Michael Andretti to NASCAR (or IndyCar) with Dodge?
05/31/12
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| With few options left in NASCAR, could Michael Andretti convince Dodge to switch to IndyCar with an engine designed and maintained by Cosworth? Dodge vs. Chevy vs. Honda in IndyCar could also entice Ford back into the game. |
Three months after its NASCAR future was thrown into disarray by Penske Racing's impending departure to Ford, Dodge still seems without a firm plan for Sprint Cup in 2013.
Recent reports have linked the manufacturer to an IndyCar team moving into Cup and suggested Dodge could make an announcement in two weeks at Michigan International Speedway. But a Dodge executive said in a Wednesday statement to USA TODAY Sports that nothing has been finalized.
"We identified a process for the evaluation of the 2013 NASCAR program," said Beth Paretta, director of marketing and operations for Dodge's SRT brand and motor sports. "We are continuing to follow that process and are within our established timeline. We're pleased with the number of inquiries that have been received about the Dodge motor sports program and continue the evaluation process. As decisions are made, we will announce them at that time."
Aside from not having any teams in its 2013 lineup, Dodge also hasn't settled on an engine builder. The manufacturer could cut a deal to keep receiving motors from Penske's shop or could start its own engine room.
Because such a critical piece hasn't been solidified, it has raised questions about the NASCAR commitment of Italy's Fiat, which acquired Dodge's parent company, Chrysler, three years ago.
In the past year, Dodge has branched into motor sports with younger demographics than NASCAR, such as motocross and Global RallyCross. Action sports superstar Travis Pastrana drives a Dodge Dart (which recently was relaunched) in RallyCross.
"It's clear that the enthusiasts in Auburn Hills (Mich.) led by SRT chief Ralph Gilles are very much interested in continuing the Dodge NASCAR program," said Peter De Lorenzo, editor of the AutoExtremist.com website and a auto industry consultant with 35 years in the business. "But it's also just as clear that key Fiat executives remain unconvinced as to the validity of NASCAR's return on their investment."
With nearly all of NASCAR's powerhouse teams locked up in long-term deals with Chevrolet, Ford or Toyota, the options in Cup are limited for Dodge. A FoxSports.com report last month listed Andretti Autosport as a candidate.
Andretti Autosport spokesman Jade Gurss wouldn't comment directly on the NASCAR reports but said the Izod IndyCar Series team, which fields Dallara-Chevrolets for Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe and Ryan-Hunter Reay, is "aggressively looking to diversify our business, and that's why we seriously analyze each business opportunity." Andretti's sports marketing division has branched into promoting IndyCar races this season at Milwaukee and Baltimore. USA Today
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| Michael Andretti said to be considering a foray into NASCAR with Dodge. But if Dodge would not commit to a 5-year deal with Penske, will Andretti gear up for NASCAR for only a few year Dodge commitment? |
05/19/12 As Dodge searches for Sprint Cup teams for 2013, it appears it will consider teams not currently in the NASCAR garage, most notably IndyCar’s Andretti Autosport, according to sources NASCAR garage.
Andretti Autosport, which fielded Indy cars for Danica Patrick from 2009-11 has three full-time cars in the IndyCar Series and is owned by former IndyCar driver Michael Andretti, son of 1967 Daytona 500 winner and open-wheel legend Mario Andretti.
No one with Andretti nor Dodge would confirm the talks but neither would deny the possibility when contacted in the past several weeks as rumors spread through the NASCAR community of Andretti’s interest.
“Andretti Autosport is a business designed to always be open to new opportunities as a race team and as a sports marketing company," said Jade Gurss, director of corporate communications for Andretti Autosport.
NASCAR currently has two Sprint Cup organizations that also race in the IndyCar series—Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi’s Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.
A Dodge spokesman said the manufacturer was still in the process of evaluating opportunities for next season and could not comment.
Andretti has reportedly toyed with the idea of fielding NASCAR cars in recent years.
Dodge must find teams to build and race its cars and must find an engine supplier for the 2013 season as Penske opted to switch to Ford after this season. Team owner Roger Penske said that he wanted a five-year deal, but Dodge officials said they could not commit to that long of a contract.
Several teams have been mentioned as possible Dodge teams, including Richard Petty Motorsports because of the longtime relationship Petty had with the manufacturer. RPM currently fields Fords.
Furniture Row Racing also has been mentioned because Mark McArdle, the team’s competition director, ran the Evernham Motorsports engine shop in 2003 when the team was one of the flagship programs for Dodge when it re-entered the sport in 2001. Sporting News
05/17/12 Could there be another IndyCar organization testing the NASCAR waters?
Multiple sources have told FOXSports.com that that one of the latest candidates for Dodge Motorsports could be Michael Andretti, owner of Andretti Autosport.
With Roger Penske’s departure from Dodge at the end of the 2012 season, the door is opened for new organizations to enter the fold. In addition to Andretti, Richard Petty Motorsports and Furniture Row Racing are the top contenders to field Dodges in 2013. An announcement regarding Dodge’s lineup, as well as its engine building plans, could come as early as the weekend of the NASCAR races at Michigan, June 15-17.
Andretti currently fields three full-time teams in the IndyCar Series with drivers Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe. Ana Beatriz is running a limited schedule. Hinchcliffe and Hunter-Reay are currently third and fourth, respectively, in the IndyCar points standings.
Michael Andretti, the 1991 IndyCar champion, holds the record for most wins in CART with 42. As an owner under the Andretti Green banner – the precursor to Andretti Autosport – he won three IndyCar championships. Andretti teams have also won 39 races, including two Indianapolis 500s.
Andretti also operates an extensive farm system of open-wheel drivers in Firestone Indy Lights, the Star Mazda Championship Series and the USF2000 Championship Series. However, it is unlikely that Andretti would use open-wheel talent for a NASCAR venture. Two names mentioned as possibilities to drive for the team are Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, both of whom have established relationships with Dodge. Fox Sports
05/12/12 IndyCar's Will Phillips said on Saturday at Indy that INDYCAR is speaking to another engine manufacturer, who could join the competition in 2014. No word on who would design the engine but speculation is that it would be Cosworth for either Dodge or Ford.
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| In Las Vegas Dodge unveiled the new Charger it hoped to race in NASCAR. Now there are real doubts it will never race, and if it does, it could be with backmarker teams only. Might they be better served with on the rise IndyCar rather than in NASCAR, which is losing fans and sponsorship? |
03/28/12 Dodge is going to face a huge challenge if the manufacturer plans to remain competitive in the Sprint Cup Series beyond 2012. The key word there is competitive. Dodge can more than likely find a way to stay in NASCAR's top division next season in the aftermath of Penske Racing's switch to the Ford camp. But the list of organizations available that can match what Penske has brought to Dodge the last two seasons is a short one, leaving 2nd and 3rd tier teams to choose from.
Nearly every top flight Sprint Cup team is locked into a long-term agreement with another manufacturer. Chevrolet has Hendrick, Stewart-Haas, RCR and Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing tied up, Toyota is tightly aligned with Joe Gibbs Racing and the resurgent Michael Waltrip Racing and Ford has its bond with Roush Fenway Racing, that shares an alliance with Richard Petty Motorsports. Unless Dodge is willing to write a check with a significant number of zeroes, it's unlikely the manufacturer is going to pry any of those teams away from their current agreements.
The Ganassi stable may be a possibility as management looks to find some solution to fixing the issues that have plagued the team for nearly two years. But with the team's Earnhardt Childress Engine program as a major component of the business, even that scenario seems unlikely.
Roger Penske said over the weekend he's still considering keeping his engine department functioning with the possibility of developing Dodge power plants on the table, despite his NASCAR effort campaigning Fords in 2013 and beyond. That would make for some strange bedfellows to say the least, but would at least provide Dodge with an engine production option for next year it currently does not have in place.
The new Charger unveiled earlier this month at Las Vegas is a good looking car that further ties NASCAR's manufacturers with the brand identity fans have been asking for since the inception of the "Car of Tomorrow." It would be a shame if Dodge wasn't able to stay in the sport and campaign the brand new Charger. But at this point, the team options available are limited if not non-existent and there is a very real chance NASCAR will only have three participating manufacturers (Ford, Chevy and Toyota) in 2013. CBS Sports
03/12/12 Dodge unveiled its new 2013 NASCAR stocker Sunday….but the big Dodge story isn't the new sheet metal, but rather who's going to run the 2013s for Dodge, and who's going to own Dodge NASCAR teams in 2013, and who's going to build Dodge engines in 2013.
And the most important question of those three is the engine question.
The Dodge unveiling itself here was rather untimely, considering Roger Penske's recent announcement of moving to Ford in 2013. Penske men have been handling the development of the 2013 Dodge.
There are a number of issues here:
First, with Penske, after 10 years, leaving Dodge at the end of this season and moving to Ford, Dodge would have only Joey Arrington as a veteran Dodge engine builder.
The engine situation with Dodge points up a major issue in this sport, one that NASCAR CEO Brian France has recognized but has so far been unable to reconcile – that building NASCAR engines has become such a highly technical, and highly expensive and specialized job that only a handful of NASCAR engine shops even exist anymore.
In years past, as many as 25 engine builders around the country could build NASCAR-worthy engines.
Today the only men with top NASCAR engine building operations are Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Jack Roush, Joe Gibbs/Toyota and Penske. (Even Gibbs has been forced to merge his once independent engine operation with Toyota's Los Angeles-based TRD.)
Every other team on the tour is thus now dependent on making an engine deal with one of those Big Five NASCAR engine operations.
For example, Chip Ganassi's team has to buy engines from Childress, and Tony Stewart's team has to buy engines from Hendrick.
And there is speculation that Penske could be shutting down his own engine program at the end of the season and getting his engines from Roush-Yates.
The Dodge dilemma, which broke just a week ago when Penske made his surprise announcement, has thrown the Sprint Cup garage into a tizzy.
Yes, Dodge might be able to make a deal with the Richard Petty/Andrew Murstein/Douglas Bergeron team for 2013….but there is no engine operation there; Petty's two teams get engines from Ford's Jack Roush and Doug Yates.
Arrington could help fill the void, but Arrington's operation isn't nearly the size of the Hendrick, Childress or Roush engine operations.
Soooo…..little wonder that speculation has become intense over Dodge's future in this sport.
Will Dodge hang in there in NASCAR? Or might it simply abandon this brand of motorsports?
Dodge was on the NASCAR sidelines for more than 20 years until returning in 2001.
Dodge boss Ralph Gilles insists he's not worried about 2013, and he dismisses any talk that Dodge might fold its tent and go home.
Still….Gilles did not attend the Daytona 500…while, for example, Toyota boss Akio Toyoda flew to Daytona from Tokyo and even took laps himself in Toyota's new 2013.
And it's unclear if Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne has ever been to a NASCAR race. But he does have a NASCAR 'hard card.'
In the Dodge speculation is the possibility that the parent company might simply sell its NASCAR equipment to another car maker, like Nissan.
Certainly if a Nissan, or Honda, were interested in getting into NASCAR, this might be a good opening. Mike Mulhern
03/12/12 Dodge Motorsports president Ralph Gilles said Dodge is moving forward and hopes to remain in NASCAR despite losing Penske Racing as its signature team. Gilles spoke Sunday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after the unveiling of the 2013 Dodge Charger Sprint Cup car. Two weeks ago, Roger Penske announced his two-car Dodge team (Dodge's only major team) was switching to Ford in 2013. Gilles said he already has heard from several NASCAR teams who are interested in switching to Dodge next year.
"With the way our phone is ringing, I'm not too concerned," Gilles said. "It's been a pretty positive thing. With every storm there's a sunny day later."
But Gilles would not say for certain Dodge would remain in NASCAR in 2013. "Based on the momentum we've developed, we don't feel it's going that way," Gilles said about the possibility of leaving.
"We would love to stay if we can, but we have to figure it out. We're actually investing in NASCAR more than ever. Some of this timing (of Penske's announcement) was unfortunate. Some things Roger didn't realize we were doing are coming to pass." ESPN
03/03/12 Dodge is left in a pretty difficult position without a single top-flight organization representing them in the sport (sorry Robby Gordon fans). The teams that defected in recent years left because of, among other things, cost and performance issues and not all did so on good terms.
One of the fundamental problems facing Dodge now is that it’s going to have find an organization that can build it’s own engines, or Dodge is going to have to start supplying them. Whichever direction it decides to go, there is going to have to be a serious investment in infrastructure.
It seems unlikely any of the usual suspects would be inclined to leave their current manufacturer for Dodge. This presents Dodge with a challenge in either lifting an existing organization like say Front Row or Turner, or offering a larger organization enough of a financial incentive that saying no would be very difficult and if they are going to start building its own NASCAR engines they may as well do an IndyCar engine instead. It will cost them less and they actually would have a chance to win championships. Recall that parent company Fiat has had a number of talks with IndyCar about entering the series with one of their brands.
03/02/12 Dodge will unveil its 2013 Sprint Cup car on March 11 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. However, the bigger question now is who will be driving Dodges next year? Robby Gordon Motorsports would be the lone team at this point after Penske Racing announced Thursday that it was moving to manufacturer Ford in 2013. But Dodge has also reached out to other teams, including Richard Petty Motorsports, according to owner Andy Murstein. "We received calls from several manufacturers today asking if they could meet with us," Murstein said. "It seems that while sponsorship is down, car manufacturer support is strong. That is probably due to the fact that the car companies are all doing significantly better these days than a few years ago. Thus Petty has been approached by several manufacturers recently.
What's interesting is that while there are the usual suspects there is one new manufacturer that is trying to break into the sport. RPM's contract with Ford is up at the end of the season. Petty ran Dodges from 1972 to 1978. Petty Enterprises aligned with Dodge again when the manufacturer returned to NASCAR competition in 2001 through most of the 2009 season, then under the RPM banner. Earnhardt Ganassi Racing president Steve Lauletta said the company had not yet been approached by Dodge. Fox Sports
Richard Petty Motorsports said: "We welcome Penske Racing to the Ford Racing Family in 2013. Additional teams mean more information for everyone and that's a very good thing from a competition standpoint. We have a partnership with Roush Fenway Racing and we are happy to be a part of the Ford Racing program. As we always do, we will evaluate all of our options and make decisions based on what is ultimately best for our race team." RPM
So will Dodge decide to sign a backmarker team in NASCAR and lose week in and week out making their brand look inferior, or will they switch to IndyCar, which is on the rise and where they can win races and promote the Dodge or Fiat brand worldwide?
03/01/12 Now that Penske Racing has announced it will field Fords in NASCAR beginning next season, what does that mean for Dodge?
According to Ralph Gilles, president and CEO of Dodge’s Street Racing and Technology Brand and Motorsports, it’s time for the automaker to evaluate “the opportunities available moving forward."
“Our motorsports involvement isn't limited to NASCAR. We do value our NASCAR program and will be evaluating the opportunities available moving forward. As those opportunities materialize, we'll reveal our 2013 plans, not only in NASCAR but in other forms of motorsports."
Randy Bernard should try and entice Dodge to come over to IndyCar where they might actually win races and a championship. Now that Dodge has lost Penske they don't have a chance to win in NASCAR, not a chance, unless they get "the call." Look for Dodge to win a lot of poles henceforth as NASCAR looks to make Dodge feel good so they do not leave the series.