Business of Speed Podcast - Chip Ganassi: Nobody Puts Up Ten Bricks at a Time

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Hola, Vincenzo. Lali, how are you today? I'm very excited today because we have an absolute icon of motorsport joining us today. Yeah, I like winners too. He really likes winners and so do we. He is a Motorsport Hall of Fame of America inductee. This man has won championships and victories in IndyCar, in IMSA, in NASCAR. He's won the Indy 500, the Daytona 500.

He's won in Le Mans, the Rolex 24. I think only one person fits all that criteria. It is none other than Chip Ganassi. Welcome, Chip. Hello, Howie. How are you? Hello, Vincenzo. Good to see you, too.

Good to see you. Yeah, we're pumped to have you here. And, you know, we were talking really quickly about our Pittsburgh connection, you and I. Steelers are the best. Ironically, I was just at the Steelers training camp yesterday. Jealous. And just had lunch with a friend of mine that works at the Steelers, yeah. Do you think that that's...

All right. Who's QB1? Who's QB2? I got to know this from you before we start. Yeah. Good question. Good question. I like the kid from Ohio State. I like the kid from Penn State, you know, so hard to say. All right. Sorry. I don't mean to leave you out of this. No, it's fine. I have opinions about the Steelers, but I won't share them with you guys. But I do want to maybe start the story with the Steelers, Chip, because you grew up, you were very lucky. You grew up in this era, in the Vince Lombardi era, with the Steelers winning, with the Pirates winning. Can we attribute some of your intense desire to win and to love winning to having grown up with very successful winning teams around you? Can we make that connection?

You know, that's a great question. And the answer is yes. The short answer is yes. I mean, you know, growing up here in the Pittsburgh area, you know, it's a blue collar, you know, work ethic, uh, you know, hard grit, you know, steel kind of town, you know, it's, uh, it, it, it certainly in my formative years, it certainly had a big impression on me. You know, I think that, you know, we had the great sports teams in the seventies and the 1970s, you know, pirates winning the world series, Steelers winning the super bowls. And then, you know, you sort of had this industrial thing going on before that, that started to, started to, uh, implode, you know, the, the steel industry, you know, was coming under fire. A lot of companies moved out of town

and, and, you know, Pittsburgh had to re rebirth itself. And, you know, much like you have to do in racing all the time, you know, you're always, you're always, if you don't like, if you don't like constant change, you won't like racing, you know, cause things change all the time. And so it was a, it was a great place to grow up, but I'm certainly glad I'm from here and, But I'm also glad to get out and go racing. I mean, we talk on the show, we talk a lot about the business side of sports. We'll get there in a second. But just from the racing side of things, you have said in the past about how this is your vocation.

Racing is your vocation. This is not a side project for you. Do you think that there's a difference between someone like yourself who has made this their absolute passion? They eat, sleep, breathe racing versus somebody who might just own a team? Because we're seeing a lot of investment now. lot of outside investment coming into motorsport, not just IndyCar, but all motorsports. There's getting a lot of investment, right? So you're getting people who have no idea. They've never grown up in it. They have no interest in it necessarily other than

it'll make them some money, hopefully. Why do you think that's so important to live, eat, and breathe it? I don't know. I mean, it's what works for me. You know what I mean? every, we all, we're all adults and we all have different personalities and things. And, you know, the, the, the, the model that I have works for me at that, obviously that same model maybe doesn't work for everyone else. Uh, there's, you know, I get, I get calls all the time about people wanting to make investments and, you know, I, I, I sort of, I, you know, I sort of weed out the tire kickers and the, uh, the, uh, the, the wannabes and, uh, you know, wonder, wonder why they want to be in the sport and and then and so that it it it uh it it weeds out the people

pretty quickly when you ask them why you want to be in the sport i mean i it's i don't think it's something you know all these sports teams they you really only make money when you transfer ownership or something you know you don't it's hard to you know we plow everything back into the race team year after year you know and and hopefully put some gap between us and the rest of the teams as much as we can, you know, within the rules. I want to talk a little bit about something that is also unique about you that I think a lot of people may not know is that Chip was a racer. Chip knows what it's like to go 200 miles an hour around Indianapolis. And not a lot of people I think know that or have forgotten about that.

And I also think that that perhaps gives you a leg up having been in the car, knowing what the what the drivers want, how frustrating it can be to be in a car that isn't fast. I think that that could be also attributed to, to your success. What do you think about that? I agree. I mean, I think, you know, I've, I've often said, you know, professional, you know, you know, athletes today are, you know, what are they, you know, professional athletes are 20 to 30 years old or something.

And, you know, you, you go through a lot of changes in, in life during that, during that time. And, you know, when I was in that period of my life, I, I, I would have been perfectly happy being a driver, you know, the rest of my life. And, and, uh, but I, you know, I just wasn't, I wasn't, wasn't good enough as a driver. So I had to, you know, I, I, but I, I come from a family business background and, and, uh, so I, I was always looking at the business side of the sport. And, uh, so I, you know, decided to get into it. And, and my, my, my mantra, my, my, my, my, my building block was, Hey, let's, you know, like, let's have a team that I wouldn't want to drive for. And so that's how really how I started of the team is, you know, I said, geez, if I had a team and I was the driver, this is what I would want. And, and so I've always tried to make that the, you know, the, the, the, the foundation that we stand on, you know, what, what, what the drivers want in the team, you know? And so that's

why we throw everything at the, you know, at the team that we can, cause that's what drivers want. And, uh, and I think that's what, you know, that's what drivers appreciate and why they're, Why, when we have an opening, we have good drivers that want to drive for us. I think we're going to get to that. We'll get to that quite quickly, actually. We're going to get right to it. Before you go in that direction, I was going to say, to piggyback off of what you're saying, are there traits that you look for specifically, whether it's drivers or people that work for you on the team, in the offices?

Is there a specific trait? I was listening to something you had said that you wish you had done more thinking, not necessarily relied on your natural ability, right? Everyone comes to- When I was a driver. Yeah, when I was a driver. When you were a driver. Yeah, so when you, like shifting that into the position you're in now, do you look for something specific amongst anybody that you work with or that works with you, for you? I can tell you exactly what it is, sure.

Yeah, you know, we maybe leave, I might leave drivers out of this, but when I look at the rest of the team, You know, we hire people, I look at their value system first. I want to know about what kind of person they are. I want to know what values they hold near and dear to them. You know, we can teach them how to change a tire or how to, you know, look at, you know, how to look at a car, you know, these mechanics. We can teach that. I mean, I want to know what's in their heart. I want to know what, what values they hold, you know, what, what kind of family they have,

what kind of family did they come from? What kind of, you know, what, what motivates them? What, uh, you know, outside of racing. I mean, I, everybody, I get why people want to be in racing and, you know, why they want to, you know, and why they want to win. But to me, it starts with values, not talent. If you hire on talent alone, you'll be, you know, you'll be left in the dust. yeah so we're going to bring up hiring because i feel you're going to be hiring very soon

so i want to i want to touch a little bit on absolute legend that has raced for you for 20 years scott dixon and i want to ask chip more than anything not what he i think we all know what he's meant to the team and if you'd like to talk about that my question is more is there a part of you the racer in you the the the entrepreneur the winner that kind of gets it that that understands that he's in the twilight of his career he has a couple years left and he needs to prove something to himself that he can win somewhere else is any part of are you there yet in your mourning process where you can yeah no i look hey scott and i are scott and i are you know as as close as two two guys could be okay so i don't i don't have any you know i don't have any issue i i understand

where he's coming from and why he makes the decisions you know we're all adults you know i mean yes he's meant more to the team than then then maybe you know any other driver over a period of time and you know but again you know we've we've won 150 indycar races scott dixon's won 52 of them or something you know so it's a great thing okay but you know the team he knows what our team's all about and he knows you know deep down i know what i know what he's looking for in his in his career and and and he knows what we're looking for and you know so you know we had a conversation or two and we sort of both agree that yeah i guess so you know like i'm not good but i'm i'm you you'll never get me to say anything bad about scott dixon of course not no no no way i

mean yeah no no no he's he's he's my friend and we'll always be friends it's a little bit like the toto and lewis hamilton situation you know it's like yeah i don't know yeah i don't personally know that know those guys probably know that level but i mean i would think yeah yeah so who knows yeah so who do who do we who do we think is the front runner to get his seat well there's a couple guys out there you know there's a couple people out there and uh but we're we're kind of zeroing down i would i would say we're down to we're certainly down to the short strokes here on on on on what we'd like to do and how we'd like to go forward and hopefully we'll be announcing something soon is it someone currently racing in the united states that's a great question

lally i mean you know they yeah these people race everywhere you know i've you know like they they i don't i you know the big thing about indycar racing is you know like you looked at look at paloo you know he came out of japan you know he was he was doing super formula in japan before he came to to indycar racing and uh you know you you go back to zanardi he came out of 3000 armstrong came out of f2 so they're the the you know the we're lucky that that that that that the talent pool is is is is pretty deep when you start you know when you start looking at drivers and who's available and i think what you do is you have to look at the whole pool and you have to say what driver again goes represents the values of your team what driver you know will represent

your sponsors well what you know what driver has has something to bring to the team besides ability and i don't mean money or anything i just mean you know what do they what do they bring as a person to the team you know what kind of teammate are they all these things factor into a factor into a driver pit and because i mean i think that because i think we've shown when we when we bring somebody into our team it's usually good for them in the long term you know it's it's usually good for that good for their career i've made a lot of drivers millionaires yep yeah quite a few the list is actually quite extensive of the millionaires you have created so they i hope you get Christmas cards at least every year. You'd be surprised. Not that many. No, I get the important

ones. That's good. Yes. Speaking of drivers and Dario Franchitti said that you kind of offer drivers, you'll say to them, I'll give you whatever you need to win, but you better win. And to me, I think the mindset... I don't exactly say it, but it's true. i'm probably i'm probably paraphrasing quite a bit but i think you will right you are you're so dedicated to winning and i think that's where i'll get there in a second with the question but you're so dedicated to winning you'll do whatever it takes to or you'll provide them everything they need that's why you like winning so much because you you are setting people up for success like you just said can you make the distinction between winning and losing in motorsport

Can I make a distinction between winning and losing? Yeah. What's the, what do you think the distinction is between winning and losing? Yeah. Everything and nothing. I mean, you know, they say, well, they say if you win, everything else takes care of itself. Yeah. You start with that.

I mean, you know, I'll tell you who got me going on, on winning. I'll tell you who got me going on winning. Was Mario Andretti. Mario said to me, he said, I'm sorry. Former guest of the show. Okay. right yeah i mean i remember talking to mario back in the you know when i was getting the team started i think obviously knew mario i drove drove with him drove against him and uh you know

we had lots of battles on the on the racetrack and uh you know michael was coming along at the time and uh michael had gone over to formula one i guess in 1993 and he came back with us in 1994 four. And Mario said an interesting thing to me, and it's stuck with me ever since. And that is, he said, you know, he said, you have all the winning thing, winning parts and pieces of a team put together. He said, you have all that. He said, but there's one thing you don't do. And I said, what's that? He said, you don't talk about winning. And I remember my answer was, I said, you know what, you're right. And, and, and, you know, if you want to, if you want to win in this game, you, well, the first thing you better do is start talking about winning. And, uh, you know,

the, the rest is history, you know, like once you get that in your head and, you know, too many teams, too many teams, you know, they try to, they, they, they, they, we have a great ability at motorsports to regurgitate people and regurgitate ideas. You know, everybody in, everybody in racing, they take these people that are, you know, that, that they don't really work on that team, but they'll work on our team because I know what's wrong with them. You know what I mean? And we can fix that. That's, or what, what the problem is over there is not a problem for us. And, you know, we've, I've always, I've always looked outside of the sport and looked outside of, you know, the small circle of IndyCar racing when we're looking for people or even drivers,

because, you know, fresh blood and fresh thoughts, a great thing, but, you know, to read, In sports, we use the same people over and over again and wonder why we get the same result. So I think you have to look outside your particular area. If you're not winning, you have to look outside and pull some new thought in. So what are some of your inspirations outside of motorsport then? Lots of inspirations. I mean, if it's in sports, it would be somebody like Chuck Knoll, who was the forever coach of the Steelers in the 70s. He was all business. And when it came to Franco Harris leaving the Steelers, the greatest running back of all time, Chuck Knoll said, it's time for him to move on with his life. And, uh, you know, so it sounds very cold, but Chuck Knoll was just about, you know, we're, we're here to win with this team.

And, uh, you know, we're here to win with this team and we're going to do whatever it takes to win with this team. And that, that's, that's my job as the team owners to make sure we, we, you know, make sure we continue to do that in whatever capacity. So people like Chuck Knoll have an influence on me. People like Mario. Okay. People like different, different chairmen of the boards of companies that I've dealt with over the years have had a huge influence on me, you know, from a business side. So you have the sporting side, you got the business side, you have, you know, my, my own, my own father or my mother, you know, lots of people have an influence on me that you take, you know, you take a little bit from each one of those people. you know personally or professionally that's the greatest thing about this sport you run into so many people and so many different personalities you know you just take a little from this one a little from that one you'll have quite a you'll end up with quite a resume yeah andy reed andy reed had there was a few years back maybe it's more than a few years back andy reed uh was talking about a play that he ran in a game that was actually given to him by the janitor on the team

and he actually ran it in a game and I believe they scored a touchdown or it was on like a two-point conversion, whatever it was. But he said, you know, I gain inspiration from anywhere. I'm not, I don't need, it doesn't have to be from the sources

you think inspiration comes from or that you would expect a coach to be gathering inspiration from. Like I can get it from anybody. Everyone's got great ideas or you can learn something. So I just, it's, I look at you and Andy,

like that's greatness, right? And so I see a very common thread amongst great minds and great business folks like that that's you gain inspiration from anywhere so i mean i just appreciate that point a lot i have i have no pride of authorship or ownership i think the smartest people chip people that have been as successful as you have have one often a common element in common which is you surround yourself with people that are smarter than you that are better than you that that work in certain avid you know like that matter so much you you if you were always the smartest guy in the room then you're not your

team isn't going to progress you need to surround yourself with people who are always better and I think that that really is a very common thing among people who are very successful is the people they put around them but I do want to ask you about something that I'm very curious about is sports car racing yes you were so successful in sports car racing and at the end of 24 Or sadly, you pulled out of WEC, IMSA. Any chance that we'll see Chip Ganassi Racing back again in the World Endurance Championship or in IMSA anytime soon? I would love to be in it. I mean, you know, when the right program comes along, I'm ready, willing, and able.

I mean, I think, you know, I love sports car racing. And, you know, we've had some of our greatest wins have been in IMSA and WEC. And, you know, I have a soft spot for it in my heart. You know, while IndyCar is the golden goose, if you will, sports car is still very near and dear to me. And I'm looking for a program. Believe me, I'm always looking. And, yeah, if you have any ideas, give them my phone number. I would love to be in it.

I would love to be in it. We would love to see you. We would absolutely love to see you. You've had such success. with a variety of drivers. You've won with Scott. You've run with Juan Pablo. You've won with Dario.

Like, you've won all over the place. It was a very successful operation, and I think there's still more in that tank. I hope so. Can we sell you on the Chip Ganassi Business of Speed racing team? The Business of Speed, right, yes. I promise I won't drive.

Okay. If you do decide to drive, though, I want to be your first team owner. Okay, very much. Yes, thank you so much. I will now literally join Skip Barber tomorrow to make this happen. Okay, good. Chip, when you're in bed at night and you close your eyes and you dream of the past,

what combinations of drivers are floating around in your head? For me, the soft spots, I'll tell you. Like the Jimmy Vassar-Alex Zanardi combo, that's a very near and dear combo. Certainly. When Scott and Dario were together, that's a very near and dear. You must have some, and that's not to say they're your favorites or not, But do you have some of those combos that really stick with you in your gut that just are special? Yeah, I mean, all the combos are special.

You know, I mean, it's, you know, Scott and Weldon was a great combo. Certainly, Zanardi-Vassar, that was the foundation, you know, of the team. It were those two guys. Certainly, you know, we had Bruno Giancara and Scott Dixon. You know, we had, you know, Kenny Brack, all these guys won races for us. They're just, you know, over time has been, you know, Jeff Ward, you know, won with us. People who's, you know, they, these names don't, don't roll off your tongue, you know, as, as quickly as some others. But I mean, obviously Juan Pablo and, you know, the, the obvious ones, you know, Dario, Dixon, Weldon, the surf, those are the obvious ones, but there are lots of people that we've won races with in sports cars, you know, you know, Joey Hand, you know, Bordet, um, you know, Dirk Mueller, you know, the list goes on and on and on. And, you know, I can't begin to, you know, I feel like I'm leaving more winners out than I'm naming right now. And, you know, obviously in NASCAR, you know, we had lots of winners there.

You know, with Jamie McMurray, Larson, and Sterling Marlin, Kurt Busch, you know, Alex Bowman had his first win with us. You know, like I said, Larson had his first wins with us. You know, the list goes on and on and on. I've always been curious. Do you consider your first Indy 500 win the Montoya one or the one with Fittipaldi and Pat Patrick? Well, in terms of the—my first win was obviously with Fittipaldi. That was—I owned that car and I owned that team. It may not have been public at that time, but—

Right. Yeah, but the paperwork will tell you. That was my team then. Here you go. Yeah, that's a paper. but yeah, I was a young, I was a young Turk then. And so, you know, you didn't, I didn't like blowing my own horn that much at that age as to what I was doing there. You know, I was just trying to learn at that time, but yeah, but I, I, you know, I, I had my impact on that team too. That wasn't

necessarily all Pat Patrick's team. Right. I think I've always suspected that was the case, Chip, that that was a lot of you on that team. And then, and then when you took over the team, you brought over eddie cheever right was that your first driver yes he was fresh out of his f1 stint and sort of that was the the genesis right for chip ganassi racing absolutely certainly the certainly the the the ground floor of of the team yes yes again you know went outside the norm there and uh you know brought somebody in you know it wasn't necessarily on anybody's radar screen at time i want to let's i i want to i want to switch gears into business while we have you because there's so much that you're doing there's so much that's happening in the in indycar and just

motorsports in general i guess we could talk about the new car there's so many things i want to talk about the new car chip ganassi media the freedom 250 like there's so many things i want to go in i'm trying to think of where we want to go first i i love so here so let me go this way i love what one of my mantras something i've told my clients for almost 20 years is own your story one of the biggest things i talk about own your story you you come up with chip ganassi media and one of the things you said i believe it was in the like the press release was that you want to tell your own stories you want to tell you know you want to own your narrative and i'm like absolutely every every racing team should be a media company what was

the impetus behind chip ganassi media and then we'll go from there but what was the impetus behind it i think you know back up vincenzo seven steps you know i think first of all start with the fact that you know i come from a part of the country here in western pennsylvania you know people here are not known for for blowing their horn their own horn and not know they they they sort of do their work and let their work do the, do the talking for them. And, and, and that's pretty much how I've approached things for such a long period of time. And what you start to realize is though, if, if, if you don't tell your story and someone really smart in the public relations business said this to me one day, they said, if you don't tell your story, somebody else will.

And so it's important you tell your story, right? It's important you tell your story and and get the facts out there the real facts yeah so what's so nice yeah no no i i have a manifesto it's called own your story and i wrote this all about first part of the manifesto says somebody is telling you is already telling your story right and one one there's a there's an african proverb that says until the lions have their own historians the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter that's that's basically the premise of what i have believed for a long time and it's really even at business of speed is how we do things with our with our clients it's we you you should be telling your story do you think that the modern tools technology have made

it different to obviously now anyone can tell a story you have a phone you could tell your story it it never used to be that way everybody's a reporter right but do you think that's changed how either you see it or how the world of motorsport has to see it or like you said you know you you came from a background where no one no one really wanted to toot their horn do you think that now with all the things that we have at our fingertips changes that that now you have to and that's like table stakes well let's say this with let me i don't i don't know the answer to that but i will tell you this i think the answer my answer would be my answer would be you know like i yeah i don't know what people want or what they but i we all think we know

what they want but none of us really know but i but i i think i think with with the advent of technology and like i said everybody with a phone can be a reporter now with a phone and a camera or even just a laptop you're a reporter and uh so the certainly the quantity has has has changed what what we look to do is improve the quality of what's out there about us okay so uh you know i i i remember you know when i go back to the days of television when there were three channels to watch there were three channels to watch and i thought boy then there were 20 channels and then there were 50 channels and now there's 500 channels and and and we have the same thing now we have a lot of quantity not much quality not much quality you know so so it's so we need

to get back so so so the way i'm looking at cgr media is we need to get back to quality okay quality never goes out of out of style okay quantity is just that quantity is you know i'm not interested in a a puddle you know that has looks very big not very deep i want to i want something that's deeper you know so you brought on that yeah so you brought on jenna fryer to run that the editorial either the whole team or just editorial i wasn't 100 positive but you know jenna's polarizing what was the decision behind hiring someone like jenna to run that team well i mean i think yeah i mean any any time you you know her her her you're not the first person to say that she's polarizing you know what i mean and i think anybody that's a writer can can and

you know when you're writing for the ap you're either gonna like or you're not gonna like you know what she's writing and and you know uh hopefully this is going to be a little different where she's not really opining about other teams and other it's just about us so uh if if she you know any polarizing is not a word that uh not a word that that uh lasts long around around our business you know inside chip ganassi racing or inside inside any team you don't find many polarizing figures. But I think in her previous job, sure, certainly, you know, people found that polarizing. So the mandate for, for Chip Ganassi Media is to create content that will live in your channels that you will distribute. Tell us a little bit about what the mandate is. What,

what are some of the earlier deliverables we're going to be seeing out there? Yeah. I mean, I, you know, obviously the, the, the topics of the day, you know, what are the topics of the day driver situation you know new car uh you know end of season you know paloo how's he gonna do here in these last bunch of races just the obvious things but you know i think you're gonna see a little higher quality of of of of content you know maybe maybe talking to you know not many not many jenna has a great ability because she can talk to the drivers on the team as well as she has experience talking to the chairmans of the boards of of companies you know so that's a lot of range and and you know her her ability as a

writer is is is is far beyond anybody just uh you know as in an entry level of sports so she's a very high quality level of writing and and then just her experience in the media industry you know, with the AP letting go of, you know, over a hundred writers, you know, they, they, they let go of a hundred writers across all areas. It's mostly sports. And, and, you know, so I think you're going to see a, a, a, a drop in the quality of sports media because of that. Oh, of course.

And, and, and so, like I said, quality never goes out of style. And, uh, so hopefully that will, that will make its way to the top. I think it goes back to what we've always known cream rises and the cream will rise and I think that IndyCar is due that this kind of output we want quality I think that I think that it's that IndyCar finally is getting its stay in the sun I always call it like my my boyfriend is IndyCar because a lot of people associate me with F1 but really I fell in love with open wheel racing at the same time and i'm so happy that finally people are starting to learn about indycar and if we can use your media company to educate i hope that you use it to educate obviously on on chip ganassi

racing and and and your pilots and your car etc but there's also this level of education needed chip more globally and vincenzo and i have talked about this so much when i'm traveling in europe and people say to me oh you like indycar you just like cars that go on an oval all day long You go around in circles. And I get so upset. I'm like, hold my beer for a second while I educate you on how incorrect what you just said is. Like there's this bounty of racing that we have in all sorts of tracks, on all sorts of circuits with so many international drivers that a lot of them grew up on the ladder with Max Verstappen. Lali, you just made the list of one of our early content projects.

so I'll have I'll have Jenna get a hold of you because I think that's it that's a great story right there is is your point of view around the world relative to IndyCar racing I think that's a great that's a great piece right there thank you that I would be very passionate to participate in that story specifically because I am very passionate about it and and I love IndyCar racing and I think that there's too much misinformation out there that people won't give it a chance because they think if they watch a race they're just going to be watching an oval and then by the way if you watch an oval you're going to be extremely entertained but if we can get them in on a road course or a street course first because it's more familiar to what they

know then we can get them hooked on an oval afterwards yeah yes great that's some good ideas there are you speaking speaking of going around in circles the freedom 250 is coming up yes you excited about it very yes yes i mean it's it's if if let's start with the fact that It's going to expose us to a completely different audience, you know, which I think is, is, uh, is quite, it's quite a feather in, in the cap of, of, of Roger and the people that run the series, you know, to pull something like this off. And the people at Fox sports, of course, you know, Eric Shanks and his team, it's, it's all it, you know, it all, everybody working as a team, the sport has some real tailwinds now, and we need to take advantage of that. We need to, we need to, to go with the wind here. You know, the, we have great ratings, the ratings are way up across the board. We have some exciting events coming on, you know, coming up here with, you know, the DC

event and, uh, you know, I, I mean the championships around the corner. So we have lots of, lots of tailwind and we need to take full advantage of that. And what a better place to showcase us than, you know, around the mall area in Washington, DC. how much first ever you know first ever time for that and uh it actually took you know you hear the you hear the line all the time well that'll take an act of congress you know and to do that and this did take an act of congress so it uh yeah good for that how much how much of it were you involved you know involved in on the planning side and just making it happen what okay zero i

I know my lane. I try to stay in my lane. I'm about my team. I try my hand at promoting races, and I flaunt that course. Was it something you ever saw as possible? Was this something that we thought we'd be racing on the streets of D.C.? There were discussions in the past of having a race in D.C. There was always that talk out there of, boy, it'd be a great place.

and uh you know no one was ever able to pull it off and uh even when it came up with this time everybody going that'd be great but good luck you know and sure enough they pulled it off yeah like so many things with motorsport right it's timing we talk about drivers careers often no question we spoke to we spoke to connor daly james hinchcliffe mark blundell who all said you know timing led to either where they are or where they're not same thing with other drivers we've had conversations with and it seems like the freedom 250 is no different or any race right it's just it's the right time for it more so than you know we can plan it to death but never get there and so i'm excited i'm really excited for it i wish i hope that we can get out to it i think

it'll be like you said it'll get a lot of eyeballs we talked when we spoke to will buxton he made a comment about indycar still feeling like seeing cold play in a pub versus you know formula one is now like cold play in the big stadium at wembley or at whatever and and you know it's like harder to get into it doesn't feel as intimate do you like are we on track for indycar to break out and like where what needs to happen for it to be completely break out i think it's i think it's in the middle of a breakout right now and i mean i don't i don't think we want to be formula one okay we want to be indycar okay i don't i mean formula one to me it's about everything but the racing and i i you know like that's okay it works for them but you know let's

face it that's debatable that's debating itself a little bit let me know how many passes are there for the lead how many passes you know there's very few passes for the lead very few you know and I, I just, it's just, but, but maybe I'm, maybe I'm speaking too much as a purist and I'm not, but I'm, I'm not here to compare IndyCar and Formula One. I think that's, you know, they have their business model. It works for them. That's great. Okay. And we have ours and it works for us and that's great. So I don't, I, I, I think these constant comparisons are, are ridiculous. I, I, I, I, you know, we're, you know, we're, we're about, we're about, you know, close racing, different types of circuits, different talents. You have to have different talents to go from a street race to a short oval, back to a natural road course, back to a super speedway.

That takes a talent that no one ever talks about. You know, Lally just spoke of earlier, you know, the, the, the, the visual thing is one thing. The talent it takes is a whole other area that we haven't even talked about. So, you know, that's our, that's our DNA and, and, and, you know, and we're happy to talk about that. I mean, these constant comparisons of what we want to be and, you know, I don't, I don't want to be anybody but myself and I don't want our sport to be anything else than what it is.

You know, it's a great thing and people just need to see that for that. I don't, you know, I'm not interested in, you know, what celebrities have to say about it. I'm just not interested in that. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about it. As long as you're not going to ask George Lucas about what he feels about the storytelling, right? Go ahead, Lali. I wanted to ask about your thoughts on the IR28, the new car that's coming. Right, right.

I don't know how much input the teams have in creating this car. And what did you hear from Alex? What did he tell you about the car? Yeah, that's a great question. He was really pleased with it. You know, the short answer is this. You know, we had a car that was conceived in 2011 or 2012. and we've kept, you know, this sort of evolutionary process of hanging new things on it and,

you know, hanging a windshield on it and hanging a hybrid on it and hanging a television camera on it, adding this and adding that. And, you know, it's not really a purpose-built car. And because, you know, we don't want it to be around the car itself, you know. And, you know, I hear all these people say, well, the car is this and the car is that. It doesn't look like this and it should look like that. You know, form follows function. Okay. The car, let's start with a list of things that the car has to do. And when you go down that list of, you know, it's got to be easy to maintain. It's got to go across the country in a week, you know, and be able to be rebuilt quickly. It's got to go on a street course at, you know, 80, 60, 80, 90 miles an hour, 130 to a, to a place like Indianapolis where the slowest you go is 220, you know?

So I, you know, like the, the, uh, it's got to do a lot of things. And when you add all these up, it's got to be safe. It's got to have, you know, crash impact, side crash impact, forward impact. it's got the, you know, the, the things have to break away from it when you crash all this list of things that the car has to do. And that's what they end up looking like, you know, so I, you know, like I love these, I love some, they're great artists out there that come up with really flashy looking pictures and, you know, it'd be great to have a car like that. I don't know how well it's going to work, but sure. It looks, looks good, you know, but

Yeah. So keep in mind that, like I say, the form follows function. And so start with that when it comes in your car. Other than that, you know, Paloo was in it a couple of times now the last couple of days. Loves it. You know, it's a purpose-built car for what we do. I would characterize it as, you know, very, very innovative in some areas. in some areas. It's an improvement, just a small improvement on particular things that we want the car to do. It's a little more user-friendly, I think. It's a little more driver-centric. It's got some great technology in it. It's got a little cleaner lines. Looks like somebody stuck a straw in the current IndyCar and sucked there out of it. It sucked it down a little bit. You know, it's just a little, little cleaner, a little tidier. So, uh, you know, early, the early returns are fantastic on it. Yeah.

I mean, I'm, I'm kind of sad. We got to wait until 28 for it. I'm ready for 27. Yeah. Yeah. It looks, it looks great. I mean, it's, I think it feels more, I mean, at least to me, it feels more like IndyCar DNA.

Does that, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good looking car. I'm excited for it. I think, you know, people look at me, oh, it looks like the old one. Not really.

You know, when you see, you know, when you, when you see it and when you see it, when you see it live, it's a lot different. Yeah. I heard Alexander Rossi say that knees don't bump. That's a big thing. You know, the knees don't bump. Now it sounds, sounds small, sounds like small potatoes, but that's a very important thing for the drivers. Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. especially taller ones yeah yeah so a little more a little more user from a driver point of view which i think support yeah yeah yeah uh all right let's there's we have a couple questions that we like to ask on our on our way out at the end of the show before we get there 20 years from now where do you think valuations of indycars teams will be more than they were more than they are today yeah come on give me some give me something specific 20 years now 20 years from now let's see i'll be uh i'll be rogers aging 20 years from now so hopefully i'm still around yeah you will be

you'll be winning championships though i hope winning championships yeah what are the so what are these well what are the team's worth at you know in 20 years what are you like what type of trajectory are you looking at and maybe 20 years is too much let's say 10 10 so if i knew that okay if i could tell you whether anything's going to be worth in 10 years or 20 years i wouldn't be an indycar racing okay i'd be making millions buying puts going forward and buying futures i'm a kid that i'm gonna look i'm a kid from pittsburgh that races cars let's not over you know let's let's not uh you know let's not over inflate that okay yeah i what i appreciate about what you say and what i appreciate about what you say it always comes back to that i'm a kid from

pittsburgh who races cars the appreciation of the craft seems greater than all of the other things that the media focuses on the the the holding companies focus on like all of all of these things that people think matter at the end of the day you're just like i'm a dude from pittsburgh who loves to do this shit like there's really not much more there than that right about you know we're not about and we're i always tell our people in the in the race shop we're about the show okay we're not about the side show if that makes sense yeah yeah it does we're about the show not the sideshow right yeah i don't care about well you have to be you know but you have to be right and and in a day an age where we are so focused there are people that get more there are there

are people that get more clicks on social media than us okay there are people that sell more sponsors than we do there are people that you know have flashier uniforms than we do and there people that have all this stuff you know what there's nobody that has as many championships as we do okay so there i'm gonna stick to what i do i'm gonna stick to what i do best yeah that makes sense like i'm not i'm about the show not the sideshow i mean i love that because really a lot of the advice that people will give whether it's business advice or racing how do i make it in mode how do i make it in business it comes down to you have to love what you're doing you have to be passionate about that grind passion yeah right yeah passion um

that i i was i would have asked you what your one word is what's that one word and i think it's it's passion right you you like winning you love winning but it's passion all right all right one because the other right yes a hundred percent a hundred i you can there was something i was talking about in terms of greatness i watched a clip about aaron rogers ironically he had gone on the tucker carlson show and he was talking about going into darkness for five days or some thing that most people if you read the comments people are like that's weird that's strange and i'm and i step back and say in the moment greatness is always so misunderstood because you're not talking about some guy who didn't win anything he's got four you know mvp right titles

he's got super bowl championship greatness is i want to say is probably one of the most misunderstood state of being out there and and agree with me or not on this one but because in the moment when you're watching greatness it's sometimes it's easy just to be jealous about it or think it's weird what they have to do to be there and i don't know i think like greatness in order to be great you have to do the simple things really well but you also have to go to another level of being in order to get there it's it's what the 99 will never understand so you are definitely in the one percent that last that last little bit right right yeah and the other you know but having said that there's no there's no magic pixie dust either you know

so on one hand you have to have the passion but there you have to understand there's no there's no pixie dust that you sprinkle and it just you know everything's magic and just happens It's usually just solid hard work and paying attention to what you're supposed to pay attention to. And just being prepared all the time, right? That famous saying that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. You have to be prepared always and every moment so that when the opportunity comes, you catch that break. And then all of a sudden you get the win. And that really makes a difference.

But you have to have set those stone by stone by stone, lined it up for yourself. like vincenzo said that grind that a lot of 99 of people don't like that grind that's what's going to make the difference like you said the the stone by stone by stone it's like i often use the similar phrase lally that you know it's like building a brick wall okay no one's figured out how to put 10 bricks up at a time okay you know they put them up on one at a time one at a time Even the computerized machines, they're faster. They put the mortared up faster, but they put the bricks up one at a time, one at a time, one at a time.

That's how you do it, one brick at a time. Sure. And, yeah, but going back to what you were saying earlier about Aaron Rodgers, you know, it was the same thing when we brought Jimmy Johnson on the team. You know, Jimmy, you know, yeah, he was a, you know, seven-time NASCAR champion. And look, I'm not saying these guys are ready to be the CEO of, uh, you know, Boeing or General Motors or something, but you know, but, but, but, but I'll be telling you when you bring a guy like that on your team, whether it's Jimmy Johnson or Aaron Rogers or Joe

Montana, somebody, you know, that's won a lot of championships, Scott Dixon, you bring those guys into your team. It lifts the whole team. Of course. Yeah. It lifts the whole team. And, and, and like, that's what Jimmy did when he came over to our team. We lifted the whole team.

People like to be among greatness, right? It inspires everyone. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, unless you're getting beat by it week in and week out. You know, sports is becoming one of the only things on television you don't know the outcome of. That's true.

Yeah, that's true. Just a very random, unexpected question. Did you catch World Cup fever? Were you in on the World Cup? I did. I did. And I have to tell you that, like, you know, I was, I don't want to say I was a skeptic before him, but I just thought, well, it's going to be a part of the summer where I'm going to just, you know, get into something else here. And, you know, but I caught the fever.

It's amazing. Guilty, Your Honor. I caught it. You know, like I, yeah. And I was into it. And, you know, right up to the end there. And, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I was really, really happy with how Fox presented that and Telemundo, how they presented it, you know, all around the world.

Just great. And, you know, and I think it, you know, it's got a lot of new fans here in this country. I'll tell you that. It's so nice. It was so galvanizing watching it here in Canada. I'm from Colombia, like your friend Juan Pablo Montoya. But there's quite a lot of Latinos here in Canada. So you would go to the bars, and I know Vincenzo experienced the same

when he was watching in Connecticut, Ohio. And there's all these people from different places. It's so fun to watch. Everyone's friendly. It was just fantastic. No, no question. We all got the fever. And I think it's partly due to the way it was presented to us.

And it was presented in a great way. Some great thought went into it. Again, Fox Sports got their, you know, fingerprints on it. Yeah. You're friends at Fox. Sports is doing wonderful things with IndyCar, and I think they're going to continue doing that. Yeah, I mean, like Will. Take Will, for instance.

Yeah. I told Will this to his face. I said, you know, Will, I'm talking about Will Buxton, of course. You know, when I heard Will was going to do the broadcast, I was like, man, really? You know? But I stand corrected. He's done a great job, and I couldn't be happier with the job he's doing. And, you know, his calling of the Indy 500 was just fantastic.

and, uh, you know, all the other races, he, he brings a level of excitement, but a huge level of knowledge and appreciation for the sport that he's, you know, he's, he's, he's come loudly like you spoke of, you know, he's, he's educated himself on, on the nuances of IndyCar racing, you know, coming from, from a Formula One background and, and, you know, we're, we're lucky to have him and what a great job he's doing. Couldn't be happier. Yeah. Yeah. He brings, when he was on our show we talked about it too and he just he he loves it he just loves this absolutely loves it like passion we've talked about ad nauseum so passionate about it but also he just there was a line and i think lolly had asked the question and he said i want to make

indycar drivers not able to walk down a street without people mobbing them like he wants to bring it to everybody he wants everyone to know everyone the driver's names sure much like we you know like in basketball or nfl we know their names and and i think that's what another guy had his first win with us felix rosenquist yep his first win was with us right felix the second was the indie five-monthy what a second that's a great one what a way to go i want to quickly shout out Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe also do a great, great job in this. No question, no question. I just want to say, Townsend really is so knowledgeable.

He's just such a calming presence, James, as well. So I think Fox nailed it with that trio. They've done such a good job. Yes, yes, very happy with all those guys. As stewards of the sport, they're doing a phenomenal job, yeah. No question, no question, yes, yeah. As we close out the show, I'm going to ask you, what is your favorite racetrack in the world?

whether to drive or to the spectator world it's uh wherever we win our next race that's my new favorite one come on come on give me something better than that okay something better than that my favorite racetrack in the world let's see well you know from an indycar point of view you'd have to say the indianapolis motor speedway i mean that you know it's just it's it's the one that You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, and what the, my reason for it being, you know, it's, it's just so smooth there and, and, and, you know, you're, you're the car, the, the, the, the, the car, it's like driving on a pool table. It's so smooth. And, and, and, you know, the, the, when you're, when you're going at those super high speeds, two 30 plus, you know, the car makes small movements, small shock movements and small, and those, those, and it, and it, and it, and it gives back little tidbits of

information to the driver. Oh, so small tidbits of information that, that, you know, on a road course, the, the, the information comes to you on a, on a, on a eight by 10 sheet of paper, you know, that you can, that, that a five-year-old can read. Okay. On a road course, when you're, you know, when you're up to speed and on the brakes, on the gas, on the brakes. But when you're at Indianapolis, you know, it's about being smooth and the information comes to you in little, little, little bits of information, the size of a pinhead. And you have to be able to, to translate those tidbits of information into something your engineers can understand

and how it comes back through your body and how it's fed to you. The information feed into you is, like I said, it's not on an 8x10 sheet of paper. It's small, small signals the car sends you that you have to read and pick up on. That's very romantic, Chip. It's also an interesting perspective, right?

we that's like i like the perspective because indianapolis you could talk about so many things with indianapolis but that's a very good i like that okay i'll take that i'll take that answer okay my final question chip is always the same so i need you to put aside i don't want you to think about wins or championships or hardware what series whether they fulfilled promise or not who's the most naturally gifted driver you've ever been around whether on your team or not, but just naturally gifted. Alex Zanardi. Voila.

Love that answer. Yeah. Love that answer. Good question. Wonderful man. The guy, you know, you have, you have drivers that I would call Friday, Saturday drivers, you know, and then you have Sunday drivers. Okay.

My Friday, Saturday guys, you know, they love to work on the car. They love to, you know, get the car just right. Get the seat right. Get the mirrors right. Get the pedals right. Get the shocks, get the spring, get the tire. pressures get their helmet right get their windscreen everything and work on their car work on their car work on their car then you have guys that drive on sunday that you know they don't

care but you know they they they they don't care about anything on sunday they look you know they don't care about friday or saturday just want to get the car sunday montoya smash the gas and go you know and it's like okay but zanardi was that one guy that he was a perfect friday saturday driver and then he was the perfect sunday driver you know he would show up on sunday and everything could be falling off the car he didn't care less he was driving the wheels off but boy on friday and saturday he was a pain in the ass you know about his seat and we're we're changing the seat in august you know and of the season you know september we're like hey you've been driving with this seat all season all of a sudden it doesn't work for you you know we had to make a

new seat we're making fixing the mirrors and in september and i'm like what are you talking about You know, but boy, come Sunday, he didn't care about anything. He just went, went, went, you know? Yeah. What a legend, grande Alex. Yes. Truly a treat to be able to live through that, live through his time. That's awesome.

Chip, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Chip Ganassi. Great to be with you too. Great to be with you too. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I really enjoyed it. And maybe we can do it again sometime. We'll do it again for sure.

Would absolutely love to. Thank you, Chip. Thank you very much. Ciao for now.