Posts tagged ChipGanassiRacing at FanHouse

Warning: Objects in this post may be the only way to successfully live through the NASCAR off-season. For best results, read rearview mirror early and often.

Driver: Juan Pablo Montoya
Team: No. 42 Chip Ganassi Dodge
'08 Final Standing: 25th (-3355)
Best Race: Aaron's 499 at Talladega (2nd-place)
Worst Race: Dickies 500 at Texas (43rd-place)

Season in a box: The most telling reason why Juan Pablo Montoya found himself finishing 25th in the season standings may have been the turmoil Chip Ganassi Racing was feeling financially.

Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway had a grand total of two cautions for actual on-track wrecks, and had David Gilliland not intentionally wrecked Juan Pablo Montoya, that number would have been cut in half.

First, the video:



I saw Montoya's crash live Sunday during our live blog here on the 'House, and immediately felt my stomach drop for how blatantly intentional Gilliiland's move was.

Who knew David Gilliland was that type of racer?

Juan Pablo Montoya: "Hey, did you see that lap, man? Yep, first Sprint Cup pole! Uh-huh! Wait, what did you say? They disqualified me? What the #%^&?!?!"

While the above quote is not actually attributable to JPM, you can bet he wasn't happy to be starting 42nd on Sunday at Kansas Speedway after posting Friday's qualifying session fastest time.

FanHouse's campaign to preserve A.J. Allmendinger as a driver for Red Bull Racing has failed, thanks to an announcement from team head Jay Frye Tuesday morning.

From the team's web site:

Red Bull Racing Team and driver AJ Allmendinger have agreed to part ways for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Allmendinger is in his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season driving the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota, which currently sits 34th in owners' points.

"AJ is a talented driver and we really enjoyed working with him," said RBRT Vice President and General Manager Jay Frye. "He's come a long way in just two years and we wish him nothing but the best."

That last line -- "we wish him nothing but the best" -- just seems to have a certain Jay Frye-is-totally-BS'ing-us ring to it, doesn't it?

Dario Franchitti is done with NASCAR, and if you're surprised, then, well, you shouldn't be.

Franchitti announced Tuesday that he'd be heading back to life in the IRL IndyCar Series with the same owner who drove for in NASCAR, Chip Ganassi. The move was a little puzzling especially knowing that Franchitti would be replacing Dan Wheldon -- one of the series' top drivers.

But more telling of Franchitti's move was how quickly the idea by NASCAR owners to bring open-wheel talent to NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series with limited stock car experience at best became a bust.

Franchitti is the third driver to take the reins in NASCAR with intentions of making a long-term career move at the beginning of 2008 to succumb to the economics of NASCAR. In other words, open-wheel drivers with limited experience struggle early in their stock car careers and sponsors just don't want to spend money and time on such a move.

That list includes Franchitti, Jacques Villenueve and Patrick Carpentier, and leaves just one question.

Who's next?

You can now call Reed Sorenson the former Chip Ganassi Racing driver:

Reed Sorenson isn't waiting for Chip Ganassi Racing to figure out the Car of Tomorrow.

The 22-year-old driver signed a multiyear contract to join Gillett Evernham Motorsports next season, where he'll join Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler.

Sorenson said his decision to leave Ganassi, where he began his NASCAR career as a precocious 18-year-old, was difficult but necessary.

"I'm going over here to try to make myself a better racecar driver," Sorenson said during a conference call Tuesday shortly after the announcement. "I wanted to be more competitive and I wanted to have some more opportunities to win races and things like that."

For Sorenson fans, this is great news, but for Patrick Carpentier fans it's probably not.

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates has to be scrambling to come up something -- anything -- in the way of sponsorship for 2009 with Wednesday's news about the sponsor of Juan Pablo Montoya's No. 42.

From Sirius Speedway's blog, "The Motorsports Soapbox":

Sirius Speedway has learned that Chevron-Texaco will not return as sponsor of Juan Pablo Montoya's #42 Dodge next season. [...]

Texaco-Havoline will not move to another team in 2009, electing instead to end their longstanding involvement in NASCAR. That decision leaves Ganassi Racing in need of at least two new sponsors in 2009, and possibly three. Team owner Chip Ganassi recently parked the #40 Dodge driven by Dario Franchitti due to lack of sponsorship, and there are longstanding rumors that Target may not return to the #41 Dodge currently driven by Reed Sorenson.

Of all the sponsorships one would have expected to stay with NASCAR, the Texaco-Havoline ride is near the top of the list mainly because of the staying power it has had in Sprint Cup Series competition.

After blowing up colorful projectiles in name of freedom on the 4th, hang out with FanHouse for the Coke Zero 400 Live Blog Saturday night at 7:45pm/ET.

Did Chip Ganassi give up on Dario Franchitti as a Sprint Cup driver?

All signs point that way after Tuesday's announcement that Franchitti's No. 40 team is now a defunct asset in the Ganassi racing stable.

The team owner cited a lack of funding as the reason why the No. 40 won't be competing anymore in 2008, effective for this weekend's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. The team has lacked full-time sponsorship all season, but has seemed to get by with a little help from multiple sources, including Fastenal, Tums, Target, and others.

But if Robby Gordon or Yates Racing can race all season with less than perfect sponsorship packages, how in the world can Chip Ganassi -- a true racing mogul -- not afford to run a team through at least one of NASCAR's crown jewel events?

To me, Ganassi's unwillingness to keep Franchitti in through Daytona shows that he isn't satisfied with Franchitti's performance in his first season in Sprint Cup. Franchitti's stats of no Top-5s, no Top-10s, and an average finish of 34th don't do much in his defense.

Regardless, its still surprising to me to know that Ganassi is essentially giving up on a Sprint Cup program for a guy he knew would struggle. A reason that Ganassi gave last fall when he fired David Stremme from the No. 40 ride was that he felt Franchitti either had sponsorship dollars with him or could bring them in more easily.

Then, it looked like Stremme was the victim, but now its looking like he got out at the right time from what seems to be an imploding Ganassi racing.

No worries for Mr. Franchitti though. He still has a backup gig of fighting crime without pants.

Juan Pablo Montoya certainly wasn't expecting Clint Bowyer to spin out in front of him Sunday at Pocono Raceway, but I would imagine he was expecting a little more help from his friends in red jump suits once his flaming No. 42 Dodge stopped.

Yep, it's time to play "armchair safety worker" with Juan Pablo's marshmallow roast of a crash on lap 82. Watch below and you decide at 0:33 when JPM gets his car stopped and he scrambles out if the response was adequate.



After the TV announcers jumped on the case of those safety workers that were plainly in view of Montoya's car, NASCAR made sure to note that those workers -- the ones in the red suits with fire extinguishers -- were not responsible for going on to the race track.

UPDATE: Team owner Chip Ganassi said that Franchitti is currently undergoing X-rays on his ankle. Larry Gunselman was also later transported to the hospital.

Original: Sprint Cup Series driver and 2007 Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti was helped to a waiting ambulance after being involved in a drivers-side impact Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway during the Aaron's 312 Nationwide Race.

The impact occurred after Franchitti cut down a rear tire on his No. 40 Chip Ganassi Dodge entering turn 3 on lap 10. Franchitti's Dodge snapped sideways and brushed the nose into the side of Nationwide point leader Clint Bowyer.

The No. 40 then slid down the track -- nearly to a stop -- when Larry Gunselman plowed into his left side.

From video replays, I can't understand how Gunselman didn't slow down any more than he did. There was no tire smoke and no last second attempt to swerve out of the way.

Had Gunselman missed Franchitti, Dario's car likely could have continued in the race. Instead, he hobbled to the ambulance in obvious pain.