A Chip Shot

By SHAV GLICK

May 21, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

INDIANAPOLIS —

In five Indianapolis 500 starts, Jeff Ward has finished second, third and fourth.

“It’s about time for a one to go with that two, three and four,” the 40-year-old Scot said. “No doubt, this is the best chance I ever had, to be driving for a team like Chip Ganassi’s. It’s all a driver could ask for.

“Now it’s up to me to not make any mistakes, let the team call the race and be in the top three for the last pit stop. Then it’s up to me.”

Ganassi was the first CART team owner to bring his drivers here for the 500 after the open-wheel split in 1996. Rookie Juan Montoya won the 2000 race in a Target team car and Jimmy Vasser finished fourth.

This season, Ganassi started his own Indy Racing League team, running it besides his two-car CART team and a NASCAR Winston Cup team.

Ward is Ganassi’s IRL driver and for Sunday’s 500 is teamed with Ganassi’s two CART drivers, pole-sitter Bruno Junqueira and former winner Kenny Brack.

“Racing’s a funny business,” said Ward, who was one of the world’s greatest motocross champions before switching to cars a decade ago. “When the year started, I didn’t have a ride and was looking for an Indy-only opportunity. Then I heard from a friend that Chip was thinking of starting an IRL team.

“I wanted him to know I was available, but I wanted to tell him in person. He was in Laguna Seca for a test. I left home in San Juan Capistrano at 11:30 and drove all night. I got to the track at 5 a.m. so I would be sure to be the first to talk to him.

“Fortunately, I had known Chip for about 15 years because he was a big motorcycle fan who used to come to motocross when I was riding. I had even talked to him about his CART team when Montoya left, but nothing came of it. Before I knew it, we had a deal and formed an IRL team, five days before the first race at Homestead [Fla.].”

Ward never considered racing cars while he was winning seven national motocross championships, posting 20 supercross wins, 54 motocross wins and riding on winning U.S. teams in seven Motocross des Nations. He was the first rider to win seven AMA titles with one manufacturer, Kawasaki, and in 1992 received the AMA’s sportsman-of-the-year award.

“I nearly won the championship in my last year, but I knew I was going to retire,” he said. “Physically, it was too difficult keeping up with 16-year-olds. I was 31 and it was too much. Jeremy McGrath is finding that out this year. Ricky Carmichael has it all going for him, but wait until he’s 30.

“Once I realized I was not going to race, it left me kind of in a vacuum. I had been racing since I was 5, it was all I knew. I did a few stadium truck races with Walker Evans and hooked up with an Indy Lights ride at the end of 1992.”

For four years he drove in Indy Lights, but without “a bankroll in my hip pocket” found the door closed to a CART ride.

“When the IRL was formed, it saved my career,” Ward said. “It gave me a chance to drive without having to bring a big sponsor. Eddie Cheever gave me my big chance to drive one of his cars in the 500.”

Ward made the most of it, leading 49 laps, finishing third and winning rookie-of-the-year honors.

“The IRL has been everything to me,” he said. “Fortunately, even though I had always raced motorcycles on road-type courses, I adapted well to ovals.”

A number of other famous two-wheel champions--Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Kevin Schwantz and Rick Johnson--tried automobiles, but never had Ward’s kind of success. The greatest combo rider-driver was Joe Leonard, who won two Grand National cycle championships before winning the USAC driving championship in 1972 in the Vel’s Parnelli Jones Samsonite Special.

“Perseverance, that’s what it was,” Ward said with a smile. “When I started riding, it took me four years, from 1978 to 1982 before I won my first race, but I never gave up. I never quit trying. It was the same way with cars. I didn’t win in four years in Indy Lights, but I kept improving.”

Ward is also winless in the IRL, but he has four second-place finishes, one in the 1999 Indy 500 when he trailed winner Brack by 6.5 seconds while driving for underfunded Pagan Racing.

When he’s not living in the family bus, going from race to race, Ward lives in San Juan Capistrano with his wife, Candice, and their children, Brandon, 9, Ayrton and Alain, 4-year-old twins, and Siena, almost 3.

Ayrton and Alain are named for famous Formula One champions Senna and Prost.

“When the boys were born, my wife liked their names,” Ward said. “I knew Prost but never met Senna. Our oldest has a Scottish-Irish name in keeping with my ancestry, and Siena is named for a city in Italy where my wife’s family lived.”

Ward was 2 when his family left Glasgow for California, and he has been back only once, but he still carries his British passport.

“You can go all over Europe, even to Japan, without all the hassle you get with an American passport,” he said. “It’s really helped me when I’ve raced over there.”

Although there would seem to be little similarity in racing a motorcycle over a dirt track filled with bumps, berms and high-flying jumps and racing a car over a relatively smooth paved oval, Ward says there is a common thread called concentration.

“You drive around Indy at 220 mph and to do it right, you have to hit every turn perfect, hit every line precisely, lap after lap. Your focus has to be complete. In a motocross, you learn every corner, every rock, every bump and you want to take every berm the same way to keep up your speed and momentum.

“In a race, with bikes or cars all around, it’s not possible to hit every corner perfect, but your mind has to react instantly to a rider or a car slowing in front of you or challenging you in a corner. Do you lift, do you fight him for the corner or do you change your line? It all happens so fast that when the race is over and you see tapes you can’t believe what you’ve done in certain tight circumstances.

“That’s where experience is so important. Your brain has to know what to do before you can even think about it. Your focus, your concentration, must be intense every second.”

Ward will be starting Sunday’s race in 15th place, on the outside of Row 5, alongside last year’s top two finishers, Penske drivers Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran.

“It’s farther back than I would have liked, but the year I finished second I started 14th,” Ward recalled. “In 500 miles, it’s not far from 15th to first. I’d still like my Indy record to read 1-2-3-4.

“My plan is, like always, race the racetrack and not pay attention to anyone else, at least until after the last pit stop. Until then, all I want to think about is my car, my line.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Ward File

Driver: Jeff Ward

Car: G Force-Chevy

Starting position at Sunday’s Indianapolis 500: 15th (228.557 mph)

Racing team: Chip Ganassi Racing

Born: June 22, 1961

Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland

Residence: San Juan Capistrano

2002 Results

Race Fin.

Miami...4