Q & A with Chip Ganassi

"He called me up a few days ago and said, 'hey, you looking for a driver?' He said, 'I want to drive that car.' I said, 'do you know which car I'm talking about?' He said, 'yeah, the 42.' He said, 'yeah, I want to drive it.' I said, 'OK, fine.'

"That was about the extent of our conversation, but we have a great history together. We've had a lot of fun together over the years, and I couldn't be more happy.

"I think he represents everything our team is about. It's about performance. It's about innovation. It's about partnership. It's about integrity. Those are the four things that our company is built on, and that's what this guy stands for, most importantly the performance part of that. I couldn't be happier ladies and gentlemen.

"I think everyone knows the driver market in this formula right now is tight. We looked outside the box a little bit.

"The last thing Juan said to me was 'I want to get back in racing. That's why I want to come do this.' That's all I needed to hear.

"He's known worldwide as Juan Pablo Montoya. I call him Juan. He's called me a few choice names over the years and most of them are not printable. I'm pretty happy to introduce the guy. Here he is."

Q: Is this breathing life into the 42 team?

Ganassi: "Did you see that team yesterday in the Busch race? I wouldn't call that a dead race team. Any time you lose a driver, we're fine with Casey and what he's doing. Every car owner wishes great drivers would be available to you all the time.

"I think the nicest thing from a team owner point of view is as our team matures, better drivers are available to us when a situation like this comes along.

"I'm honored the guy calls me on the phone and says he wants to drive my car. Any owner would like to hear that. Anyone would love to hear it from this guy. Things happen for a reason, I guess. I'm just honored that people call up and want to drive.

"I will say this: better drivers called this year than a year ago, and better drivers called last year than the year before that. That's all you can hope for as a team owner."

Q: Can you comment on Montoya taking a pay cut?

Ganassi: "He told me what he wanted to make and what did I say?"

Juan Pablo Montoya: "'That's what you get'. It was that simple. I said, 'this is what I'm looking for', and Chip said 'OK'. I'll be honest with you guys. It took us an hour to close everything. It was that simple.

"I'm straight with him, and he's straight with me and things just work out great. That's what I'm here for. I want to come back racing. How close the racing is here and how exciting it is and how the fans like it. It's hard to turn it down."

Q: Chip, how will you get Montoya eligible for the daytona 500?

Ganassi: "We've looked at the Formula One schedule and we're working close with everyone involved, making sure it's our goal to be ready for Daytona obviously. When his season ends, I think we can squeeze a couple of things in there. It's going to be a busy winter."

Q: How will you get Montoya up to speed in NASCAR?

Ganassi: "It'll be at his own pace. I've seen this guy adapt to cars and adapt to tracks like no other driver I've ever seen. I don't have any question that he'll be able to adapt to a Cup car and Busch car - he'll be doing Cup and Busch, I don't know if we said that.

"It's not going to be a walk in the park. It's going to be a lot of work over the winter. It's going to be a work in progress in 2007. It's a great challenge.

"What a better opportunity than to have someone like this in your car and take on that challenge together? I can't think of a better opportunity in sports."

Q: Is Texaco a part of this deal?

Ganassi: "They are, and we've got to be careful with that because the current car that Juan is driving is sponsored by Mobil. We've got to be careful what we say about Texaco, but they were lock step in this whole process. They would be here today, but I think there's a soccer game in Germany."

Q: How refreshing is it to you to have Montoya come to NASCAR?

Ganassi: "It's refreshing in that it sort of validates what we're doing. Not everybody understands our team from time to time, but I know this guy does and it validates what we're all about and what we're trying to do.

"We've always been about racing and everything else is secondary I guess. We want to race. We want to be out front. We want to win races, and we want to do what it takes to do that. There's not a car owner on the planet who wouldn't want this guy in his car at any level, in any series in any car. This is the guy you want."

Q: Could Montoya run the Indy 500 in one of your cars?

Ganassi: "There's no plan for that. We have a tall order. He's going to have a steep learning curve with what we have on tap, so I would think that's not on the table right now. I think the scheduling of the races would make it more difficult to do the double."

Q: How did the team react to the news?

Ganassi: "Everybody was surprised, but yet they were pleasantly surprised. Obviously our team has its up and downs like any other team. Everyone was concerned what kind of driver was going to be available to us.

"We think we have the cars, people, engines and drivers and it's great to augment it with a great driver like this guy. They were all very positive, very positive."