TheSpread.com

2007 Team Preview: Ganassi

Pete Pistone
Managing Editor

There will be a great deal of attention to the Ganassi Racing team this year.

Highly-touted "rookie" Juan Pablo Montoya joins the team for a full season run at NEXTEL Cup "Rookie of the Year" honors, maybe becoming the highest profile freshman driver in series history.

"I think the team is ready to win," said the former Indy 500 winner and Formula One driver. "I’m just happy to be a part of it. The differencet in stock cars is the weight of the car. The weight of the car is what makes the race so exciting. With the small cars they’re going to slide a little more. They’re going to be less forgiving. It allows much better racing. When you drive in open wheel, the car is pretty much on rails."

The Colombian native is expected to help generate a great deal of global interest for the series this year, including among a large number of Latin Americans.

"I think you’re going to see a lot people that are not fans, but they’re going to start watching it," Montoya said. "If they come and see a live race, they’ll be in love with it."

Reed Sorenson and David Stremme return to the team for their sophomore NEXTEL Cup Series seasons.

"We learned a lot of things last year that are definitely going to help us out this year, whether it was me making a stupid mistake on the track or something happening with just bad luck," Sorenson said. "I feel like I’m going to be a better driver this year and the team as a whole is going to be better. We’re looking forward to being competitive every weekend and being consistent."

Stremme too feels like last year's rookie season provided groundwork to build on for more success in 2007.

“The exciting part for me is last year toward the end of the year we showed a lot of improvement," Stremme said. "No one would ever expect the season to start off like it did, but I was real proud of Steven Lane (crew chief) coming in and turning everything around. That was something I thought was real important. For awhile we were outside the top 35 in points, but we got back in and we got a lot better."

Team owner Chip Ganassi, who has co-owned the operation with Felix Sabates for seven years, feels as if the team now has things in place to become more of a force in 2007.

“It seems like yesterday I got together with Felix, but I guess it’s been about seven years and quite frankly I’m tired of being in the building block process," Ganassi said. "I’m ready to arrive I guess. They say everybody out there has the statistics about how long it takes to build a winning organization. We’re down to about our last year or so on that in the statistic department. I think it’s safe to say most people wouldn’t characterize me as patient and I’m not, but I do recognize it’s a building block process in this business and like I said, I think we’re about there as far as building blocks. I certainly can’t wait for the season to start."

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