I feel bad. Felix is one of the greatest guys in the world, but it's just like they kind of ran over him. Sabates, in his typical good-natured manner, admits as much. He says he couldn' t attract enough talent because his team wasn't viewed as a contender. I was a businessman playing racer.
Chip is a racer playing businessman.
These people want to work with racers. Ganassi put his imprint on Sabco last summer, installing Andy Graves, a former Hendrick Motorsports employee who had run Ganassi's Indy 500 team, as team manager. Jason Leffler, a former USAC stalwart, was hired to drive the car formerly manned by Irwin. Leffler has struggled without crew chief Kevin Cram, who was suspended for a rules violation at Daytona, but Ganassi remains convinced of Leffler's talent. Ganassi also recognized what he had in Marlin, a veteran who won two Daytona 500s and four other races in the mid-'90s.