Ask GK: October 10

Dear Andrew,
Your man Dixon is an excellent driver and racer. He showed his talent in Indy Lights of course, but this year he's done a tremendous job, winning at Nazareth under serious pressure from Kenny Brack, and running well in many races.

As everyone knows, PacWest has struggled in most races over the past two or three years although they've shown some progess recently. The team has gone through a number of changes in management and engineering, losing veteran manager John Anderson last year to Barry Green's team, and gaining bean counter Mike Lowry from team owner Bruce McCaw's aviation industry interests.

McCaw has been an absentee landlord most of this year, leaving the business reins in the hands of Lowry and business vice president Steve Fusek. Race operations boss Russ Cameron and PacWest's engineering team led by Allen McDonald have done a good job keeping the team steered in the right direction, despite meddling from Lowry and Fusek. The latter left the team last month and reports are that morale has improved considerably since Fusek's departure. Also the team has been more competitive recently with both Dixon and Mauricio Gugelmin running strongly in Houston last weekend.

For Dixon to show so well amid the internal political disruption that has dogged the team is an indication of how seriously talented he is. He's a young man of few words, and a bit reclusive too. He's Montoya-like in his implacable self-confidence, but unlike Montoya he doesn't appear to possess the bonhomie required to motivate a team to its maximum. Nor is Dixon much interested in making sponsor and PR appearances. From this perspective, he might make a better F1 driver than a Champ Car man!

Obviously, Bruce McCaw and the PacWest team want to hang onto the Kiwi phenomenon. Chip Ganassi has tried, apparently without success, to prise Dixon away from PacWest. Even for Ganassi, the price is too high.

I have no doubts that with the right team Dixon would win races on a regular basis and make himself a championship contender. He might even do it next year with PacWest, but soon enough he'll get a serious chance.

As far as F1 is concerned, I haven't heard any rumours about Dixon. You know how sceptical the F1 set can be. Until a young driver has raced in front of them, or done something of value in Europe, the guy doesn't exist. And I think that's where Dixon rates in F1 eyes right now.

All I can say is Ron Dennis needs to cast a wider net, take a more enlightened view, and consider the PR value in gambling on making the kid a future star, a Bruce McLaren of the 21st century driving the latest McLaren. He'd have to give the lad some PR-speak tutorials, but that comes with the turf at McLaren. Seems like a natural to me.
Regards, GK



Dear Nick,
Chip Ganassi tried without success to put together the sponsorship for Rice to race in F3000 this year. When that deal fell through Buddy was signed up by Bobby Rahal who hoped to use Rice as a test driver. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. A planned mid-summer test was cancelled when Rahal's drivers Kenny Brack and Max Papis crashed into each other in the closing stages of the Michigan 500, destroying both cars.

Rice attends most Champ Car races as a guest of Rahal's team. He also works with engineers at the DSTP Toyota/Atlantic team with whom he won the Atlantic title two years ago.

In Houston last weekend Rahal told me he was still hoping to put Rice in one of his Champ cars. "But it all depends on sponsorship," Bobby said. "Right now we don't have enough to make it happen. So we've still got some work to do on that front."
Regards, GK




Dear Andy,
Mickey Thompson was first and foremost a promoter and salesman. A drag racer and later an off-road racer, he was also an innovator and in 1962 he built some forward-thinking rear-engined Indy cars called Harvey Aluminum Specials. He was a year ahead of Colin Chapman and Lotus with a rear-engined Indy car, built around a monocoque chassis. The cars also featured low profile tyres and Thompson was able to convince Dan Gurney to make his Indy 500 debut in one of his cars.

Thompson's cars were too fragile and underdeveloped and he was also a pretty cavalier businessman. A lot of the criticism you've read about him is warranted and of course, he finally lost his life, shot dead, because of the very shady side of his life.

At Indy in 1964 Thompson offered a young Mario Andretti a ride in once of his cars. Andretti had yet to race at Indianapolis at the time. He was a hot-shot sprint car driver and had just agreed to drive Champ Cars later in the season for Al Dean's team.

Dean's team boss Clint Brawner believed Andretti wasn't experienced enough to run at Indianapolis and wanted him to wait a year before running on the big speedway and Andretti agonised over deciding whether or not to take up Thompson's offer. Thompson's team raced only at Indianapolis of course, and Mario decided he wouldn't do it, that Brawner knew best. "That was probably one of the best decisions I ever made in my entire career," Mario says.

Andretti was in the grandstands at the start of the race and saw the fiery, multi-car accident that killed Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. MacDonald was driving one of Thompson's cars which was incinerated when its fuel tank ruptured. In those days the cars carried eighty gallons of gasoline and MacDonald's car literally blew up. The deaths of the much-loved veteran Sachs and rookie MacDonald led to the adoption of methanol which is much less explosive than gasoline and can be dissipated by water.

Chris Economaki tells me MacDonald never practised with a full load of fuel and wasn't ready to hang onto the car when he had to take avoiding action. Economaki says MacDonald wanted to run some practice laps with more fuel in the car but Thompson, intent only on pure speed, wasn't interested. As I say, maybe Thompson deserves the strong criticism levelled at him.
Regards, GK




Dear Phil,
I showed Chip your question and he laughed. "Yeah, tell him I've lost my touch," he cracked. Chip is a confident fellow of course, and believes he will have his act together next year with Brack and Tony Kanaan. He won't admit to the Kanaan part, but after deciding against pursuing Scott Dixon Chip has set his mind to buying Kanaan's contract from Mo Nunn.

Mo insists it won't happen but I think he's going to have to sell Tony's contract to make his nut for 2002. Nunn also insists he's got solid contracts with both Hollywood and Pioneer for next year and says he has the choice of drivers for his Hollywood car.

Anyone could guess that a trade of Kanaan for Bruno Junqueira might make Hollywood, Mo and Chip happy, and that's what I'm going to guess will happen. There's also the possibility that Memo Gidley could take Kanaan's seat if Junqueira found a job elsewhere. Certainly, both Junqueira and Gidley have shown this year that they deserve proper chances.

So back to your question? Has Chip lost his touch? With Brack and Kanaan in his cars he may look like a hero once again next year. Brack has shown his strengths this year and I believe Kanaan is one of the most talented and overdue guys out there. He's shown his potential plenty of times over the past two years and the big question for Kanaan and his manager is will his career be best served with Mo or Chip?
Regards, GK

Nigel returns next week, so if you have a question, send it to AskNigel@haynet.com.