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Sunday, July 13, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

JOLIET, Ill. -- Despite all the festivities at Daytona International Speedway last weekend, today marks the halfway point of the NASCAR Winston Cup season.

For the stock car branch of Chip Ganassi Racing, the first half of the year was used mainly as a learning experience, which is a nice way of saying the team failed to achieve the type of results the boss -- Fox Chapel's Chip Ganassi -- expects. In 2002, the team's veteran driver, Sterling Marlin, led the standings for the most of the year, but a series of mishaps and rookie struggles this season has limited the team's success.

Marlin enters the Tropicana 400 today at Chicagoland Speedway 10th in points, which is impressive when considering his yellow-line penalty at the season-opening Daytona 500 followed by wrecks -- not of his own creation -- in three other races. Rookies Jamie McMurray and Casey Mears come into the race 23rd and 34th.

McMurray, 27, who won as a replacement when Marlin was injured late last season, blamed the new templates NASCAR requires to make the cars uniform from bumper to bumper.

"I think we had somewhat of a learning curve," he said. "With the changes they made with the templates and everything, all three of our cars are a little bit behind on bodies. It seems like we're back to where we started, but we're better than where we ended last year. I don't think we've got our cars producing more downforce, they're just more balanced. They're driving a lot better and a lot easier. Our first half of the season, I feel like we did a little bit just to get back to where we ended. I think our second half of the season will be much better than our first for all three teams."

Marlin, 46, said that had he not run into the bad luck early in the season, he would be in the top three in points.

"We had a good shot to win California, a good shot to win Michigan, a good shot to win Pocono, but they got away from us. We found where our problems were and we fixed them," he said. "We've had a lot of top 10s, a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda. In 17 races, we've had a top-five car in 10 of them. I can't say enough about all the guys in the shop changing bodies and just working to make the cars better. I think the rest of this year we'll be in pretty good shape."

The driver who has struggled the most is Mears, 25. A veteran of open-wheel racing, Mears left the Indy Racing League two years ago for NASCAR. He and his team quickly realized that, to have any success in Winston Cup, he needed experience not only in handling his 3,400-pound Dodge Intrepid but also in communicating with crew chief Jimmy Elledge.

"I've been in stock cars for two years now and there's little things in stock cars that you do a lot differently than in Indy cars," Mears said. "It takes time to learn all those ins and outs. I still have a lot to learn."

All three of Ganassi's drivers are eager to forget the first 17 races and get on with the second half to gain additional experience. Mears and McMurray made a solid showing in the Busch Series' Tropicana Twister 300 yesterday. No one could catch Bobby Hamilton Jr., who led 186 of the 200 laps, but Mears started from the pole and ran consistent laps to finish fourth. McMurray started 27th and steadily worked his way up to a ninth-place finish. Mears also won an ARCA series race at Michigan International Speedway earlier this season.

"We're definitely improving and I think that's the main goal that we're looking at right now," Mears said. "Ultimately, we don't have the results that we want. We expected a little more out of it but it's getting better every time out. The communication between Elledge and me just gets stronger. As long as we see those improvements, that's what keeps driving us to keep going."

McMurray said that winning in Marlin's car late last season might have unfairly raised expectations as to what he would accomplish this season. Although he did post that victory, his 2003 Havoline Dodge team is virtually new. Ganassi fielded only two cars in Winston Cup last season. He retained Marlin in the Coors Light Dodge but unceremoniously replaced Jimmy Spencer with Mears in the Target Dodge.

"People need to realize that we started a brand new team," McMurray said. "They need to look at the whole organization. Sterling won two races last year and led the points and he is not having the year he had last year. I think a lot of that has to do with the bodies and engines and everything. From this point on, there's going to be a different story to tell. We were a little bit behind from the get-go, but we've got our cars a lot better."

That was proven Friday in qualifying for the race today. Mears will start fourth after turning a lap of 29.306 seconds at 184.263 mph, McMurray will go off 10th after a 29.476-second lap at 183.200 mph and Marlin will start 19th after posting a 29.631-second lap at 182.242 mph.

The main reason the three teams have kept a positive outlook is because of Ganassi. Each driver knows -- and Ganassi has proven time and again -- that he will make the moves necessary to win. After buying the team midway into the 2000 season, he has revamped every aspect of it to turn it into one of the most respected in NASCAR.

"He brought a lot to the program when he bought it," Marlin said. "I think he knew what we had to do. He signed with Dodge and re-signed me and he's worked to get the cars better and the crews better and the people better and that's all he's does. We went from a 15th-place car to a winning car."

McMurray has plans to take it a step further. He wants to be the one to elevate Ganassi to the top of the NASCAR nation.

"Chip has won in everything," he said. "He'll win a Winston Cup championship. I'm positive that will happen. I just want to be the guy who gets to do it for him. Chip is a cool guy to be around. He's a racer, and people are constantly saying that, but Chip just wants to win. Everything that is done at the shop is done as well as it is in any Winston Cup organization. Everything is first class. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. It wouldn't matter if you walked in here and offered me a job, I would not leave where I'm at."

No one, though, expresses more appreciation for Ganassi's efforts than Mears, and the fact that Ganassi has shown patience with his new driver is not lost on him.

"We both kind of come from [the open-wheel] direction, but outside of that he's just been real supportive," Mears said. "It's been 180 degrees from what I expected going in with some of the things that happened in the past."

The past is where Mears, Marlin and McMurray plan to leave the first half of the season. They have filed the lessons and will make a fresh start today.