Q. You’ve called each of Scott’s wins in the IndyCar Series. How satisfying was it to the entire team to get that all-time win record?
Mike Hull: Well, I think the word that you used in there toward the end of the question was team. First of all, everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing pulls together as a group, as a team, and we rely on each other to make it happen. And over the years, having Scott—in the IndyCar Series since 2003 actually with Scott, winning his first race with us in the IndyCar Championship at Homestead, it was a team then. It’s a group of cohesive people that work well together, and I think that defines who we are and it’s been very satisfying to be able to do that.
Q. Scott has been with the team since 2003, as you said, and it even goes back to, I believe, 2002 in the Champ Car.
Mike Hull: Yeah, that’s right. He joined us at the CART Milwaukee event in June of 2002, and has been with us since then, yeah. Been a great relationship.
Q. What’s made him such a good fit with Target Chip Ganassi Racing and more specifically the No. 9 car?
Mike Hull: Well, first of all, I think the simple answer is he remembers where he came from. He’s the same person today that he was when he joined us in 2002. He wants to race cars for a living. That’s all he cares about. That’s what he wants to do.
I don’t want to say this in what might sound like maybe to some people’s mind a selfish way, but he doesn’t have outside interests. You know, he has his family and a new addition to his family now, but even with that, he still concentrates 100 percent on what he wants to do. He gets paid to drive race cars, but you know what, this guy would drive race cars anyway.
I would be willing to bet that if I would have been lucky enough to be with him when he grew up in New Zealand that he would have been at that time the same person then driving a race car, a Formula Vee, where he started, as opposed to where he is today in an IndyCar (Series car). That’s what makes him so special and so much fun to have driving the car.
Q. Your team also added another champion driver this year, Dario Franchitti. What has his impact been on the overall team?
Mike Hull: Very positive. The dimension that he brings is very motivating. He offers a lot in terms of how to make the cars better, both his and Scott’s. He offers a perspective which is fresh for us. He has an intense desire to win, but often times that’s not enough. What you need with that desire is a willingness to work with the resource totally across the board, all the team members, to make the program better each day, and Dario possesses all that without a doubt.
And then beyond that, when you have two high-strung teammates like we have, they have to be very unselfish. There has to be give and take, but at the same time, they have to be willing to tell each other everything in front of the group. And these two guys do that very, very well. They don’t hold anything close to the vest. They talk about everything that goes on with their cars and what they see on the racetrack.
That has made us better this year, and Dario is certainly part of that reason.
Q. That brings up the next part of the question. The final four races of the season, and obviously the two Target Chip Ganassi Racing teams are definitely among the cars chasing that title. When you’re on the box on the No. 9 car, does the fact that you’re racing the No. 10 car affect the way you call a race?
Mike Hull: I think it doesn’t affect what we do from our timing stand, but it’s nice to have a teammate out there that is reading the racetrack, that is going the same speeds that the No. 9 car is going. But yet at the same time, if they’re together on the racetrack, you know they’re going to be a little more liberal with each other than they would be racing somebody else.
So the give and take on the racetrack is very fair. It’s not edgy. You know, you’re not purposely being blocked. Somebody isn’t screwing with you on the race track. You know darn well when you’re out there wheel-to-wheel with your teammate you’re going to get a fair shake on the racetrack, but at the same time you’re racing your teammate, let’s face it.
Whichever of our drivers wins the race is good for all of us on the team. And if they finish first and second—if you could tell us before we started the last four races that those guys could run together at the front for every race, we’d just leave the cars in the truck. So it’s fun to go find out what will happen.
Q. The points lead in the championship has changed 12 times in the 13 previous races. The lead from Scott to Dario is 20 points. In April when the season started if I told you that would be the case for your title defense, would you have believed that the competition would be this close?
Mike Hull: Well, you know, at the beginning of the year we had kind of an uphill battle with Scott. You know, if people would have looked at us at the beginning of the year with where we were in the points situation, they would have said, ‘Man, Scott is already erased. You know, let’s just etch him out of here. ‘
So I don’t think the difference in points really matters. The only—what matters with the difference in points is what happens when the checkered flag falls at Homestead.
Our drivers will work extremely hard to win the four races that we have left, and they’ll work hard by doing that to gather points. And at the end we’ll see what happens. It isn’t just—and I would say there’s other people that we’re racing on the racetrack here; it isn’t our two guys.
And the great thing about what we’re doing is the people that have an opportunity to win the championship at this point are all quality people. You know when you race with them it’ll work out fine. It’ll be good.
Q. One of those other drivers you mentioned is a guy who got his start with your team, Ryan Briscoe. Does his emergence with Team Penske surprise you knowing him like you do?
Mike Hull: Not at all. The very first time we tested him at Firebird Racetrack in Phoenix (in 2005), we knew he was the real deal. That followed up, we did two days at Firebird with him and then two days at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) on the oval.
Right from the beginning he was not only on the pace, but he has that unique ability to make a difference. He’s a difference maker, that’s what he is. He’s a genuine guy out of the car, and he’s a positive guy in the car. He’s good for the series, he’s good for the championship, and he’s a world-class driver. He’s a world caliber driver. He could drive any race car in any series at the front, he has that much ability.
It doesn’t surprise us in the least that he’s doing what we knew he was capable of doing.
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