Ganassi quotes from LMS Media Tour.

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005
Lowe's Motor Speedway Media Tour
Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Stop
          

CHIP GANASSI (Owner Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates)

 

OPENING COMMENTS "This team is about consistently competing at the
highest level and at the same time providing more value to our sponsors
and the investments they make or could make by operating smart and
making efficient of the resources we have. When you're investing heavily
in the future, we're certainly focusing on what's coming up at Daytona,
what's coming up for the 2005 season, we're also focusing on the future.
We're also proud of our driver development program. Our strategy with
our driver development program is not to hire a bunch of guys and see
who rises to the top. That's not it. Our strategy is to pick guys we
believe in and make them a part of our team. Also last year, we
recruited six top-level athletes and developed them as our pit crew
members. This year all six of these athletes are strung among the 40, 41
and 42 cars and we're very excited about that program. Our Busch team is
going to be running a full schedule this year with Reed Sorenson and our
new sponsor Discount Tire Company. We're expecting them to compete for
wins.

 

"The backbone of the company is the No. 40 Coors Light team and driver
Sterling Marlin. Last year the 40 team did not perform to our
expectations, so we sat down and had to make some significant changes.
We did some restructuring, including making Steve Boyer the crew chief.
We've reworked almost the entire pit crew, and we expect to see some
significant improvement in the 40 car this season.

 

"Casey's performance last season was a huge jump from his first year in
Nextel Cup. We're looking for a jump like that again in 2005. We'd like
to see a little more consistency. Everybody on the Target team is back
in 2005.

 

"Jamie and Donnie (crew chief Wingo) and everybody on the
Texaco/Havoline team are ready to compete for the championship. It's
that simple. We got eked out of the top 10 last year by 15 points, but
there's nothing older than yesterday's news. The only thing left for
that team to do is win races and compete for the championship. With the
improvements we've made to the whole team, we expect to see the 42 car
in victory lane and making a run at this thing this year. It's that
simple.

 

"During 2004 we began to see more consistency in all three teams. I
think that's a testament to the way we've turned this thing around.
We're operating as one team. Every team here has the same resources and
the same equipment. They share information. The only difference in the
teams is our people.

 

"This summer in the southeast corner of our building we're going to
continue our relationship with Ernie Elliott and we're going to put an
engine shop up. We look forward to getting that program under way about
March or April. I think you can always look for something interesting
here. We're real excited about Bill Elliott running in the Shootout for
us. We have some things we're doing. We're always looking for an
opportunity out there."

 

COMMENT ON NASCAR'S POPULARITY "Sports in general right now, the sports
entities that are growing seem to be growing and the entities that seem
to be faltering, there seems to be no end to their faltering. I think
that's across the board in all sports right now. I think when
something's good we latch on to it. When something's bad, we want to
wash our hands of it and get away from it. Things that are going in a
positive direction are going to keep going that way. Things that are
negative are going to keep going that way. It's like hockey right now.
Felix has the hockey team here in town and that's great at that level. I
think the next level above it, nobody is really watching it or concerned
about it.

 

"I don't understand why other sanctioning bodies don't adopt successful
ideas or strategies that other winning organizations have. If I was one
of these other sanctioning bodies, I'd start doing it the NASCAR way. It
seems pretty simple to me. They own a lot of things, but they don't own
the way of doing things. I'd start to copy that."

 

HAVE YOU BEEN TOO PATIENT WITH YOUR CUP TEAMS? "At the end of the day
we've got to win races. I don't know if I've been too patient, but I can
tell you we're obviously at the point where we need to start being in
front consistently and closing out the checkered flag."

 

HOW HARD IS IT TO STAY ON TOP OF YOUR GAME IN RACING? "Racing is a
delicate balance of man and machine and attitude. You get a lot of lumpy
things that have to go together to make a winning organization. It takes
a long time to build that up. Once you have that you have to keep it,
and once you keep it for awhile everybody in my experience, people in an
organization if you don't do a good job of preaching those values to
your people it provides opportunities for other people to come in and
try to break up your team and your winning organization. I've seen it
from a lot of different angles, and all I can tell you for sure is that
it's a delicate balance of a lot of moving parts. Complacency isn't a
big concern under this roof. That's not one of our challenges."

 

IS THERE A BENEFIT TO COMPETING IN MULTIPLE RACING SERIES? "I think
there is. We have so many costs today that are huge expenses in this
business. If you can amortize those costs over two or three different
teams it makes it a little less expensive. At the end of the day, a
racetrack doesn't know what kind of car is on it. All a racetrack knows
is there's four patches of rubber that are touching it. It doesn't know
if it's a Busch car or a Cup car or IndyCar, sports car or whatever.
It's who manages those four patches of rubber the best that's going to
be up at the front. You can share engineering concepts, there's a lot
more cross over than you might think, and I don't want to tell all my
competitors what it is."

 

COMMENT ON YOUR MANAGEMENT STYLE "I like to give the guys the tools they
need to work with and I let them go do their job. I don't think I'm a
micro manager, but I don't think I'm such a macro guy that I'm
untouchable or I'm hard to get a hold of. I don't think I'm any of
those. I would like to think I'm somewhere in the middle, and I have a
lot to learn yet about this business. I don't know what my management
style is, but I'm sure if you guys are around me along enough you'll put
some kind of label on it. I seem to have been able to get it done in
other arenas. I guess the jury is out whether I can get it done in this
arena or not."

 

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge Charger)

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT YOUR NEW CREW CHIEF, STEVE BOYER, BEING A FORMER
ENGINEER? "I think Steve will be a big plus for us. He was an engineer
for Goodyear He's been with us since 2001, and things are changing. The
sport changes a whole lot, and we've got a lot of engineers in the sport
now. As more changes happen to these cars, you've got to have more
people understanding what's going on. We've got to have these guys to
tell us which way we're going."

 

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LUCK AND RUN LIKE YOU DID TWO YEARS
AGO? "Every time you buckle up you want to win. I think if we get the
cars back the way they were in 2001 and 2002 and the start of 2003,
there's no doubt in  my mind that we can be right back up winning races
and leading the points and running in the top five. It just takes a
whole group effort. The pit crew has got to make good stops all day and
I've got to make the right calls on the car. The car has got to be set
up good. It's just a team deal."

 

 

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge Charger)

 

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR 2005? "We've just got to continue to improve. We
really made a big step last year, and we set our goals high this year.
We've got a real good shot to make the Chase. We've just got to keep
doing what we were doing last year and improve on it. The thing we
didn't have last year was consistency. We've be good at one track and
then the next track we weren't any good at all. We need to pick up where
we left off. Several times we ran in the top five and just couldn't
finish it off. We've got to put the last quarter of the race together
and be more consistent, focus on the 26 races leading up to The Chase
and I think we've got a good chance to be in it.

 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN THE INDY 500? "I think our main focus right now is
right here. We've got a lot of work to do to get a top finish here. I
think Chip knows I'd love to run the Daytona 500, but that's on the back
burner right now. We've got to make some progress here and get the
Target car consistently running in the top 10 week in and week out. You
never know what the future holds, but right now that's not our main
focus. I'd love to do it, obviously. 

 

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger)

 

WILL YOU CHANGE YOUR DRIVING STYLE TO FOCUS ON MAKING THE CHASE?  "We
didn't do anything different the second half of the season. It seemed a
lot of luck was on our side. When we needed a caution, a caution would
come out. Fortunately if we had an average car as a team we were able to
make the car better and finish in the top 10. We're not going to do
anything different. We'll just go out every week and do the exact same
thing we did the second half of last season. We've got the same group of
people and it's our third year together. I think one of the most
encouraging things for me this year, my first year we started our race
team. That's tough on an organization when you start a brand new team.
Then last year we went through moving to this new shop and also start
the Busch team for Reed, so this is our first season. The majority of
racing is mental.

 

"I heard Jimmie say this last year when they were trying to focus on the
championship and not necessarily race race to race. That's when they got
in all their trouble. When they were so far behind they just focused on
winning races and their season took back off. For us, at one point in
the season, we were two or three points out of 10th place. We were
running in the top 10 every week and felt like if we could just finish
all the races we were going to make it in. I talked to Donnie about
trying to be a little bit more conservative. I think we got in a wreck
in Daytona and two or three races after that we didn't finish. Then you
just go out and race week to week, and there's not a whole lot you can
do. I hear guys talk about racing different. I don't know how you race
different. Every one in this sport since you started racing has raced to
win. That's all we know, so it's hard to change that."

 

COMMENT ON YOUR CONFIDENCE IN A RACECAR "Racing is a huge mental game. I
went to a school a few years ago that taught when you think positive
things positive things tend to happen. For me, I don't always try to
think positive. I just try to think open minded. I just listen to the
people around me, and it's huge. Guys can show up at the racetrack and
be beat before the races ever start. I think that's why you see when a
guy wins a race, they often win two or three in a row. Once they realize
they can do it, it just happens for 'em. It's not something you can make
your mind or body do. I just typically tell myself what I want myself to
do. Instead of looking at it and saying 'don't do that.' I just tell
myself to do this. There are a lot of different ways to look at racing
and the best way I've found is to look at it with a positive attitude."