Jamie McMurray, Juan Pablo Montoya have Ganassi’s NASCAR team going full throttle
Two years ago, questions swirled about the long-term viability of Chip Ganassi’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team. Now, it’s gunning to be a title contender.
The team’s drivers, Jamie McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya, share the front row in Sunday’s Auto Club 500 in Fontana, the second race of the 36-race Cup schedule.
FOR THE RECORD:
NASCAR owner: An article in the Feb. 21 Sports section about NASCAR car owner Chip Ganassi said he shut down driver Dario Franchitti’s Nationwide Series team in 2008. Franchitti’s team was in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. —
McMurray snagged the pole position at Auto Club Speedway five days after winning the season-opening Daytona 500 for Ganassi’s team, which is co-owned by Teresa Earnhardt and Felix Sabates.
And Montoya, a former Formula One driver and Indianapolis 500 winner recruited to NASCAR by Ganassi in 2007, already was a favorite in Sunday’s race after leading 78 laps in last season’s fall race at Fontana.
Montoya, 34, also was among the 12 drivers in NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup last year.
“I expect a lot of good things” in Sunday’s race, Ganassi said. “We don’t want to run at the back of the pack. We want to run at the front.”
Ganassi is accustomed to watching his cars run in front in the two other series in which he has had enormous success, the Izod IndyCar Series and the Grand-Am Rolex sports-car series.
His team won the IndyCar title twice with Scott Dixon, in 2003 and 2008, and again last year with Dario Franchitti.
And it was dominant a decade ago when his team won four consecutive titles in the now-defunct CART open-wheel series from 1996 to 1999. His drivers included Montoya, who won the Indy 500 in 2000.
Ganassi this year joined Roger Penske as the only owners to win the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24-hour Grand-Am race at Daytona.
And Ganassi this year has a strong chance to pull off perhaps the ultimate “two-fer” in motor sports for the first time: winning the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 in the same season.
Ganassi had struggled to transfer his IndyCar success to NASCAR’s Cup series, where between 2001 and 2008 his team managed six victories.
Problems multiplied in 2008, when Ganassi also brought Franchitti to NASCAR. Franchitti struggled early in the season, then Ganassi shut down the team at midseason because of a lack of sponsorship.
Since then, “we obviously had to bring our NASCAR teams up to the level of our other two teams, and that’s what we’ve been working hard to do,” Ganassi said.
The work included McMurray, who raced with Ganassi early in his career but left for Roush Fenway Racing in 2006.
“I’d have been perfectly happy sticking with Jamie the first time we had him, but we didn’t have the financial means when he left to keep him,” Ganassi said.
McMurray, 33, said Friday that after he won the Daytona 500, Ganassi called to tell McMurray that when got back in the car at Fontana, “you just need to not worry about trying to be fast and just do your thing.”
“Really good advice,” McMurray said. “One of the things that makes [Ganassi] such a good owner are the little things like that.”
But the team still faces challenges. Montoya, for instance, has yet to win on an oval track since he joined NASCAR, though he claims not to feel added pressure to clear that hurdle.
“As long as we keep running good,” Montoya said, “it will happen.”
Saturday practice
McMurray and Montoya were among the fastest drivers in the final practice Saturday, but so were Mark Martin, reigning champion Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon -- all of Hendrick Motorsports.
Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton of Richard Childress Racing also posted some of the fastest laps.
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