Team Ganassi a natural fit for LV’s Vasser

Tuesday, May 8, 2001 | 10:16 a.m.

It may seem like the most unlikely of pairings, considering the way Chip Ganassi and Jimmy Vasser parted ways last fall.

But to Vasser, the announcement Monday that he and NASCAR Winston Cup Series regular Tony Stewart would drive for Ganassi at the Indianapolis 500 this month only seems natural.

"In its simplicity, I'm stepping into one of the cars that has the best chance to win this race and I very badly would like to win the Indianapolis 500," Vasser said.

Ganassi informed Vasser last summer that he would not renew the Las Vegas resident's contract to drive one of Ganassi's Target-sponsored cars in the CART FedEx Championship Series this season.

Although he is a former CART champion and nine-time winner in the series, Vasser did not secure a ride for 2001 until mid-December when he signed to drive for Patrick Racing.

Team owner Pat Patrick gave his blessing for Vasser to drive for Ganassi at Indy, as did NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs with Stewart.

Vasser and Stewart will compete at Indy in place of Ganassi's two rookie CART drivers, Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian. Ganassi elected to hire the two veterans after CART was forced to cancel two of its first four races this season, robbing the youngsters of valuable oval track experience.

Despite his dismissal from Target/Chip Ganassi Racing, which led to a restless fall in which he shelved his vacation plans while searching for a ride, Vasser maintained Monday that he and Ganassi remained on friendly terms.

"I've got a lot of friends and a lot of history with Target/Chip Ganassi Racing," Vasser said. "There hasn't been any bad feelings since what happened last year at all. Chip and I, we did things together and we're still friends.

"Chip not too long ago mentioned to me that he was starting to think that maybe since the (CART) races were getting cancelled, that maybe (Junqueira and Minassian) didn't have the miles under their belts that he felt was necessary to go into the month with them. One thing led to another."

Ganassi, the winning car owner at Indy last year with driver Juan Montoya, said the decision to hire Vasser for Indy was a no-brainer.

"With what has been going on throughout the spring ... Jimmy was the first guy that came to mind," Ganassi said. "He can climb in these cars today and get the most out of it by this afternoon."

Like Vasser, Stewart said he isn't going to Indianapolis merely to run around the famed 2.5-mile Brickyard.

"We didn't want to just come back to Indy and race," Stewart, a native Hoosier, said. "We want to come, first of all, to win. I've had a great career to this point but there's a space that's at the top of that that only one thing can be added and that's the Indianapolis 500 victory.

"I can't express in words, to be honest, how much this race means to me. It's just that when you grow up in Indiana and you're a racecar driver, this is all there is and this is all you think about."

Stewart will attempt to pull double duty -- running the Indy 500 and the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, N.C., on the same day -- for the second time in his career. In 1999, Stewart finished ninth at Indy and fourth in the NASCAR race.

Stewart, the 1997 Indy Racing League champion, will be attempting to make his fifth Indianapolis 500 start.

Vasser has made five Indy 500 starts and posted a career-best finish of fourth in 1994.

archive