Even though he’s an open-wheel IndyCar fan at heart, Chip Ganassi admits he misses having a team in NASCAR.
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Ganassi, who sold his entire NASCAR team to the Justin Marks-owned Trackhouse Racing after the 2021 season, recently joined Kevin Harvick on Happy Hour on FOX Sports to talk about how he misses NASCAR.
One of the key moments in Ganassi’s interview came when Harvick asked if he would ever consider returning to the sport as a team owner. “I get that question a lot,” Ganassi said. “Of course, I would never say never.”
Ganassi then told Harvick with a laugh, “I probably would want some people like if you and Dale Jr. (Earnhardt) decide to get back in, you let me know and I’ll come with you.”
Ganassi then turned serious and said what it would take for him to return to NASCAR as a team owner, “I would want somebody else to help shoulder the responsibility of it. I just couldn’t do it the way I’d like to go racing.
“I’d like to have proper financial backing, having the proper people driving the cars, working on the cars and I’d like to be involved. I’m not one of these owners that sits up in the suite eating and drinking. I’m down in the pit lane with the team.”
When he owned his NASCAR team and had drivers such as Kyle Larson driving for him, Ganassi got to the point where he was overloaded. In addition to NASCAR, he also had major operations in IndyCar, sports cars and other types of racing. It became too much for Ganassi, and when Marks was looking to invest in Ganassi’s operation, Ganassi ultimately sold the entire operation to Marks — lock, stock, and barrel.
“It was just hard for me to do that in NASCAR and do it here (IndyCar) and in sports cars,” Ganassi admitted.
Ganassi recalls the incredible 2010 season
But Ganassi still has great memories of the overall success he enjoyed as an owner, especially 2010 when his IndyCar team won the Indianapolis 500 and his NASCAR team won the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400.
“No question (that was the most successful season for me),” Ganassi said. “And when you look back on 2010, everybody mentions that and I think what’s even more exciting to mention is every driver on our team — in those days we had a three-car IndyCar team, we had a two-car (NASCAR) Cup team and we had one sports car.
“The greatest thing that I can say about 2010 was not only did we win those races, and that’s a big feat no question, but equally as large to me was every one of our drivers saw victory lane that year. It wasn’t just one driver doing it.”
Ganassi said they really had their act together technically that year, and across all three types of racing they were involved in, the team was firing on all cylinders.
He added, “And winning those big three races like that was just incredible — and then also the 24 Hours of Daytona the following February 2011. Inside a year, winning those four races, that was a great record. I’m sure some day it’ll be broken by somebody else, but that was really special.”
Differences between cultures in different forms of racing
Ganassi also talked about the difference in culture between NASCAR and IndyCar. “Each series has their own culture and none of them are good or bad, they just are what they are and it’s a culture that’s developed,” Ganassi said.
He continued, “The culture in NASCAR was developed because of the people like the France family and the Wood Brothers, the Pettys and Banjo Matthews and all these people from a long time.
“It’s a culture that you and I grew up in in that form of racing. It’s the same thing here in IndyCar racing. The culture here was born out of AJ Foyt and Bobby Unser and Mario Andretti and teams that go way back in the sport.
“Penske, obviously, way back… all these guys that were around Foyt way back in the 60s… all these teams from all around the world that came here to Indianapolis.”
Ganassi tipped his hat to his racing predecessors, saying it all started with those teams — whether in NASCAR, IndyCar, or any other form of racing around the world — and that they were beneficiaries of those older teams. He explained that those teams were the ones who truly established the culture, the work ethic, and even the weekend schedule.
