Schmidt cries foul as driver leaves team

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2001 | 10:46 a.m.

Sam Schmidt has been through a lot in his first year as an Indy Racing League team owner, but the Henderson resident wasn't prepared to lose his driver in mid-season to a rival team.

Jaques Lazier, who joined Sam Schmidt Motorsports in June following Davey Hamilton's crash at Texas Motor Speedway, abruptly quit as Schmidt's driver Wednesday to join Team Menard. Team owner John Menard fired 1999 IRL champion Greg Ray on Wednesday.

The move, which Schmidt said caught him by surprise, left Schmidt upset with both Lazier and Menard.

"I got a call (Wednesday) from Jaques saying he had signed a contract with John Menard effective immediately and that was that," Schmidt said.

"(Lazier and I) had an agreement and it's pretty disappointing. John Menard is John Menard and everybody in the paddock knows what his deal is. But I believe in a higher power and he's not going to be able to buy his way into that one someday."

Schmidt said there is an unwritten rule among team owners that you don't hire away another team's driver during the season.

"When you're a billionaire, you don't really care about rules," Schmidt said of Menard. "He could have started talking to (Lazier) now about next year -- there's nothing wrong with that -- but the man just has no ethics; he has no respect for anybody else except for himself."

Schmidt also wasn't happy with Lazier, the younger brother of Buddy Lazier, the defending IRL champion and 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner.

"I think our biggest point of disappointment as a team is Jaques," Schmidt said. "I've sat back and watched his brother be loyal to (team owner) Ron Hemelgarn when Ron didn't have the sponsorship to put him in really great cars and Buddy turned down a lot of good rides because Ron was the one who gave him the opportunity.

"Jaques had emphatically committed to us for the rest of the year because we had given him the opportunity and done such a good job for him. He told us he definitely thought he could win a race with this team and decided not to honor that and that hurts pretty bad."

Schmidt said he held a team meeting on Saturday during which he presented Lazier with a trophy for scoring his first podium finish (third place) with the team last month at Nashville Superspeedway.

"He got all teary-eyed and said how much he loved everybody he was working with and that he had never been a part of this type of chemistry before and that he found himself a family that he could stay with for a long time," Schmidt said.

"The sad part about it is he won't find that (type of chemistry) over there (with Menard); he's totally disillusioned that money can buy victories."

Schmidt said he will start the process of looking for a driver to replace Lazier and did not rule out the possibility of hiring Ray -- a longtime friend of Schmidt's.

"We haven't talked in a while and I'm not sure what he wants to do, but he would be on the list," Schmidt said of Ray. "I know from competing against him in 1998 and 1999 that he is a tough customer."