IZOD IndyCar Series: Cafés do Brasil Indy 300

Topics:  Cafés do Brasil Indy 300

Chip Ganassi
Mike Hull
October 2, 2010

HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We are now joined by Chip Ganassi and Mike Hull. I know you're on deadline, we'll cut to the chase with questions here. Chip, this is your third consecutive championship and your second straight with Dario. What is it about Dario that just makes him always a perennial championship contender?
CHIP GANASSI: With his experience, obviously in this series, he knows how to -- he knows what it takes to win a championship from the first race. And that's a big advantage.
And he's good at all the types of circuits we go to. Obviously he's been to most of them, if not all of them. So it's a big help in that area.
THE MODERATOR: Mike, again, with the three consecutive championships, what is it this team keeps doing to put these drivers in this position?
MIKE HULL: Well, it's a hard question to answer concisely. We just work as a group of people to be better every day. If you had to say it in one sentence, it's simply that.
We work hard with both Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti to be a team of one, and we learn from what we do right and we learn from what we do wrong, and we realize that change is probably the most important things in our lives in order to stay ahead of the competition. And there are people that come in front of us both in Dario cases as race drivers, as well as team owners, team organizations that have set the example and the standard for where Chip Ganassi Racing really needs to go.
So we work really, really hard to achieve things like we just achieved tonight.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Chip, you've been in racing a long time. This year you won the Daytona 500, Indy 500, Indy Championship, and many races. Would you say this is your best year of your career as a team owner?
CHIP GANASSI: Absolutely, yeah. I've said it many times. I'm blessed with who I get to work with, and I'm honored to represent the companies we represent.
And that's who provides the foundation that our team stands on, is our great group of sponsors and partners. And to have the group of guys that we have in Indianapolis and in Charlotte for that matter, that to have consistency and to build consistency and to build, build history together, you get rewarded with events like this evening.

Q. Chip, what kind of guidance or instructions did you give Scott Dixon before this race, or did you feel it necessary to even give him any?
CHIP GANASSI: Yeah, I told him he had to finish between Dario and Will Power. He didn't listen to me. No, I mean, obviously there were many, many scenarios playing out as the evening went on there. And I didn't have to tell Scott anything, to tell you the truth.
He's a professional. He knows what he has to do and knows what it takes, knows how important it is to win the championship. And he's a wily veteran himself. He knows when I'm coming to him, he just smiles at me and says, "Don't even say it, I know."

Q. Chip and Mike, what one thing do you gentlemen do to create that championship-winning culture across not only this series but Grand-Am Rolex, Daytona 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, what is the one thing you do to create that championship-winning culture?
CHIP GANASSI: Mike is the one that does it, so I'll defer to him.
MIKE HULL: Great question. I think what we do as a group, we manage expectation extremely well. And that's hard to find in an organization. And I think over time we've built that up. We've been fortunate, Chip certainly touched on it, we have a great group of sponsors for three racing organizations that are really one. They all work as one.
We have an organization in Concord, North Carolina. We have an organization in Indianapolis that runs the Rolex sports car team as well as the IndyCar team. And we've been fortunate and blessed to have the resource from strong sponsors. So then we become accountable to manage that.
And over time, with the experience gained from all of that, we've learned to nurture the guys along and move them through the system. And they now sell the product for us, that they work really hard on our cars and make it happen for us.

Q. With that kind of confidence, does that mean that if they make like kind of a (inaudible) to you and say okay guys you go get them the next time?
MIKE HULL: It would depend just, like anything else in life, it depends on the severity of what happens. But we study what we do. We study what our people do in our shops, in the buildings, that don't travel. We study what our people do when they come to the racetrack, both over the pit wall as well as behind.
And we move forward all the time. We try to be better every day. We try to win every day. And if we can add all those wins on a seven-day basis together then the biggest day for us this week has been Saturday night, then it culminates like it did this evening for us.

Q. Chip, you said yesterday you thought the pressure was on the 12 to perform. Was the goal to go out and put that pressure on them, and did you feel that maybe contributed to what happened to the 12?
CHIP GANASSI: You know, I don't know. We would have rather raced them on the track and won that way. It was unfortunate what happened. So, I don't know, something broke on his car, I guess. I don't know. I mean, obviously that's a great team and my hat's off to that organization for the run they gave for this year.
Obviously it was a narrow points margin at the end. And as I said before, you know, you could take any one of the Penske drivers and put them in our cars and vice versa. I'm sure the performance would be the same.
They're a group of great drivers, all of them. And unfortunately there's only one winner. And I wish we would have raced them on the track here.

Q. (Question off microphone)
CHIP GANASSI: You know, there were a culmination of events when that happened. We were on a strategy at that time looking for some yellow, I know. And then the yellow came. And believe me it was not a perfect night for the 10 car. I wouldn't call it a perfect night. But we did what we had to do. But, sure, when you don't win, it's not a perfect night.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.