| | HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jimmy Vasser calls car owner Chip Ganassi
a visionary.
"Somehow, he just seems to know when to make changes and which ones to make," the driver said.
Ganassi, going against conventional wisdom, changed tires from Goodyear to Firestone in 1996, and switched from Ford engines to Hondas. An unprecedented four CART championships followed.
|  | | Juan Montoya won seven races last year with Honda power. He'll have a Toyota engine under his Lola this season. |
Ganassi's at it again this season, changing to the unproved Lola-Toyotas.
"It just looked and felt like the right way to go," he said.
Until 1996, Firestone and Honda had accounted for one CART victory each, while Goodyear and Ford were dominating.
The new combination turned out to be a perfect fit for Ganassi and Vasser, who won the season-opener -- the first of four victories that year -- and stayed out front the rest of the way.
"It was a gut feeling that that package would work for us," Ganassi said.
Using that same package, along with the Reynard chassis, Alex Zanardi won the next two series titles. Precocious rookie Juan Montoya added another championship last season.
It would have been easy for Ganassi to stick with Reynard and Honda until they were no longer big winners. But suddenly, there was a feeling that it was again time for a change.
The surprise wasn't that Ganassi was switching equipment again; it was the equipment he chose -- Lola-Toyotas.
Lolas were once the scourge of the Champ Car series, but have fallen on such hard times in the last couple of seasons that the company had difficulty finding a factory team in 1999.
Toyota, which has been developing its CART engine over the last several years with non-winning teams, has not even competed for a victory. Its first and only pole came in the season-ending race in Fontana, Calif., a parting gift from Scott Pruett, who left CART this year for NASCAR.
So, in the season-opening Marlboro Grand Prix on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Montoya and Vasser will be driving Lola-Toyotas.
"You have to look at the big picture," Ganassi explained. "I'm not saying we couldn't have kept winning races and championships with Honda. It's just that I saw how hungry Toyota is, the resources they're putting into this."
Montoya, who won seven races last year with Honda, was initially skeptical of the engine change.
"I knew Toyota had not won," he said. "But I also know that Chip Ganassi has won four straight championships. I decided I had to put my faith in Chip. I'm going to drive hard no matter what motor is in the car."
Bobby Rahal, a fellow CART team owner who has been known to make risky equipment changes, says everybody is always looking for an advantage.
"The difference here is that Ganassi already had an edge on the field," Rahal said. "On the other hand, that edge wasn't as big last year as it was before."
Dario Franchitti, also driving a Reynard-Honda, wound up tied in points with Montoya last year. But Montoya won the title because he had four more victories.
"The competition just keeps getting tougher every year," Ganassi said. "We bought new Reynards and Lolas, and we tested them both and decided to go with the Lolas.
"I have a great team that knows how to win. I think we can help Toyota and Lola get wins and they can help us to more championships." | |
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