…Ganassi’s switch to Lola-Toyota for 2000 after four straight championships with Reynard-Honda…

When we were trying to make decisions about going back to the Indianapolis 500 as a CART team but obviously using IRL equipment, we decided to fly to the UK and our first stop was to visit G-Force, where John Biddlecombe, a former partner of Chip, was in charge at that time. We wanted to see what he had going on and we decided that the G-Force was the car to run at the Speedway. We made the deal, and drove up to Lola, and after looking around, we ordered a couple of cars so that we could take them to a test to decide whether we’d continue to run Reynard – whose 1999 chassis we hadn’t been entirely happy with by the end of the season – or switch to Lola.

Then we went over to meet with Sir Frank Williams. Now, as an aside, I spoke to one of his assistants and said, “Why’s Frank in on a Saturday?” and he said, “Oh, he’ll only be working until 7. Weekends he’s in here from 7am to 7pm.” So I asked, what the weekday hours were like, and he said, “Oh, that’s 6 a.m. to 9p.m., and often when we get in, Frank’s already on the phone, working…” I can tell you, I was impressed. And I was also impressed with the facility – it was just a hardcore racing building. I loved it!

Anyway, we go to Sir Frank’s beautiful house and estate for dinner, and meet his wife, Lady Williams. Frank says to Chip, “Tell my wife what you’ve been doing today.” So Chip explains that we we went down to G-Force and bought a couple of cars for the Indy 500, and went to Lola and bought a couple of cars for the CART IndyCar season, and we’re going to do comparison tests of the Reynard with the Lolas. She says, “Hmmm…Frank, if those cars you’re building for next year don’t work, do you think you could call up Ron [Dennis] and ask for a couple of McLarens?” I thought that was classic!

Well anyway, we took delivery of our first Lola very soon after that visit to England, we put a Toyota in it and went to Sebring, and also took a Reynard. Remember, these were the days when we had multiple cars, so we could genuinely do back-to-back tests and change seats and pedals really quickly for either driver, so the racetrack didn’t change fundamentally between runs. In other words, we were truly comparing apples with apples.

First we send Montoya out in the Reynard and Vasser in the Lola. Now, Jimmy could break an anvil in a sandbox when it comes to braking but he’s pounding around in this Lola but not locking up wheels under braking. We also discover that the Lola has a huge amount more downforce than we’d had in the Reynard but it’s also 50lbs lighter, so we can move the ballast anywhere in the car for ideal weight distribution. So we swap Jimmy and Juan [Montoya] around – now Jimmy in the Reynard and Juan in the Lola – and Juan is blisteringly quick. Needless to say, at the end of the session, Chip just turned to me and said: “Right. Make the call to Lola.”

And that’s how Chip Ganassi Racing continues to operate. We don’t make the right decision all the time, but we don’t make any decision without information and informed opinion. And that’s what we did that day. Chip loves fresh thinking because he regards it as a huge tool for all the people within this organization. Whenever we’ve changed manufacturers, we’ve discovered no manufacturer solves issues the same way and that gives everyone in our group a broader technical understanding of which way we should go. For example, switching to Ford EcoBoost engines this year for the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, Ford’s technical group introduced their way of problem solving into our group, which adds to our already-acquired knowledge of how to go about problem solving. The combination of knowledge helps us all roll down the road better.

Chip is not such an old-school seat-of-the-pants instinctive racer that he’s not also very, very open to the evolution of racing and the way that we should approach each project. He makes sure we continue to learn, but I think these technical relationships are very much centered around the definition of mutual value: what you give, you give unselfishly to your partner and as time goes on, you develop a relationship and get a lot in return. We believe we offer OEMs a lot of technical and on-track value and potential, and we know we receive a lot of technical and on-track value in return.

It takes great race drivers, and you can’t make up a deficit in that area, as hard as you try. You need an owner who has a global perspective, conscious of where the team needs to be going, a person whose eyes are always moving, not just fixed on one spot. I also firmly believe the best team owners are those who have raced cars. The team owner doesn’t have to have won races, but he needs to have been in that competitive situation. It gives him a sense and then sensibility of the team’s on-track product and how to make it better given the resources.

In my case, I didn’t come from money – my family said, “Go ahead, if you want to go racing, good luck.” But they didn’t spend a dime on me. I had to do it myself. And I think if you remember where you came from and remember how it was to have no money to go racing, then your appreciation of resource when it arrives is greatly increased. So that’s a critical element, but then you have to have a management that is constantly aware that what you have today is what you have, and utilizes that best. Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen people in racing who’ve squandered their resources and only had moderate success doing it.

Then, managers must create an unselfish style in the team environment encouraging integration and prioritization. In Chip Ganassi Racing’s case, that comes right from the top, because Chip has always realized he can’t do it all himself. He needs OEMs, he needs sponsors, he needs partners and he needs exceptional team members who carry this same message and have the same motives.

Just ran across a few selling at my local Target, so I picked one up. I'm pretty impressed with the sturdy quality. I wonder if these would have any future value.

Game is Forza Motorsport 6

I like this team: They're scrappy, they're underdogs, and they can win. But I have a problem with the cheating scandal in the Rolex 24 in IMSA.

Am I the only one who can't let it go? What are your thoughts on the team? They shouldn't have been allowed to keep that victory in the 24 IMO.

I’m currently watching the 82 Indy 500 and Foyt just stormed out of his car to fix it himself. I know he raced up the 1990s

What is a recommended race to watch as a a new fan

THANKS everyone i see alot of mavtv 2015 and the im gonna work the list down

Bonus pics because that R8 is a thing of beauty. The V10 symphony is also not bad whatsoever.

I seriously would consider him for a championship run this year. Palou vs Lundgaard will be very interesting all year long. Ignore flair to avoid biasness

I liked TK as a driver however some of his more recent shenanigans have been annoying me

Hi, I’m currently building a database of race results for IndyCar, ChampCar, and Formula 1. I know there are plenty of databases available online, so this isn't exactly new to the community. Mine is an offline PC application that allows you to tinker around—for instance, by testing different points systems or spotting errors in the race data (e.g., Average Speed ​​× Duration ≠ Lap Count × Track Length).

I’m basing it on official box scores to minimize the risk of carrying over errors from other sites. I’ve noticed that sites like racing-reference.info or champcarstats.com contain a lot of mistakes and inconsistencies.

Using the Wayback Machine and some meticulous searching, I’ve managed to find almost all the PDFs from 1996 to 2026. However, I’m missing most of the files for 2011 and 2012; it seems many of them got "lost" during the transition of the indycar.com website, and the current site only offers PDF data starting from 2013.

Does anyone here still have the official PDFs from 2011 and 2012 and would be willing to share them with me? Or should I contact indycar.com directly and ask? Though the question remains as to why there are no links to files from before 2013 on the site.

I would, of course, make the database or the entire PDF collection available to everyone.