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Sprint Cup
CUP: EGR Hopes Changes Help Team Rebound From ‘Pathetic’ 2011
Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s performance in 2011 was well below expectations...
Team owner Chip Ganassi was unhappy with the performance of his organization last season. (Photo: Getty Images)
Pathetic.
That’s what team co-owner Chip Ganassi called Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s performance in 2011.
Ganassi’s honest assessment of his own team was so blunt that even driver Jamie McMurray was taken aback.
“I would say the word ‘pathetic’ came out unexpectedly, but it was really bad compared to the way we ran before,” McMurray said shortly after Ganassi’s declaration on the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour.
How else to sum up what may have been the worst season in Ganassi’s 11 years fielding NASCAR teams?
A year after combining to win four Sprint Cup races, including the sport’s two biggest events, Juan Pablo Montoya and McMurray both went winless last year and finished 21st and 27th, respectively, in points. Both drivers had just two top-five finishes all season and were no threat to make the Chase.
How could an organization that won the Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400 and two other Cup races in 2010 fall so far in 2011?
While that still seems somewhat of a mystery to the drivers and crew chiefs, Ganassi has a good idea, and is very succinct in summing that up as well.
“It’s obviously looking at the wrong things and being led astray,” he said. “We live in the information age and I don’t want to be in the information age, I want to be in the correct information age. I don’t need bad information, I need correct information.
“And that’s obviously what happens with these teams. They get the wrong information and they are focused on the wrong things. That’s how you think they are going to be good and they end up being bad. They were good for reasons that they don’t even know why.”
As a result, Ganassi cleaned house, making massive changes to his two-car organization. Gone are competition director Steve Hmiel and team manager Tony Glover, two long-time veterans of the sport. Glover had been with the organization since co-owner Felix Sabates sold the majority of the team to Ganassi and Hmiel came over when the team merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2009.
Former Montoya crew chief Brian Pattie also is gone, as are several other crewmen and engineers.
Former Roush Fenway Racing manager Max Jones has taken over as team manager while former Red Bull Racing technical director John Probst is the new technical director at Earnhardt Ganassi.
Former Hendrick Motorsports engineer Chris Heroy is now the crew chief for Montoya. McMurray has a new car chief in former Red Bull crewman Randy Cox and the entire organization has several new engineers and crewmen.
“We have had massive changes, from engineering, to crew chiefs, to car chiefs to tire changers,” Sabates said. “We really changed the landscape of the team, but we had to do that. When you fall [to] 21st and 27th, that’s not much further you can fall back, and with the money we spent and the resources that we have, we should have run better last year.”
The overhaul has led to a totally new direction for 2012, and team officials admit that it may take a while for the changes to pay off and for McMurray and Montoya to return to form.
The first order of business is trying to figure out where the team got off track.
McMurray says simply, “I don’t know.” Asked what changed from 2010 to 2011, he says, “Nothing.”
“That’s what makes it so frustrating for us. We ended 2010 so good and we went into last year and didn’t really change anything and struggled,” he said. “… It wasn’t like we went back and tried to recreate the wheel and make things better; we didn’t change anything. We just didn’t have the success that we had, and the cars just weren’t as fast.”
Says McMurray crew chief Kevin “Bono” Manion, “It seemed like we took just a short break [after 2010] and we went back to the track and no one knew our name, we didn’t know our name. We didn’t know where we were headed for some strange reason. The difficult part is putting our finger on what happened.”
Sabates says, however, that the team’s cars simply were not being built correctly.
“We went to [one race] and both cars wrecked within half a lap of each other. The frame came apart in both cars,” he said.
“We thought we had something great, and it might have been great for IndyCar, and that’s where we had some of the engineering people we had [come] from. That doesn’t work. You’ve got to have a guy from [NASCAR] to make the cars go.”
Sabates said another sure sign that the problem was the cars was Montoya’s performance at Infineon Raceway, where he finished 22nd. An accomplished road racer and former open-wheel star, Montoya has two Cup wins – both on road courses, including a 2007 victory at Infineon.
“When you go to a road course and Montoya is not one of the prominent drivers, when you go to [Infineon] and he’s running 28th, with no problem, the car just won’t go? That tells you something is wrong,” Sabates said. “That might have been the eye-opener for Chip, when he saw Montoya in the back of the pack at Sonoma.”
Sabates said it was difficult to pinpoint the source of the problems, thus the wholesale changes.
“It was a combination of 40 people not doing a good job,” he said. “You can’t put a finger that it was his fault or his fault. When you have to make a change, you have to make a complete change, and that’s what we did.”
Now the organization is in the process of completely changing the way it builds its cars. It has taken ideas from different people it has hired from rival organizations and formulated a whole new direction.
“It’s basically starting a new team,” Manion said. “A lot of changes are to the chassis itself, our methods and geometry.”
McMurray is excited to drive the new cars and see what other changes occur. His team had an extensive testing schedule planned prior to this month’s Speedweeks at Daytona.
“It’s exciting to see how much stuff they are trying different,” he said. “There’s nothing more frustrating than having a tough season and going to the race the next week with what you have been struggling with the last five weeks and [wondering] why is it going to be just randomly better this week.
“We’re pumped up that we’ve got different suspensions to try and different aero to try. We can’t wait to get to the track so we can try all those things.”
And if those changes don’t work, there could be more coming – to both the cars and personnel.
“One of the problems that we had in the past is that we kept people too long,” Sabates said. “That’s not going to happen again. If you’re not doing the job, we’re going to make changes. … Chip is willing to make them. I don’t think we’re going to have to, but if we have to, we have to.”
Sabates and Ganassi joined forces in 2001 but have struggled to build an organization to challenge the sport’s elite. The team’s 10 wins and one Chase appearance pales in comparisons to Ganassi’s championship pedigree in IndyCar and sports car racing.
Sabates says it’s time for that to change.
“It’s time for us to put up or shut up,” he said. “This has got to be the year when we shine and show people that we are here again.”
SceneDaily.com • Chad Knaus says rare vacation nice, but not life-changing
That’s what team co-owner Chip Ganassi called Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s performance in 2011.
Ganassi’s honest assessment of his own team was so blunt that even driver Jamie McMurray was taken aback.
“I would say the word ‘pathetic’ came out unexpectedly, but it was really bad compared to the way we ran before,” McMurray said shortly after Ganassi’s declaration on the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour.
How else to sum up what may have been the worst season in Ganassi’s 11 years fielding NASCAR teams?
A year after combining to win four Sprint Cup races, including the sport’s two biggest events, Juan Pablo Montoya and McMurray both went winless last year and finished 21st and 27th, respectively, in points. Both drivers had just two top-five finishes all season and were no threat to make the Chase.
How could an organization that won the Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400 and two other Cup races in 2010 fall so far in 2011?
While that still seems somewhat of a mystery to the drivers and crew chiefs, Ganassi has a good idea, and is very succinct in summing that up as well.
“It’s obviously looking at the wrong things and being led astray,” he said. “We live in the information age and I don’t want to be in the information age, I want to be in the correct information age. I don’t need bad information, I need correct information.
“And that’s obviously what happens with these teams. They get the wrong information and they are focused on the wrong things. That’s how you think they are going to be good and they end up being bad. They were good for reasons that they don’t even know why.”
As a result, Ganassi cleaned house, making massive changes to his two-car organization. Gone are competition director Steve Hmiel and team manager Tony Glover, two long-time veterans of the sport. Glover had been with the organization since co-owner Felix Sabates sold the majority of the team to Ganassi and Hmiel came over when the team merged with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2009.
Former Montoya crew chief Brian Pattie also is gone, as are several other crewmen and engineers.
Former Roush Fenway Racing manager Max Jones has taken over as team manager while former Red Bull Racing technical director John Probst is the new technical director at Earnhardt Ganassi.
Former Hendrick Motorsports engineer Chris Heroy is now the crew chief for Montoya. McMurray has a new car chief in former Red Bull crewman Randy Cox and the entire organization has several new engineers and crewmen.
“We have had massive changes, from engineering, to crew chiefs, to car chiefs to tire changers,” Sabates said. “We really changed the landscape of the team, but we had to do that. When you fall [to] 21st and 27th, that’s not much further you can fall back, and with the money we spent and the resources that we have, we should have run better last year.”
The overhaul has led to a totally new direction for 2012, and team officials admit that it may take a while for the changes to pay off and for McMurray and Montoya to return to form.
The first order of business is trying to figure out where the team got off track.
McMurray says simply, “I don’t know.” Asked what changed from 2010 to 2011, he says, “Nothing.”
“That’s what makes it so frustrating for us. We ended 2010 so good and we went into last year and didn’t really change anything and struggled,” he said. “… It wasn’t like we went back and tried to recreate the wheel and make things better; we didn’t change anything. We just didn’t have the success that we had, and the cars just weren’t as fast.”
Says McMurray crew chief Kevin “Bono” Manion, “It seemed like we took just a short break [after 2010] and we went back to the track and no one knew our name, we didn’t know our name. We didn’t know where we were headed for some strange reason. The difficult part is putting our finger on what happened.”
Sabates says, however, that the team’s cars simply were not being built correctly.
“We went to [one race] and both cars wrecked within half a lap of each other. The frame came apart in both cars,” he said.
“We thought we had something great, and it might have been great for IndyCar, and that’s where we had some of the engineering people we had [come] from. That doesn’t work. You’ve got to have a guy from [NASCAR] to make the cars go.”
Sabates said another sure sign that the problem was the cars was Montoya’s performance at Infineon Raceway, where he finished 22nd. An accomplished road racer and former open-wheel star, Montoya has two Cup wins – both on road courses, including a 2007 victory at Infineon.
“When you go to a road course and Montoya is not one of the prominent drivers, when you go to [Infineon] and he’s running 28th, with no problem, the car just won’t go? That tells you something is wrong,” Sabates said. “That might have been the eye-opener for Chip, when he saw Montoya in the back of the pack at Sonoma.”
Sabates said it was difficult to pinpoint the source of the problems, thus the wholesale changes.
“It was a combination of 40 people not doing a good job,” he said. “You can’t put a finger that it was his fault or his fault. When you have to make a change, you have to make a complete change, and that’s what we did.”
Now the organization is in the process of completely changing the way it builds its cars. It has taken ideas from different people it has hired from rival organizations and formulated a whole new direction.
“It’s basically starting a new team,” Manion said. “A lot of changes are to the chassis itself, our methods and geometry.”
McMurray is excited to drive the new cars and see what other changes occur. His team had an extensive testing schedule planned prior to this month’s Speedweeks at Daytona.
“It’s exciting to see how much stuff they are trying different,” he said. “There’s nothing more frustrating than having a tough season and going to the race the next week with what you have been struggling with the last five weeks and [wondering] why is it going to be just randomly better this week.
“We’re pumped up that we’ve got different suspensions to try and different aero to try. We can’t wait to get to the track so we can try all those things.”
And if those changes don’t work, there could be more coming – to both the cars and personnel.
“One of the problems that we had in the past is that we kept people too long,” Sabates said. “That’s not going to happen again. If you’re not doing the job, we’re going to make changes. … Chip is willing to make them. I don’t think we’re going to have to, but if we have to, we have to.”
Sabates and Ganassi joined forces in 2001 but have struggled to build an organization to challenge the sport’s elite. The team’s 10 wins and one Chase appearance pales in comparisons to Ganassi’s championship pedigree in IndyCar and sports car racing.
Sabates says it’s time for that to change.
“It’s time for us to put up or shut up,” he said. “This has got to be the year when we shine and show people that we are here again.”
SceneDaily.com • Chad Knaus says rare vacation nice, but not life-changing
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