Ganassi and Sabates join Dodge for new NASCAR team

Four-time CART Champion team owner Chip Ganassi will partner with Felix Sabates to field a two-car Dodge Intrepid NASCAR Winston Cup team, starting now in preparation for next season, when Dodge will debut ten cars.

The new team will be called Chip Ganassi Racing With Felix Sabates, and will be based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Ganassi's two-car CART team will remain in Indianapolis and, although Ganassi has bought a majority interest in SABCO, Sabates will remain involved with business operations.

Ganassi said he chose to go with Dodge, rather one of the other manufacturers with whom he had been in talks, because 'they made me feel wanted. I liked the way they worked'. Sabates said he chose to go with Ganassi because he would rather 'be a small part of something big than a big part of something small'. Chrysler is treating the four-team, ten-car programme as one 'team'.

On hand at the Friday announcement were Lou Patane, Vice President of Dodge Motorsports Operations and Mopar Performance Parts, and Jim Julow, Vice President-Dodge Division. There was also a Dodge show car, illustrating the two sponsors, Bell South Mobility for #01 with TBA as the driver, and Coors Light with #40 for Sterling Marlin. Ganassi has set no date for the second driver announcement, as the late Kenny Irwin had been slated for the ride.

The car was split in half, graphics wise, with one sponsor on each side. Ganassi admitted he has been in talks with Target, which has remained his CART sponsor for the past ten years, and hinted that 'we will see some red somewhere on the car'.

The other Dodge teams are Ray Evernham Racing with Casey Atwood and Bill Elliott; Bill Davis Racing with Dave Blaney and Ward Burton; Melling Racing with Stacy Compton; and Petty Enterprises with three cars. The Petty drivers will be John Andretti and Kyle Petty. The third Petty seat will probably go to Steve Grissom, the Petty driver in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, who is being groomed for Winston Cup. Running the last seven Winston Cup races will not prevent him from running for the Rookie Championship the following year.

Tony Glover, who has been with Sabates/SABCO since 1996 including crew chief for Marlin in his two Daytona 500 victories, will oversee race day operations for the #01 Dodge. Interestingly, Evernham's crew chief will be Andy Graves, father of Fred Graves, who crews on Marlin's Cup car.

Evernham, who led three-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon to Daytona 500 wins in 1997 and 1999, and who has been working the longest on the new Intrepid, said: ''The most important element of the restrictor-plate will be the motors. Probably the restrictor-plate program will be the biggest piece of the development that will be going on from September to February.

''We're working hard on our engine program. Obviously, we've got to hammer hard on the body program. The body is something you can work on in the wind tunnel,'' he continued, ''There's a lot of experienced people on this program aerodynamically, but we're developing a new motor from the ground up, and that engine is going to be the key to restrictor-plate racing. The engine is what
we're really, really going to have to work hard on. That'll be dyno development and actual track testing.''