All Change

Strange how quickly news travels in motorsports, at times almost preceding the rumor upon which it is based. In what seemed like seconds after the whispers first began making the rounds in Indianapolis - Pssssst. Wheldon is leaving AGR! - the truth was unleashed in a high-profile teleconference.

Psssst. Not only is Dan Wheldon leaving Andretti Green Racing, he's joining rival Chip Ganassi. Psssst. There's more. Ganassi is switching to Honda and Dallara, leaving Toyota and Panoz on the verge of bagging the IRL altogether.

What seemed to be the off-season of everyone's discontent suddenly became interesting not for the usual boring corporate boardroom decisions, but for a blockbuster personnel story. The guy who just ran away with the IRL championship was running away from his A-list team and joining a team that hadn't been on that list for some time. As Wheldon, the record-setting yet turbulent defending champion, put it so boldly when the news hit the fan, "You've got to be greedy in this sport."

Amen, brother. That's exactly what the new boss thought, too. When he first spoke to Wheldon, whose contract renegotiations had upset him to the point of leaving the IRL's reigning juggernaut, Ganassi felt the flame of his soon-to-be-latest driver. "I got it when we began this negotiation," Ganassi said. "It was simply a hunger to do well. I got that in the first sentence in speaking with him. The guy has a hunger for wanting to be at the front and wanting to win. A lot of drivers can talk the talk, but none of them can really speak from authority."

So the person who won a record six races in 2005, the person who won the Indianapolis 500, the person who privately fumed over Danica Patrick's popularity while declaring himself "bigger than Beckham" in England...that person has laid down the track that could make him a one-hit wonder. Or could make him bend it like his countryman.

"At the end of the day, it's a business," Wheldon declared. "You can't let your emotions get attached in this. It was time to move on, you know. I want to win races and championships and 500s.... It was a very tough decision because I had a great relationship with everybody involved, and they worked very hard for me, not just the owners and engineers, but everybody right down to the guy who sweeps the shop floor. It was truly a good relationship, but I think it's time to move on now."

The move clearly was in Ganassi's best interest, perhaps more than Wheldon's. Target Chip Ganassi Racing has struggled mightily since Scott Dixon's championship run of 2003, reeling from Toyota's downhill slide toward its intended 2006 exit. The team became known as much for its calamity - the sudden midseason firing of Darren Manning; Ryan Briscoe's frightening crash at Chicago - than for the positive moments, like Dixon's crafty win at Watkins Glen.

"We've had a highlight or two over these last two seasons, but we haven't had a complete year that we can look upon and say, 'Hey, that was great,'" Ganassi says. "We had to make some wholesale changes within the team, obviously starting with the driver, and obviously the chassis and the engine have to change, as well. We're in this business to run at the front, not be an also-ran. We have to make the changes that are necessary to do that.

"I don't think you purposely mix things up for the sake of mixing them up. If I don't like the look of where they're going to take me, I have to change them."

This change certainly worked in Ganassi's favor, but the buzz wasn't as positively loud for Wheldon as it was for his new boss. Instead, the initial reaction held a "What-the-hell-is-he-doing?" theme.

Wheldon's place at AGR was solid, he would take the title of defending champion and preseason favorite into the new season, and his teammates and co-workers were willing to overlook an occasional tantrum in exchange for wins. However, initial reaction may have been a bit too elementary, and Wheldon might be the one to keep the sharks away from a monumental ship-jumping.

To prove how good he can be, Wheldon is going to have to do it beyond the shadow of a team that has won 19 of the last 33 races. It's a gamble, something for which Wheldon has shown a proclivity.

"I'm a risk taker," Wheldon proclaims. "This is certainly the place where I wanted to be.... This team has won a lot of championships in the past, won Indianapolis 500s in the past. It's something that I'm very excited about and looking forward to.

"I mean, I can't wait to get into the car," he adds. "I don't know Chip too well just yet, but I know him well enough to know that he's very, very hungry for success. I'm looking for the same also. I'm really, really excited about what we're going to look forward to in the future."

Indeed, the newfound anticipation may have been a direct result of Wheldon's unhappiness. Reportedly angered that his offer from AGR didn't match that of his teammates, Wheldon and his agent began fishing for rides in Formula 1. Not surprisingly, few showed interest in Wheldon as anything more than a glorified test pilot. When an offer from BMW Sauber didn't interest him, Wheldon began listening to Ganassi's overtures.

"You always want to challenge yourself, but at the end of the day you've got to be realistic," Wheldon says. "There's only so many teams out there that you can win with. I'm not in this business to come in second, third or fourth; I'm in it to win. That's why I do it. I love to win, and obviously I love to challenge myself."

Amid the whispers were those claiming Honda played an instrumental role in Wheldon's arrival in his new home, but Ganassi said he gave serious consideration to sticking with Toyota for its lame-duck season. Instead, his switch to Honda - which he insists had no play in the decision to hire Wheldon - did have a major impact on the IRL playing field.

Marlboro Team Penske announced earlier that it would switch to Honda engines in 2006, and Ganassi's switch, while bringing Toyota closer to the verge of a hastier-than-planned departure, also helped close the gap between those who had power and those who didn't. Still, Ganassi insists, the change in manufacturers didn't correlate to a change in drivers.

"It wasn't a part of getting Dan," Ganassi explains. "In fact, I was up front with Dan very early on in the negotiation, that we had some great opportunities with Toyota, as well. Without giving away too much of the negotiation, there was an opportunity at one time to be the sole Toyota team in the series.

"In this particular time, there may have been an advantage to that, but, at the end of the day, we decided on the Honda package. A lot of that decision was based on our history with them, as well, but the negotiations were completely separate. In fact, it came as quite a surprise to Honda, and I can tell you it was a nice surprise for them to find out who our driver was."

Just as it was a surprise for others. Scott Dixon, the stalwart New Zealander whose no-nonsense approach seems at odds with his new teammate's personality, faces an interesting riddle: His mechanical disadvantage against the rest of the field is gone in '06, but it arrives with a teammate who carries a reputation for being difficult. Two champions, two different characters, one formidable team.

"Any time you can bring the current champion into your team, it's a shot in the arm for everybody," Ganassi says. "It's an honor for me to have a team with these two guys on it.

"If you go a little deeper than that," he continues, "the way the formula is going right now, I think it sort of favors having some experience on your team, having a couple of veteran drivers, having somebody who understands what it takes to run at the front. This is a difficult learning curve.... Any time you can have a driver-or two-who knows his way, what it's like to be at the front, it's a big help to the team."

Even if it comes with a messy divorce. Wheldon's seemingly offhanded remark that he had "served his time" at Andretti Green rankled some at his former team, but his departure from the team also left an interesting new topography in the IRL. For once, his ex-employer might not be the heaviest hitter in the ballpark and-nobody will miss this point-it isn't necessarily because Wheldon is gone.

Instead, what remains is a top-heavy scene in which several heavyweight teams are now on equal footing, and two of them have feelings-intense, complicated feelings-about how things turned out.

"It was difficult because I'm emotionally attached to AGR, but it's time to move on and time to start setting myself some more goals," Wheldon says.

"To be motivated to win on a different team is really something that's getting me going right now, and I'm looking forward to the season starting.... Chip's team is the best possible place to do that for me. When I got in contact with Chip, it really was a tough decision, but it was also an easy decision at the same time."

Not to mention a fast one.

Power Point

Surviving the motorsports feast and famine cycle

The off-season has been anything but rosy. Facing a shortened season in '06, nearly all IRL IndyCar Series teams imposed widespread layoffs in late October and early November. Two teams-Panther and Cheever-lost primary sponsors and are scrambling to find money to run next season. The supply side is even more grim-Toyota and Panoz might be finished with the IRL, although no official word has been spoken-leaving teams with two choices: Dallara-Honda or nothing.

Still, not everyone is taking the negative view. Chip Ganassi, who recently hired 2005 IRL champ Dan Wheldon and trimmed his team from three to two cars for 2006, says off-season doom-and-gloom is a familiar aspect of racing.

"I'm comfortable with how things are going," Ganassi said. "I can't speak for how other teams are run or what their financial condition is. I think there are ebbs and flows in every race series from time to time in every year. I read one day that those teams are in financial difficulty and then I hear the next that there are people who want to buy the assets of those teams.

"Everything that happens, people talk about over the winter. Things always seem to settle themselves out by the time it gets down to fighting for the championship of the season like in the middle of the summer. Those things are forgotten about and everybody is worried about the championship."

With GM Racing already out and the possibility of Toyota leaving before its intended departure at the end of the '06 season, the IRL could-like rival Champ Car-be down to a single engine manufacturer. While it fuels the pressure for reunification, a single-engine format doesn't seem too far from that of the other series.

"You've got to keep that in perspective," Ganassi says. "You can take Chip Ganassi's NASCAR engine and Rick Hendrick's NASCAR engine and they're basically the same architecture of engine. I'd argue that while they have different nameplates on them, it's basically a one-engine architecture formula. It does seem to be a trend that major series are having to move in that direction.

"I think Honda would enjoy some competition at some point. They understand the realities of the world these days, but you never know what would happen. I don't think that degrades the amount of racing you're going to see on the track."

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