Las Vegas. -- By Chris Dolack

To the south, in Mooresville, N.C., is Ganassi's NASCAR headquarters. That team, formerly known as Team SABCO, never amounted to much in the top tier Winston Cup Series until Ganassi bought a majority share in the middle of the 2000 season. He has brought in highly regarded managers and engineers to run the three-car operation, which features veteran driver Sterling Marlin and rookies Jamie McMurray and Casey Mears.

For a career open-wheel aficionado, Ganassi's magic touch in stock cars has been nothing short of astonishing. While many teams in Winston Cup take years to be competitive,Ganassi had Marlin in contention for the 2002 championship. When Marlin was forced out of the car with injuries from a crash, Ganassi pulled a trick out of his open-wheel book. Rather than turning to a veteran, he picked McMurray, a young driver who had never won a NASCAR race, to fill in the rest of the season. McMurray won his second start.

Normally, the intersecting IRL and NASCAR schedules are manageable for Ganassi. The IRL team has only 16 races, while the Winston Cup Series runs nearly every weekend from February through mid-November.

But today, the schedules collide. Today is the biggest day of the year for people involved in auto racing, whether they are sitting behind the wheel of a 700-horsepower machine capable of moving in excess of 230 mph or sitting on top of a massive toolbox on wheels. Today, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 will be staged.

Racing's biggest day

For Fox Chapel's Ganassi, the last Sunday in May means police escorts and helicopters and airplanes. It means sticking to a plan and not allowing anything to interfere. It means, he hopes, a victory or two along the 660-mile journey from Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

Today, Ganassi, fellow owner Roger Penske and racer Robby Gordon will watch the green flag fly shortly after noon at the historic speedway on the west side of Indianapolis and see the checkered flag wave in the heart of NASCAR country about 1,100 miles of racing and 12 hours later.

This feat, known as The Double, has become more popular for drivers in recent years, although it is a grueling task. Tony Stewart, the 2002 Winston Cup champion and 1997 IRL champion, has attempted it twice and enjoyed the most success. He has an average finish of eighth at Indianapolis and fourth at Lowe's the two times he has raced at both venues the same day.

Gordon has been the next-best driver to attempt The Double and will bring along a doctor this year to administer intravenous fluids before he starts the Winston Cup race.

No one competing in both events has won either.

Ganassi long ago traded a racing helmet for a radio headset, so today won't be as taxing for him as it will be for Gordon. It won't be any less relaxing, though. Ganassi is a hands-on owner, especially with the IRL side of his operation.

Once the Indianapolis 500 has ended, police will escort him to the airport to board a plane that will fly him to Charlotte. Then, he'll take a helicopter the rest of the way into Lowe's to try to make the beginning of the Coca-Cola 600 activities at 5 p.m.

"To do The Double on the biggest racing weekend of the year is an honor," Ganassi said. "But to have two good teams makes it even better.

"I'm going to be on the radio on Scheckter's car. Scott is perfectly handled by [team manager] Mike Hull and his side of the team. When I get down to Charlotte, it's going to just be a matter of going among the three cars. I really don't participate on the radio in NASCAR as actively as I do on the IRL team because I'm still on a bit of a learning curve down there."

Setting the grid

In 2000, Ganassi finally realized a dream when his driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, cruised to victory in the Indianapolis 500. "It is the greatest moment of my life," Ganassi said immediately after Montoya, who later left Ganassi's team, took the checkered flag.

For the past two years, however, that moment has belonged to Team Penske's Helio Castroneves, who won the pole for the race today with a four-lap qualifying average of 231.725 mph at the 2.5-mile speedway. He is trying to become the first driver in the race's 86-year history to win three consecutive times. In fact, only four other drivers -- Wilbur Shaw (1939-40), Mauri Rose (1947-48), Bill Vukovich (1953-54) and Al Unser (1970-71) -- have won consecutive races.

What made Castroneves' pole-winning speed more amazing was his team's ability to get a car to perform that well in horrible conditions. It was windy and cold, and rain had washed tire-gripping rubber off the track. By waving off qualifying attempts, Castroneves and his team were able to work on the car all day before it finally responded in the final hour of qualifying.

"Certainly, my hat is off to him and his team," Ganassi said. "They hung in there all day on qualifying day and kept working on it and working on it. They were willing to take some chances."

Chances Ganassi decided against with his two 22-year-old drivers. Dixon is a rookie at the track while Scheckter, who led for a race-high 85 laps last year, will be making his second Indianapolis 500 start.

"They don't quite have the experience that Castroneves has, so I was a little afraid to wait until that final hour to qualify," Ganassi said.

"I thought that was making a little too big of a bet, if you will."

Dixon, who is driving with a broken wrist and broken bones in his hand from a crash in a race in Japan, will start in the fourth position on the inside of the second row. He posted a qualifying average of 230.099 mph. He also won the season-opening event at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a track that is smaller but similar in layout to Indianapolis.

Scheckter's qualifying speed of 227.769 mph was good enough for the 12th position, which places him on the outside of the fourth row.

"The conditions were just awful for qualifying," Ganassi said. "I think we were first and third in practice before the rains came. Then a front came and the whole track just changed on us, and we didn't do a good job of grabbing back a hold of it.

But with 500 miles and 33 cars in the field, starting up front isn't crucial to winning the race.

"I think as long as you're starting in the first three or four rows it's fine. Let's face it, last year we were on the pole, and it didn't mean anything. Hopefully, this will let us focus a little more on the race as opposed to being on the pole."

On the Winston Cup side, Marlin and McMurray have improved since slow starts in the season-opening Daytona 500. Marlin has fought his way to 10th in points, and McMurray has been a contender in past two points races.

"In six of the first eight races, [Marlin] got hit at one point or another during the race," Ganassi said. "You tear a fender on one of these cars and it's pretty easy to change the aerodynamic balance when you start getting smacked around out there.

"I think in about six of those first eight races we were just victims of circumstance to no fault of anyone's, much less our own. Once we got our act together, we got him confident and back into the top 10. Now it's just a question of getting him back into the top five."

In addition, Mears, an open-wheel veteran and nephew of four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears, will complete a different sort of Memorial Day weekend marathon in an effort to gain more stock-car knowledge. He will drive in the ARCA race, the Busch race and the Winston Cup race, totaling about 1,000 miles.

Still important?

Unlike past years, there was little doubt Ganassi's drivers would make the Indianapolis field this year. On May 11, the first day of qualifying, only 24 of the 33 positions in the grid were filled. Inclement weather prevented some teams from producing a competitive car, but other factors also were apparent.

"I don't know that they've ever put 33 in on the first day," Ganassi said. "There's obvious questions about the car count there at Indianapolis. I look at it as there's more cars in Indy than in Formula One, and there's more there than are in CART.

"I think it's a reflection of the economy and the fact that [the IRL] changed chassis this year -- they went to a new chassis rule for the next three years. It's obviously not what we want to see, but I still think those fans are going to see a great race no matter how many cars are in the race. I guess one might question the tradition of the event, but I think there's a good, quality field."

The tradition of the Indianapolis 500 has been questioned quite a bit since the IRL was launched in 1996 and CART went its separate way. Ganassi was the first CART owner to return to Indianapolis, but, after last season, he left CART and joined the IRL. His return to Indianpolis in 2000 cleared the way for teams such as Team Penske and Team Rahal as well as manufacturers Honda and Toyota to try to return some of the luster to the event.

In fact, one of the staunch opponents to the IRL after the split was Michael Andretti, who not only returned to the race last year but will retire after driving in it today. In 13 Indianapolis 500s, Andretti has led a record 398 laps without a victory.

Even in the current American racing world, where NASCAR reigns, Ganassi believes the focus should be on tradition, at least for a day.

"I would think that the Indianapolis 500 is a little more important than the Coca-Cola 600," Ganassi said. "Having said that, a win in either one of those races on Memorial Day is obviously big."

Many, including Ganassi, Roger Penske and Bobby Rahal, believe there was no need for the CART-IRL split. But Rahal, who briefly served as CART's interim CEO, doesn't see the two sides getting together.

"I think CART and the IRL are going down two such divergent paths with two totally different marketing programs that they don't compete against one another anymore," Rahal said. "They're not going to come together by everyone getting in a room and hammering some deal out. That's not going to happen. They've really gone separate ways, they don't really relate to one another anymore."

At the same time CART and the IRL began to divide and alienate fans, NASCAR, with Jeff Gordon on the pole, was shifting into high gear. Open-wheel racing has not been the same since.

"You're just competing against an unbelievable marketing machine in NASCAR," Rahal said. "They created a marketing machine and they're reaping the benefits from that."

Despite those benefits, which include massive crowds, Indianapolis still has a rich tradition that NASCAR can't duplicate. Celebrities, including former presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, are expected to be in attendance by the carload. Jim Nabors will sing, the Purdue University marching band will play and, at the end of the day, one of 33 drivers will take a sip of milk in victory lane. At least on this day, NASCAR takes a backseat to the best drivers open-wheel racing has to offer.

And, when the marathon day finally draws to a close and the rush of adrenaline finally has slowed, Ganassi again will be on the move. On a day that starts with a race in Indiana and finishes with one in North Carolina, Ganassi won't be able to relax until he's back home again ... in Pittsburgh.

Chris Dolack is the senior writer at Auto Racing Digest magazine. He can be reached at cdolack@chrisdolack.com.