IndyCar 2015 team preview: Chip Ganassi Racing Teams - MotorSportsTalk

Next up on our list of teams to hit for the Verizon IndyCar Series preview is Chip Ganassi Racing. The team continues with four cars for St. Petersburg, with rookie Sage Karam joining the veteran trio of Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball.

Team: Chip Ganassi Racing
Engine/aero kits: Chevrolet
Sponsors: GE LED (No. 8), Target (No. 9), NTT Data (No. 10), Novo Nordisk (No. 83)

2014 STATS

Races: 18
Wins: 3 (Dixon 2, Kanaan 1)
Podiums: 11 (Kanaan 6, Dixon 4, Kimball 1)
Pole Positions: 1 (Dixon)
Fastest Laps: 5 (Dixon 3, Kanaan 1, Briscoe 1)
Points: 2011 (Dixon 604, Kanaan 544, Briscoe 461, Kimball 402)
Laps Led: 509 (Kanaan 407, Dixon 97, Briscoe 5)
Championship Position: 3^rd (Dixon), 7^th (Kanaan), 11^th (Briscoe), 14^th (Kimball)

2015 LINEUP (Engineer in parentheses)

8 Sage Karam (Eric Cowdin)
9 Scott Dixon (Chris Simmons)
10 Tony Kanaan (Todd Malloy)
83 Charlie Kimball (Brad Goldberg)

2014 RECAP (Dixon, Kanaan, Briscoe, Kimball driver recaps)

There was plenty of change for Ganassi at the start of the season, with Dario Franchitti medically forced into retirement and Tony Kanaan, originally signed to the team’s fourth car, moving over to replace his good friend in the No. 10 with Ryan Briscoe back in the fold as well. The team also switched from Honda to Chevrolet engines and the meshing of parts took a bit longer than anticipated. By the second half, the team was back to firing on all cylinders; Dixon was great as always and Kanaan had one of his better seasons in years.

2015 OUTLOOK

Last year it was the drivers and engines that were changing. This year, it’s engineers and aero kits. Ganassi’s run of success in North American open-wheel racing began nearly 20 years ago in 1996, when the team discovered “the package” of a Reynard chassis, Honda engine and Firestone tires. Nineteen years later, CGR will be hoping the Chevrolet aero kit and engine will have the edge. Dixon’s longtime engineer Eric Bretzman shifts to the team’s NASCAR program and he’ll have Chris Simmons to work with; Kanaan and Todd Malloy should be a good pairing, particularly at Indianapolis; Kimball will look to recapture his 2013 form and Karam is the wild card as the rookie, very high on potential. Get used to TK in blue NTT Data colors too, while Karam’s No. 8 for St. Pete will have GE LED colors and Kanaan’s longtime engineer in Eric Cowdin.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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