Season Preview: Chip Ganassi Racing
Chip Ganassi Racing has been one of the most successful organizations in the racing world, and they demonstrated that yet again by becoming the first team to ever win three consecutive Rolex 24 events this past January. The struggle for the team, however, has been trying to find a way translate all of their success into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series where they’ve been just mediocre.
It wasn’t always that way, though. Back in 2001 when Ganassi was running only a single car full-time in the (then) Winston Cup Series, Sterling Marlin finished the season third in points, coming in 371 points behind series leader Jeff Gordon. The next year got off to another great start, and Chip decided to add a second team to the mix with the no. 41 car of Jimmy Spencer. Marlin continued his hot streak sitting atop the championship points standings through the first 26 races of the season. Three races later, however, he had dropped all the way to fifth and his season ended early due to an injury. He would be replaced by Jaime McMurray for the remainder of the season, and amazingly enough he picked up right where Sterling left off by winning the race at Lowe’s in only his second career Cup start. McMurray’s success closing out the 2002 campaign was so adequate that it caused Ganassi to form yet a third team with the veteran Sterling Marlin leading the charge in front of the high-hope rookies of McMurray and Casey Mears. McMurray took the series by storm by finishing 13th in points in his first full season in the Cup Series, but Marlin was never able to rebound. He finished the year 18th in points, and to this date hasn’t won a race since the 2002 season.
The Ganassi lineup remained the same until the completion of the 2005 season with McMurray finishing the highest in points between the trio, coming in 11th in 2004 and 12th in 2005. Recording consistent top ten finishes didn’t appear to be the problem, but getting the cars to victory lane did, as the team as a whole hadn’t won a race since McMurray’s win at Lowe’s in 2002. McMurray had remained consistent for Ganassi, but that was of little consolation since he signed a deal late in the 2005 season to drive for Roush Racing in ’06. Meanwhile, Marlin continued to slip further and further into obscurity and Mears wasn’t progressing quite as quickly as Chip may have hoped.
The team’s 2006 lineup was completely revamped as Ganassi replaced McMurray and Marlin with rookies David Stremme and Reed Sorenson, and they moved Mears over to the number 42 car. The move appeared to work well for Casey as we completed the ’06 campaign 14th in points with 8 top ten finishes. Sorenson finished 24th with 5 top ten’s of his own, and Stremme was thankful just to remain inside the top 35 in owner points, finishing 33rd. Mears’ progression in 2006 was unquestionable, but again, it was of little consolation to Chip since Mears decided to part ways with the team and head over to Hendrick Motorsports. That wasn’t the big news this time in the Ganassi camp, though. Ganassi made headlines across the world when he announced late in the 2006 season that former Indy Series Champion Juan Pablo Montoya was making the move to NASCAR and would compete full-time in 2007 behind the wheel of the no. 42 car. The move paid off as Montoya finished 20th in points and won Rookie of the Year honors. Oh, and he also won the race at Infineon, giving Ganassi their first Cup Series victory since 2002. Sorenson and Stremme also finished the year inside the top 25 in points, and it now appeared that Ganassi may have things back on track.
Heading into 2008, Chip Ganassi has made yet another bold move by relieving Stremme of his driving duties and replacing him with yet another former open-wheel champion in Dario Franchitti. Franchitti is already an early favorite to win the Rookie of the Year honors this year and will have Montoya there to coach him on just what exactly he needs to do to make sure that happens. With Sorenson slowly progressing each year and Montoya now having a full season of seat time under his belt, the future of Chip Ganassi Racing now hinges on whether or not Ganassi leading the charge for the open-wheel drivers to make the jump over to NASCAR will pay off or not. Over the course of the next few seasons I think it will, and this year we just might see a few more wins come out of the Ganassi camp.
Cup Series Roster:
40: Dario Franchitti – In 2008, he will become the first ever European born driver to compete full-time in NASCAR’s Cup Series, and he comes into the season as the all-time winningest driver in US open-wheel history to hail from Great Brittain. In 2007 not only did he capture the Indianapolis 500 – arguably the most prestigious race in all of motorsports – but, he also closed the season out by bringing home the IndyCar Series Championship. He heads into this season as one of four rookie drivers that formerly competed in open-wheels, but he has the advantage over all but Sam Hornish in the fact that he will begin the season already ranked in the top 35 in owner points thanks to last year’s efforts of David Stremme. That means that Franchitti will have guaranteed starts in the first five races of the season while Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Carpentier will be forced to qualify each week based on time. While that’s definitely a huge plus for Franchitti, it also creates a lot of added pressure coming into the year knowing that you’re an early favorite for success and knowing that you have an advantage over most of the other rookies in your class. I think he’ll be able to handle the pressure. While he probably won’t win any races or record any top ten’s in those first five races, I believe he’ll finish well enough to maintain his status in the top 35 and ensure his starts throughout the course of the season. He’ll remain dangerous on both of the Cup Series visits to road courses, and I’d expect his season to finish out much like Montoya’s rookie year … perhaps slightly better.
41: Reed Sorenson – In his first two seasons in the Nextel Cup, Sorenson compiled a total of four top five’s and eleven top ten finishes, which is actually better than Casey Mears’ first two seasons in the series. His points finishes have been a very respectable 24th and 22nd, and he appears to be maturing on the track rather quickly. He’s really the least talked about driver in the Ganassi garage thanks to all the media hoopla surrounding the open-wheel surge into NASCAR, and that actually bodes well for Reed, giving him the opportunity to grow into this sport at his own pace without over-anticipation from the public. You should continue to see much more of the same from Reed in 2008, possibly competing for some wins here and there. He should be able to bring home about 7 or 8 top five’s on the season, and by the end of the year could possibly be competing for a top 15 spot in the points standings.
42: Juan Pablo Montoya – 2007’s Rookie of the Year recipient started the season off with a 19th place showing at the Daytona 500, and that’s about where he remained for the majority of the season. With the exception of his road course performances – particularly his win at Infineon – he very rarely looked spectacular on the track, but remained consistent enough to finish the year out ranked 20th in points. Now that the team knows that they’re able to translate Juan’s open wheel success into success at the road courses in a stock car, that’s one less item to mark off their list. They’re likely to be coming into this year with their primary focus centering around figuring out the intermediate tracks on the circuit, where they had an average finish last year of right around 22 over the span of 24 races. Attaining a certain degree of consistency at these tracks would enable Juan to not only compete for a top 15 points finish, but possibly even compete for a spot in this year’s Chase field. I think it’s a longshot at this point to look for that to happen, but I’d be willing to bet that he’ll crack that field at some point within the next three years.
Driver Roster: B-
Off-Season: B
2008 Outlook: B-
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