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Ganassi car fuels IRL mystery...

Long before many of the teams arrived at the new Nashville Superspeedway for Thursday night's practice session for the Indy Racing League's Harrah's Indy 200, a car with a distinctive paint scheme was quickly wheeled out of the garage area into a team transporter.

That car was a Target-sponsored G Force that was used in the Indianapolis 500 by CART's Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team.

The car was rolled into the Heritage Motorsports transporter, but once the word started to slip out in the garage amongst the IRL teams, the rumours began to fly.

Is Ganassi considering a full-time run in the IRL next season? That rumour started a few weeks ago and one IRL engine builder indicated Ganassi was very close to fielding a full-time IRL team for this year, but the sponsorship package could not be arranged in time.

Ganassi currently fields two cars in CART and two cars in the NASCAR Winston Cup series. He ran four cars in this year's Indianapolis 500, with Jimmy Vasser finishing fourth, Bruno Junqueira fifth, Tony Stewart sixth and Nicolas Minassian 29th.

Ganassi was in Michigan for the final CART-sanctioned Michigan 500 on Sunday and was not available for comment. But Heritage Motorsports driver Jeff Ward attempted to set the record straight.

"That car belongs to G Force and G Force is letting us use it to test," said Ward, who missed the last IRL race at Kansas City after his team decided to skip the race while trying to reorganise. "It's my understanding that Chip leased that car for the Indianapolis 500. They are just trying to help us out as much as they can to get our car ready to race.

"I guess the paint scheme from Target is still on it because nobody wants to spend the money to paint it. I don't know what the plan is, but we are going testing next week and maybe we will use that car."

The uncertainty of going race to race is nothing new to Ward throughout his IRL career.

"It bothered me to sit out the race at Kansas, but it also made me more aggressive and more motivated to get back into the car," Ward said. "We're here, so I'm happy."


As far as new teams joining the IRL next season, such as a full-time team in the series for Ganassi, who would also remain in CART and NASCAR, that's still more mystery than fact.

"I haven't heard a word, heard from or spoken to anybody from Target/Chip Ganassi Racing since May 27," said Brian Barnhart, the IRL's vice president of operations. "We'd love to have them. We'd love to have Team Penske, too. But as far as them wanting to test for an IRL team next year, that's news to me.

"We would like those teams to run at all of our races. We'd welcome them. I would say based on their experiences in 2000 for Ganassi and 2001 for Penske, there shouldn't be any aspect for participation in the Indy Racing League they are unhappy with.

"We have a great TV package; we run at first-class facilities; we put on a great show; we're more economical - I don't know why they wouldn't want to run with us. It makes perfect sense. If they have the equipment, I'd be running in this series."

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