Impressive show at aquarium
The opening of the Great Lakes Aquarium featured an energetic otter, which stole the show from thousands of fish with a perpetual-motion routine in it own private habitat.
Impressive crowd during grand opening
Aquarium impressive during grand opening
Aquarium steals the show over the weekend
Menard’s race team gains support of IRL rivals for pole
John Menard is the reigning heavyweight of the Indy Racing League (IRL). It’s not that his IRL foes hate him, but he’s the New York Yankees of the IRL — the owner of the dominant team everybody wants to beat. Until last weekend, that is.
“I’ve never been congratulated so much by out opponents,” said Menard. “We were pretty gratified to have that kind of support. We’ve now won three of the last four pole positions for IRL races, and I’m sure our competitors are sick of us being first. But even A.J. Foyt came up to me before Greg Ray went out to qualify and said, ‘You gotta do it.'”
With that, Ray did what nobody else among the IRL regulars could do, turning a four-lap average speed of 223.471 miles per hour to snatch the pole for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 away from Juan Montoya of the rival CART Target-Chip Ganassi team.
It was a big accomplishment for the IRL to withstand the two-pronged invasion by the superb Ganassi drivers. It didn’t, of course, mean that John Menard could sit back and relax or celebrate. He was back home in Eau Claire Monday, in the home office of the Wisconsin-based home-improvement Menard’s chain of stores that he operates with the same hands-on effort as his race team. “We’ve got 150 stores in nine states in the Upper Midwest,” said Menard. “But it’s true, I’ve got to come back and run the store Monday morning.”
Today inventory, tomorrow Indy
This is a short work week for him, however, because he gets to knock off after Wednesday and head back to Indianapolis for Thursday’s final test session, and he’ll be staying there through the weekend for the 500.
“We welcome Ganassi’s participation,” said Menard. “And it came down to be quite a duel, because you’ve got Ray, the season champion in the IRL last year, against Montoya, the season champion in CART last year. It was really interesting, because the IRL and CART were going head-to-head like never before. And the difference wound up being something like a tenth of a second over 10 miles.”
Five years ago, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announced that the Indy 500 no longer would allow the new and expensive CART race cars. For the 1996 race, all entries had to run 1995 or older cars. The reason given was an attempt to lower the exorbitant cost of racing, to return the Indy 500 to the hard-core oval-track U. S. racers and throw a barricade up in front of the influx of talented foreign drivers infiltrating CART. But in reality, the move eliminated the CART teams from participating, unless they would agree to run their “old” cars.
When the CART teams predictably went their own way, the Indy folks declared that CART was boycotting the 500. One year later, the IRL went to specific cars with specific 4-liter naturally aspirated engines, which further distanced the CART teams from the 500, eliminating any chance of them racing in the Indy 500 unless they would cast aside their high-powered sponsorship arrangements with engine and race car manufacturers and buy into the spec-race cars of the IRL for one race.
Now, in 2000, it appeared the two might get back together on some form of compromise, but it fell through. Still, Chip Ganassi, whose drivers Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and then Juan Montoya won four straight CART season championships, had the backing of Minnesota-based Target Stores to buy two G-Force-Aurora race cars for both Montoya and Vasser, and to enter the Indy 500. At the time, it was assumed other CART teams might follow, but it didn’t happen. Ganassi, however, never flinched.
When Montoya went out on the storied 2.5-mile Indy oval for Saturday’s attempt at the pole, he drove smoothly and easily, never seeming to strain at all, and averaged 223.372 mph for the four-lap (10-mile) qualifying distance. That speed bumped Eliseo Salazar, Foyt’s top driver, off the pole, and stood up against challenge after challenge from IRL regulars. Vasser clocked 221.976 in the matching Target team car.
Throwing caution to the wind in qualifying
That’s what prompted Foyt to come over to Menard, his arch-rival in the IRL. Greg Ray went out in his No. 1 car, a Dallara-Aurora, and threw the car through all four corners. He had waved off an earlier attempt when he nearly hit the wall, and he came close several more times while hanging it all out on his four-lap run. But he made it, with a 223.471 to take the pole.
This is a big year for the IRL, because rules allowed for the first change in chassis design after a three-year freeze on the previous Dallara or G-Force models. At the same time, the IRL reduced the size of the V8 engines from 4 liters to 3.5.
For the low, low price of …
“The cars are quite a bit better than they used to be,” said Menard. “They’re improved enough that we’ve gained back most of what we lost by going to the smaller engines. It’s a much more forgiving car. But with the new chassis and the new engines, this is an expensive year. A new car, including the engine, costs about $450,000 or $500,000 now.”
With all the hype about Ray beating Montoya for the pole, it’s easy to overlook Robby Gordon in the second Team Menard’s race car. Gordon qualified at 222.885 mph, fourth best, and on the inside of the second row. That gives Team Menard a 1-2 punch, with the inside cars on the first two rows.
Gordon has been a tempestuous force in racing for over a decade, but he and Menard have become close friends as well as racing associates. Gordon raced for Menard, then formed his own team, and now the two are linked together.
“Robby and I are partners in owning a CART team, and a Winston Cup team,” said Menard. “He’s a lot of fun, but he’s matured a lot. He’s 33 years old now, and sometimes it takes guys a few years to settle down. We’re partners now, but he really wanted to run the 500, so I was happy we could put him in a second car. Robby had an equal car to Greg, and he was a threat for the pole, too. But we’ll take what we’ve got. I was on pins and needles until Greg finished getting the pole. It took a tough run, with plenty of drama.”
And plenty of support from all the usual IRL foes who, for once, were happy to have Team Menard on “their” side.
John Gilbert is a sports writer for the Up North Newspaper Network. He can be reached by e-mail at john.gilbert@mx3.com.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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