A tribute to Target’s 100 wins in racing

By Jul 9, 2013, 3:00 PM EDT
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Target has been an integral part of racing for more than 20 years, in association with Chip Ganassi Racing. As it secured its 100th win this weekend, here are some of the monumental wins in that time frame:

SURFERS’ PARADISE 1994: ANDRETTI TAKES A NUMBER OF FIRSTS

After years of domination by Team Penske and Newman/Haas Racing with Penske and Lola chassis and Chevrolet and Ford Cosworth engines, the then-upstart Target Chip Ganassi Racing team opened its 1994 IndyCar account with a win by Michael Andretti in a Reynard-Ford on the streets of Surfers’ Paradise, Australia. The win was Reynard’s first in IndyCar and was a nice return for Andretti, after his one-year sojourn into Formula One with McLaren.

U.S. 500 1996: VASSER WINS $1 MILLION

Jimmy Vasser’s run to the 1996 IndyCar championship included wins in four of the first six races, culminating with a win at the U.S. 500 at the Michigan International Speedway and a $1 million prize. The race ran several hundred miles away from the Indianapolis 500 in the first of the split years between CART and the new-for-1996 Indy Racing League, and unfortunately for CART, a massive accident occurred before the start in Michigan. But once green, Vasser and teammate Alex Zanardi dominated the race.

LAGUNA SECA 1996: “THE PASS.”

We could write thousands of words about the legendary move Alex Zanardi pulled at Bryan Herta at the Corkscrew, but what’s the point? The video below tells you all you need to know.

CLEVELAND 1997, LONG BEACH 1998: ZANARDI’S ICONIC COMEBACKS

After being trapped at the back of the pack at the Burke Lakefront Airport in 1997 and again on the streets of Long Beach the following year, Zanardi scythed through the field on both occasions for two memorable wins.

INDY, MILWAUKEE 2000: MONTOYA DOES THE DOUBLE

Juan Pablo Montoya and the Target team shifted cars to IRL-spec chassis for the 2000 Indianapolis 500, and promptly kicked everyone’s rear ends. A week later, back in his now normal Lola-Toyota after years with the Reynard-Honda package, Montoya took Toyota’s first CART win at the Milwaukee Mile.

TEXAS 2002: WARD BY A NOSE

One of the closest wins secured in Target Ganassi’s history came from Jeff Ward, at the summer Texas IRL race in 2002. Ward edged Al Unser Jr. by 0.011 of a second for his only IRL victory.

HOMESTEAD 2003: DIXON TAKES IRL OPENER

Then 22, and in his first race in IRL machinery after the team shifted its entire operations from CART to the IRL, Scott Dixon opened the 2003 season with a victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the last year before the track’s reconfiguration to add higher banks in the turns.

WATKINS GLEN 2005: DIXON BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO PROGRAM

The Ganassi/Toyota partnership struggled through trying seasons in 2004 and 2005, and was on the verge of back-to-back winless seasons as an organization before Dixon saved them with a win on the road course at Watkins Glen. Then-teammate Giorgio Pantano finished fourth in the race.

HOMESTEAD, CHICAGO 2006: WHELDON’S BOOK-ENDS

Ganassi signed 2005 Indianapolis 500 and IRL champion Dan Wheldon to partner Dixon ahead of 2006 and the Englishman won the first and last rounds of the season. Homestead came in a photo finish over Helio Castroneves, and Chicagoland after a duel the entire race with Castroneves, Dixon and Sam Hornish Jr. Wheldon lost the championship to Hornish on a tie-breaker.

INDY 500 2008: DIXON RETURNS CGR TO THE PROMISED LAND

It had been since 2000 for Target Chip Ganassi Racing to win at Indianapolis before Dixon delivered the victory in 2008 ‘500, one of a series-high six en route to his second series title.

HOMESTEAD 2009: SLOW IS FAST FOR FRANCHITTI

Running at a slower pace to make more fuel mileage, Dario Franchitti mastered the game at the season finale at Homestead to take his fifth win of his return season to IndyCar and first in the Target Ganassi stable, to secure his second series championship. It set him on a charge of winning each of the next three.

INDY 500 2010: FRANCHITTI’S DOMINANCE ON DISPLAY

A day Franchitti ran on rails with one of the best set-up cars in his illustrious career. He led 155 of 200 laps en route to his second Indianapolis 500 victory.

TORONTO 2011: A ONE-TWO IN TORONTO AS MORE STORES OPEN

Toronto 2011 had drama, with a battle between Franchitti and championship rival Will Power, and eventually ended in a 1-2 finish for the Target team as the store was expanding its market share into Canada. Believe it or not, this is the last road or street race Franchitti has won in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

INDY 500 2012: ANOTHER FRANCHITTI WIN IN DRAMATIC FASHION

This one came after Takuma Sato interrupted the planned Target Ganassi 1-2 up front. But Sato went for it on Franchitti, who played the race craft game to perfection in allowing Sato just enough room to try the move into Turn 1 on the last lap but not too much as if to squeeze him. Sato lost it, and the rest is history as Franchitti joined the list of three-time Indianapolis 500 winners.

POCONO 2013: 100 COMES WITH A GANASSI 1-2-3

Dixon, a staple of the Target Chip Ganassi Racing empire since 2002, was the one who hit the bullseye to secure the 100th win in Pocono, Pa., Ganassi’s home state. Charlie Kimball in second and Franchitti in third just made for icing on the cake.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence that on the same weekend Target won its 100th race as a sponsor, its founder, Douglas Dayton, died at the age of 88. Dayton, a Wayzata, Minn. native, died Friday after a long bout with cancer.

‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

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Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and six red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500