OCTOBER 24, 2002

Ganassi jumps to IRL

While there is much activity at the moment trying to talk up CART as rumors circulate that there might be a takeover of the series by the Formula One group the series's major team - which has won four of the last seven CART titles - has announced that it is to follow Penske Racing into the Indy Racing League. Target Chip Ganassi Racing will run Scott Dixon and Tomas Scheckter next year. The team, which ran in IRL this year with Jeff Ward, will continue to use GForce chassis but will use the new Toyota engines. Ganassi was the team which won Toyota its first CART race in 2000.

It is not expected that Ganassi will run any cars in CART in 2003 and given the fact that he was running three in 2002 this is a major hit for the series.