IndyCar Driver and Race Team Owner
Ganassi won his first auto race in a Formula Ford at the age of 18. He began his CART (Champ Car) racing career in 1982 upon graduating from Duquesne and competed in the Indianapolis 500 five times, with a best finish of 8th in 1983. His career was cut short by a big crash that injured him at Michigan in 1984, although he returned to race briefly in CART and IMSA in 1986, Ganassi purchased an interest in Patrick Racing in 1988 -- a team he had raced with before in 1984 -- and was part of the team that won the 1989 Indianapolis 500. In 1990, he split off and formed his own team, Chip Ganassi Racing, with Target as the principal sponsor. He also became active in the NASCAR circuit.
He currently operates two cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, four cars in the Indy Racing League, and two cars in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype class.
His CART/IRL drivers have included Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, Scott Dixon, Bruno Junqueira, Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Renna, Jeff Ward, Bryan Herta, Robby Gordon, Ryan Briscoe, Kenny Bräck, Tomas Scheckter, Darren Manning, Jacques Lazier, Nicolas Minassian, Tony Stewart, Memo Gidley, Dario Franchitti, Giorgio Pantano, Alex Lloyd, and Dan Wheldon. His NASCAR drivers have included Sterling Marlin, Jason Leffler, Dorsey Schroeder, Scott Pruett, Aric Almirola, Bryan Clauson, Kevin Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Reed Sorenson, Jamie McMurray, Casey Mears, Jimmy Spencer, David Stremme, Montoya, and Franchitti.
Ganassi teams have won Champ Car titles in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 and the IRL championship in 2003, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. His teams have also won the 2000 Indianapolis 500 with Juan Pablo Montoya, the 2008 Indianapolis 500 with Scott Dixon and the 2010 and 2012 Indianapolis 500 with Franchitti, as well as 50 Champ Car and IRL races. His NASCAR race team is based in Concord, North Carolina. The IRL team is located in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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“God help the horse, and the driver too!
And the people and beasts who have never a friend!
For the driver easily might have been you,
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And nobody knows how their days will cease!
And the poor, when they’re old, have little of peace!”
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“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
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“Those Maine woods differ essentially from ours. There you are never reminded that the wilderness which you are threading is, after all, some villager’s familiar wood-lot, some widow’s thirds, from which her ancestors have sledded fuel for generations, minutely described in some old deed which is recorded, of which the owner has got a plan, too, and old bound-marks may be found every forty rods, if you will search.”
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