Ganassi drivers should find their rhythm at Mid-Ohio

Via USA Today
August 1, 2014

Why do some race teams perform well at certain race tracks? It’s a question that confounds even those who think they know the answer.

Is it because certain teams have accumulated a wealth of knowledge during years of racing there? Perhaps. Is it because their drivers fit a particular layout? Possibly. Is it merely happenstance, like getting tails several times in a row while flipping a coin? Maybe.

In the case of Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, success could be a matter of numbers. A three-car team, after all, has enough entries to utilize several strategies, a trick that worked last year for Charlie Kimball’s surprising win in the Honda Indy 200.

“Part of the success was my own failure,” Kimball told USA TODAY Sports. “I couldn’t get the same mileage Scott (Dixon) was getting, so we turned a two-stop race into a three-stop race. I couldn’t get to the fuel number and hit that golden lap like Scott had. We painted ourselves into a corner, but it worked.”

Lately it’s been working often at Mid-Ohio for Chip Ganassi’s team, which has won the race five consecutive times and six of the last seven years — and three other times in the 1990s. When the team’s four-car lineup prepares to extend its run this weekend, it does so with a variety of theories and approaches.

Dixon, who has won four of the last seven Verizon IndyCar Series races at Mid-Ohio, thinks the success is a matter of data gathered over decades and transferred through several generations of cars.

“Back in the day, we used to come here and test for four days straight,” he said of his early days with the team, when testing wasn’t limited the way it is now. “It boils down to basic setups and how you adjust them over the years. Even if you switch cars, you might run the same concepts in terms of setups. It’s a continuing of tradition at a track we’ve got a lot of experience at. We’ve always been strong as a team here, just like (Team) Penske has been strong at Sonoma (Raceway). If you’re able to replicate it at a certain racetrack, you’re going to be strong there.”

Team manager Mike Hull thinks the success at Mid-Ohio is a combination of accumulated knowledge and a lineup of “rhythm” drivers like Dixon who are able to master difficult layouts like Mid-Ohio’s 2.258-mile, 13-turn track while using an effortless style to maintain high fuel mileage and limit tire wear.

“There are basics we still use from when (Jimmy) Vasser and (Alex) Zanardi and (Juan Pablo) Montoya were racing for us,” Hull said. “We’ve had drivers who seem to excel in various kinds of cars and are able to transfer information through time. The way Charlie won here for us last year is very similar to the way Juan won for us here in 1999. All of those things add up over the years.”

Kimball says part of the team’s success at Mid-Ohio lies in quantity. The team’s four drivers — Dixon, Kimball, Tony Kanaan and Ryan Briscoe — allow Ganassi to employ multiple strategies during one race for maximum benefit, a tactic that worked perfectly last year for Kimball’s first IndyCar win.

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