paul
Team Owner
http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=4641
Second-year competitor Scott Dixon made a welcome return to the podium in the Shell Grand Prix of Denver.
What a long, strange trip Scott Dixon had to the podium of Sunday's Shell Grand Prix of Denver. A year ago at this time the young New Zealander was well on his way to eighth place in the 2001 CART FedEx Championship and the Jim Trueman Award, emblematic of CART's Rookie of the Year, with PacWest Racing.
Twelve months and two teams later, Dixon is one of more than half a dozen drivers within shouting distance of third place in the CART points race with five events remaining in the season.
In a sense, Dixon's journey began last August when he arrived at Mid-Ohio to learn that his Toyota-Reynard and that of teammate Mauricio Gugelmin had been parked for Friday's practice and qualifying sessions owing to a financial dispute between PacWest and Toyota. Although the issue was resolved in time for Dixon and Gugelmin to compete at Mid-Ohio - and for the rest of the year - the storm warning flags were clear to see.
Over the winter, PacWest re-organized into PWR Championship Racing and fielded Lola-Toyotas for Dixon and Oriol Servia in the first three rounds of the 2002 season with modest results. Dixon and Servia each earned a sixth place finish but neither managed to break the top ten in qualifying. And, during the long break between Twin Ring Motegi and Milwaukee, PWR mothballed its racing operations, putting Servia out of work (temporarily as it would turn-out) and sending Dixon (with a little help from his friends at CART) to Target Chip Ganassi Racing.
So, in effect, what Dixon got from an impressive rookie campaign that saw him become the youngest driver to win a CART race (at Nazareth) was to get shuttled into a new team at mid-season, with zero testing and next to no time to get settled into his new environs.
So much for the bad news. The good news is that he had gone from the chronically underachieving PacWest/PWR organization to a Target Chip Ganassi Racing that won four straight CART titles from 1996-99 and had not endured a winless season since 1995.
"For sure it's not how you like to start the year," says Dixon. "The first three races (with PWR) were under-budgeted and it was a fairly weak effort. Not that it was guys' fault. The guys at PWR did a great job with what they had, and I owe them a helluva lot.
"But Team Target is such a great team. Obviously, it was a difficult situation developing a relationship with all the guys in the middle of the season. Normally with a new team you use the pre-season testing to get acquainted with everybody; you kind of take it for granted that by the time the season begins your engineers and mechanics will know your likes and dislikes. That's very hard to do at the races, with all the pressures of practice and qualifying.
"The good thing is the team had a good basic understanding of the Toyota-Lola package thanks to a good engineering group and, of course, two good teammates in Kenny and Bruno."
Truth be told, Dixon found a lot of good - and former - teammates in his new home. In addition to Dixon, Target/Ganassi added several PWR refugees to the payroll including race engineer Chris Coxon. What's more, rather than effectively re-creating a PWR satellite team within a team, Ganassi and managing director Mike Hull saw to it that Dixon's effort was integrated into the team's existing framework by shifting Target/Ganassi veterans to the Kiwi's car and distributing some of the PWR talent to Brack and Junqueira.
"It's a good mix," says Dixon. "It made it a lot easier for me and for the guys from PWR. Plus all the cars came from PWR so, on the whole, it's been a pretty smooth transition.
"Having said that, the Target team is probably the only team with the financial and human resources that could have taken on the job of adding a third car in the middle of the season."
Dixon made a great debut with Target/Ganassi at Milwaukee. With no testing and little time to settle into his new environs, Dixon out-qualified and out-raced new teammates Kenny Brack and Bruno Junqueira, planting his Target/Toyota-Lola on the outside of Row Two and coming home sixth on Sunday. But what looked like the beginning of a story-book ending to Dixon's turbulent season has since suffered a hard dose of reality.
Although Dixon has normally been competitive - only failing to qualify in the top ten three times in his ten races to date with Target/Ganassi - the results haven't quite been what that Milwaukee weekened seemed to portend.
Indeed, before his fighting second place at Denver, Dixon had only twice bettered his sixth place finish on the Milwaukee Mile thanks to fifth places at Toronto and Mid-Ohio. And of the top fifteen in the CART points race, Dixon is the only driver not to have led at least one lap during the season.
"It's hard to say how the season's gone," he says. "I've made some mistakes; the team has made some mistakes. I can't remember when I've had so many mechanical failures, if not in practice and qualifying then stupid things in the races."
Still, the fact that he has only qualified lower than seventh once since Vancouver puts Dixon in an optimistic frame of mind.
"The last few weeks the car has come off the truck very fast," he says. "Bruno, Kenny and I and the whole team have been working well together. So unless silly things happen, we should be able to move up in the championship."
Second-year competitor Scott Dixon made a welcome return to the podium in the Shell Grand Prix of Denver.
What a long, strange trip Scott Dixon had to the podium of Sunday's Shell Grand Prix of Denver. A year ago at this time the young New Zealander was well on his way to eighth place in the 2001 CART FedEx Championship and the Jim Trueman Award, emblematic of CART's Rookie of the Year, with PacWest Racing.
Twelve months and two teams later, Dixon is one of more than half a dozen drivers within shouting distance of third place in the CART points race with five events remaining in the season.
In a sense, Dixon's journey began last August when he arrived at Mid-Ohio to learn that his Toyota-Reynard and that of teammate Mauricio Gugelmin had been parked for Friday's practice and qualifying sessions owing to a financial dispute between PacWest and Toyota. Although the issue was resolved in time for Dixon and Gugelmin to compete at Mid-Ohio - and for the rest of the year - the storm warning flags were clear to see.
Over the winter, PacWest re-organized into PWR Championship Racing and fielded Lola-Toyotas for Dixon and Oriol Servia in the first three rounds of the 2002 season with modest results. Dixon and Servia each earned a sixth place finish but neither managed to break the top ten in qualifying. And, during the long break between Twin Ring Motegi and Milwaukee, PWR mothballed its racing operations, putting Servia out of work (temporarily as it would turn-out) and sending Dixon (with a little help from his friends at CART) to Target Chip Ganassi Racing.
So, in effect, what Dixon got from an impressive rookie campaign that saw him become the youngest driver to win a CART race (at Nazareth) was to get shuttled into a new team at mid-season, with zero testing and next to no time to get settled into his new environs.
So much for the bad news. The good news is that he had gone from the chronically underachieving PacWest/PWR organization to a Target Chip Ganassi Racing that won four straight CART titles from 1996-99 and had not endured a winless season since 1995.
"For sure it's not how you like to start the year," says Dixon. "The first three races (with PWR) were under-budgeted and it was a fairly weak effort. Not that it was guys' fault. The guys at PWR did a great job with what they had, and I owe them a helluva lot.
"But Team Target is such a great team. Obviously, it was a difficult situation developing a relationship with all the guys in the middle of the season. Normally with a new team you use the pre-season testing to get acquainted with everybody; you kind of take it for granted that by the time the season begins your engineers and mechanics will know your likes and dislikes. That's very hard to do at the races, with all the pressures of practice and qualifying.
"The good thing is the team had a good basic understanding of the Toyota-Lola package thanks to a good engineering group and, of course, two good teammates in Kenny and Bruno."
Truth be told, Dixon found a lot of good - and former - teammates in his new home. In addition to Dixon, Target/Ganassi added several PWR refugees to the payroll including race engineer Chris Coxon. What's more, rather than effectively re-creating a PWR satellite team within a team, Ganassi and managing director Mike Hull saw to it that Dixon's effort was integrated into the team's existing framework by shifting Target/Ganassi veterans to the Kiwi's car and distributing some of the PWR talent to Brack and Junqueira.
"It's a good mix," says Dixon. "It made it a lot easier for me and for the guys from PWR. Plus all the cars came from PWR so, on the whole, it's been a pretty smooth transition.
"Having said that, the Target team is probably the only team with the financial and human resources that could have taken on the job of adding a third car in the middle of the season."
Dixon made a great debut with Target/Ganassi at Milwaukee. With no testing and little time to settle into his new environs, Dixon out-qualified and out-raced new teammates Kenny Brack and Bruno Junqueira, planting his Target/Toyota-Lola on the outside of Row Two and coming home sixth on Sunday. But what looked like the beginning of a story-book ending to Dixon's turbulent season has since suffered a hard dose of reality.
Although Dixon has normally been competitive - only failing to qualify in the top ten three times in his ten races to date with Target/Ganassi - the results haven't quite been what that Milwaukee weekened seemed to portend.
Indeed, before his fighting second place at Denver, Dixon had only twice bettered his sixth place finish on the Milwaukee Mile thanks to fifth places at Toronto and Mid-Ohio. And of the top fifteen in the CART points race, Dixon is the only driver not to have led at least one lap during the season.
"It's hard to say how the season's gone," he says. "I've made some mistakes; the team has made some mistakes. I can't remember when I've had so many mechanical failures, if not in practice and qualifying then stupid things in the races."
Still, the fact that he has only qualified lower than seventh once since Vancouver puts Dixon in an optimistic frame of mind.
"The last few weeks the car has come off the truck very fast," he says. "Bruno, Kenny and I and the whole team have been working well together. So unless silly things happen, we should be able to move up in the championship."