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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Jeff Krosnoff, Stay Hungry Pt. 3
In Part 3 of Jeff Krosnoff: Stay Hungry, Chip Ganassi, Cal Wells, Mike Hull and Paul Pfanner detail his shootout with Alex Zanardi up to that fateful day in Toronto.
Of the many dreams that came true for Jeff Krosnoff in 1996, he was able to race in front of family and friends at his home race, the Long Beach Grand Prix. (Photo: Dan R. Boyd)
READ: Jeff Krosnoff, Stay Hungry PT 1 and Stay Hungry PT 2 about the talented Californian Indy car driver who lost his life racing at Toronto on July 14th, 1996.
“On the way home, I just kept repeating to myself that I was finally in the show, but it didn’t truly hit me until later that night while I was taking out the trash—I was now an Indy car driver.”
~Jeff Krosnoff, RACER magazine, October 1996
Being hidden away in Japan for seven years was about to pay off for Jeff Krosnoff. He’d earned a reputation for being his own man—for following his own path rather than the conventional routes taken by other drivers.
Krosnoff had become a star F3000 and Sports Prototype driver in Japan, but as he watched his career plateau in the Pacific Rim, it appeared that talent alone wouldn’t be enough to catapult him into Formula One or Indy car seat he coveted.
By the latter stages of the 1995 season, however, two elements from Krosnoff’s past would come to the foreground at precisely the right time.
With an old friend—Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Mike Hull—calling Krosnoff home from Japan to compete for a job, and Toyota, for whom Krosnoff had driven in sports cars, ready to debut in the CART series in 1996, his services were suddenly in high demand in America.
Loyalty was a central theme that ran through Krosnoff’s time in Japan, and within Toyota, his name was held with great reverie. Loyalty also played a role in the invitation Krosnoff received from Hull, who could have drafted in bigger names for the Ganassi shootout, but with his influence, the prized opportunity was given to his fellow Californian.
Against Alex Zanardi--the former International F3000 standout who had three partial seasons in F1 to his credit—Krosnoff would face a tough adversary.
Zanardi, who was testing for Ganassi on behalf of heavy recommendations from his chassis supplier, Reynard, owned a career that was similar to Krosnoff’s when they met under Ganassi’s tent.
A talented prospect who’d suffered more bad luck than was deserved, the Italian was out of options in F1 by the end of 1994 and turned to sports cars for 1995. With his career at a crossroads, returning from the abyss to find a place on motor racing’s main stage was a necessity.
I remember seeing Zanardi wander the paddock at the 1995 CART season finale in Monterey, but at the time, and having fallen rather far off the radar, he blended in among the dozen other ride seekers in attendance.
Zanardi had been to the mountain top, albeit with F1 teams that offered little chance of winning, and after being cast aside from the series he desired most, a plum opportunity in America looked far more appealing than another season driving for Lotus in the BPR Global GT Endurance Series.
For Krosnoff, who never received the invite to F1 he always sought, racing in CART could deliver the recognition he’d always desired back home.
With the CART season finale on September 10th, and Ganassi anxious to find Bryan Herta’s replacement, Hull orchestrated the shootout the following month at the Homestead circuit near Miami, Florida.
Coming directly from the penultimate round of 1995 All Japan F3000 championship at Suzuka on October 15th, Krosnoff raced to Florida, taking a variety of red-eye flights and connections to cross multiple time zones. Zanardi, by contrast, was already in Miami and arrived at the track rested and ready.
With the first day of the shootout set for October 18th, the new Homestead road course was far from perfect with an excess of dust and sand, not to mention the lack of rubber on its surface.
Achieving an exact by-the-numbers comparison between Krosnoff and Zanardi would be challenging as every run improved the surface conditions, but Hull does recall that in terms of outright pace, there was little to separate the two candidates.
“I can't remember how many days we actually ran there – maybe three days total – and you could've thrown a blanket over both of them in terms of lap times,” said Hull. “There was really no difference between the two, all the way through the entire process.”
With lap times offering little in the way of conclusive evidence as to which was better suited to the job, Chip Ganassi says that the manner in which those lap times were set weighed heavily on his final decision.
“We felt that they showed the same amount of talent, and we went to great pains to make sure they all had the same number of tires, and stuff like that,” he explained. “I wanted everything to be equal. If you went strictly off the time, I think they were pretty equal. At the end of the day, the pick was made because, and it’s probably unfair, but Krosnoff took two red eyes get there from Japan, and Zanardi had a day to spend in Miami and Krosnoff just looked like he was breathing heavy when he came in for his runs and Zanardi was completely relaxed. And that made the difference, as I recall, but Jeff did a great job.”
Despite rumors that Zanardi was already locked into the ride—that the test was just a formality--Hull supported Ganassi’s story on how the final decision was made.
“Chip was very much a part of the process,” he said. “And Chip chose Alex based on some intangible thing that he saw. I know that Jeff raced on Sunday in Japan and then proceeded to get all the way to Florida from Japan, which, think about the time zones you have to cover to get there and be ready to run, but we set it up to where we thought we gave Jeff enough time to be ready to run when he turned up. He certainly wasn’t making any excuses, but it was obvious he didn’t have much rest.
“But for all intents and purposes, I think you could've chosen either guy, based on what they did, not only on the racetrack, but what they did with the engineers when they talked about the car and they would trying to get something out of the car. They also spent time with Jimmy Vasser, as a teammate; we had the whole interaction thing going on there. But everything happens for a reason, and you never know the reasons why things happen in life.”
For Ganassi, the 1995 season was good, but with Herta, who was competing in his first full season of CART (and made his fair share of rookie mistakes along the way), it was obvious the Target team boss wanted a driver who was ready to produce immediately.
With 25 F1 starts to his credit—even with mid-tier teams—Ganassi’s Reynard-Honda was a tad slower than everything Zanardi raced as a Grand Prix driver, making the transition to CART machinery rather easy. And with the pressure that comes with being an F1 driver, the general feeling within the team was that Zanardi would thrive in CART’s mellower environment.
Krosnoff was also accustomed to heavy pressure, but for Ganassi, grooming another driver on his way up the ladder was too similar to what he’d just experienced with Herta.
“When I tested [Krosnoff] it was like his first time he tested anything serious in the U.S.,” said Ganassi. “So it was kind of like, I think Jeff was a great driver and, obviously, had a lot of skill. He obviously, had a lot of skill. I just didn't think he was as seasoned a driver as Zanardi was at the time. And Jeff was coming out of Japanese F3000, and Zanardi had won in F3000 in Europe, and been in Formula One already.
“So it really wasn’t an apples to apples comparison, in terms of experience, but we needed to see how they did at the test, not just on a piece of paper. Jeff was just at a different stage of his career than Zanardi was. He was coming up and Zanardi was already there. He was ready to go and it seemed like it would take Jeff a little bit of time to hit that level of comfort.”
Hull says he would have liked to have seen his friend chosen for the job, but after weighing all of their findings, Ganassi couldn’t be faulted for selecting Zanardi.
“Jeff didn't have the big horsepower [open-wheel] experience that Alex did, although he got on top of it pretty quickly. The difference was that Alex was at ease driving an 800 hp IndyCar and Jeff was making a pretty big step there. But he didn't seem to lack in being able to peddle the thing around a racetrack, and he certainly was not at odds on the oval; whereas, Alex wasn't the best on the oval; it took him a little bit of time to get going. So it was kind of a balancing act between the two guys. But I do understand what Chip’s talking about and I understand the reasons why he went with Alex.”
Krosnoff would have liked to receive the nod from Ganassi—Zanardi would go on to place third in the 1996 PPG Indy Car World Series championship before earning consecutive titles in 1997 and 1998—but Ganassi wasn’t the only team that had expressed an interest in his talents.
Zanardi and Krosnoff were also up for a seat at the sophomore Arciero-Wells team, run by the highly successful off road team owner Cal Wells who looked after Toyota’s Baja and stadium racing programs.
As crazy as it sounds, and further proving that Krosnoff was ahead of his time as an open-wheeler who forged deep ties with auto manufacturers, it was his time spent as a factory driver for Nissan in the SCCA Coors Racetruck series that helped bring him to the attention of Wells.
PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Jeff Krosnoff Retrospective.
“On the way home, I just kept repeating to myself that I was finally in the show, but it didn’t truly hit me until later that night while I was taking out the trash—I was now an Indy car driver.”
~Jeff Krosnoff, RACER magazine, October 1996
Being hidden away in Japan for seven years was about to pay off for Jeff Krosnoff. He’d earned a reputation for being his own man—for following his own path rather than the conventional routes taken by other drivers.
Krosnoff had become a star F3000 and Sports Prototype driver in Japan, but as he watched his career plateau in the Pacific Rim, it appeared that talent alone wouldn’t be enough to catapult him into Formula One or Indy car seat he coveted.
By the latter stages of the 1995 season, however, two elements from Krosnoff’s past would come to the foreground at precisely the right time.
With an old friend—Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Mike Hull—calling Krosnoff home from Japan to compete for a job, and Toyota, for whom Krosnoff had driven in sports cars, ready to debut in the CART series in 1996, his services were suddenly in high demand in America.
Loyalty was a central theme that ran through Krosnoff’s time in Japan, and within Toyota, his name was held with great reverie. Loyalty also played a role in the invitation Krosnoff received from Hull, who could have drafted in bigger names for the Ganassi shootout, but with his influence, the prized opportunity was given to his fellow Californian.
Against Alex Zanardi--the former International F3000 standout who had three partial seasons in F1 to his credit—Krosnoff would face a tough adversary.
Zanardi, who was testing for Ganassi on behalf of heavy recommendations from his chassis supplier, Reynard, owned a career that was similar to Krosnoff’s when they met under Ganassi’s tent.
A talented prospect who’d suffered more bad luck than was deserved, the Italian was out of options in F1 by the end of 1994 and turned to sports cars for 1995. With his career at a crossroads, returning from the abyss to find a place on motor racing’s main stage was a necessity.
I remember seeing Zanardi wander the paddock at the 1995 CART season finale in Monterey, but at the time, and having fallen rather far off the radar, he blended in among the dozen other ride seekers in attendance.
Zanardi had been to the mountain top, albeit with F1 teams that offered little chance of winning, and after being cast aside from the series he desired most, a plum opportunity in America looked far more appealing than another season driving for Lotus in the BPR Global GT Endurance Series.
For Krosnoff, who never received the invite to F1 he always sought, racing in CART could deliver the recognition he’d always desired back home.
With the CART season finale on September 10th, and Ganassi anxious to find Bryan Herta’s replacement, Hull orchestrated the shootout the following month at the Homestead circuit near Miami, Florida.
Coming directly from the penultimate round of 1995 All Japan F3000 championship at Suzuka on October 15th, Krosnoff raced to Florida, taking a variety of red-eye flights and connections to cross multiple time zones. Zanardi, by contrast, was already in Miami and arrived at the track rested and ready.
With the first day of the shootout set for October 18th, the new Homestead road course was far from perfect with an excess of dust and sand, not to mention the lack of rubber on its surface.
Achieving an exact by-the-numbers comparison between Krosnoff and Zanardi would be challenging as every run improved the surface conditions, but Hull does recall that in terms of outright pace, there was little to separate the two candidates.
“I can't remember how many days we actually ran there – maybe three days total – and you could've thrown a blanket over both of them in terms of lap times,” said Hull. “There was really no difference between the two, all the way through the entire process.”
With lap times offering little in the way of conclusive evidence as to which was better suited to the job, Chip Ganassi says that the manner in which those lap times were set weighed heavily on his final decision.
“We felt that they showed the same amount of talent, and we went to great pains to make sure they all had the same number of tires, and stuff like that,” he explained. “I wanted everything to be equal. If you went strictly off the time, I think they were pretty equal. At the end of the day, the pick was made because, and it’s probably unfair, but Krosnoff took two red eyes get there from Japan, and Zanardi had a day to spend in Miami and Krosnoff just looked like he was breathing heavy when he came in for his runs and Zanardi was completely relaxed. And that made the difference, as I recall, but Jeff did a great job.”
Despite rumors that Zanardi was already locked into the ride—that the test was just a formality--Hull supported Ganassi’s story on how the final decision was made.
“Chip was very much a part of the process,” he said. “And Chip chose Alex based on some intangible thing that he saw. I know that Jeff raced on Sunday in Japan and then proceeded to get all the way to Florida from Japan, which, think about the time zones you have to cover to get there and be ready to run, but we set it up to where we thought we gave Jeff enough time to be ready to run when he turned up. He certainly wasn’t making any excuses, but it was obvious he didn’t have much rest.
“But for all intents and purposes, I think you could've chosen either guy, based on what they did, not only on the racetrack, but what they did with the engineers when they talked about the car and they would trying to get something out of the car. They also spent time with Jimmy Vasser, as a teammate; we had the whole interaction thing going on there. But everything happens for a reason, and you never know the reasons why things happen in life.”
For Ganassi, the 1995 season was good, but with Herta, who was competing in his first full season of CART (and made his fair share of rookie mistakes along the way), it was obvious the Target team boss wanted a driver who was ready to produce immediately.
With 25 F1 starts to his credit—even with mid-tier teams—Ganassi’s Reynard-Honda was a tad slower than everything Zanardi raced as a Grand Prix driver, making the transition to CART machinery rather easy. And with the pressure that comes with being an F1 driver, the general feeling within the team was that Zanardi would thrive in CART’s mellower environment.
Krosnoff was also accustomed to heavy pressure, but for Ganassi, grooming another driver on his way up the ladder was too similar to what he’d just experienced with Herta.
“When I tested [Krosnoff] it was like his first time he tested anything serious in the U.S.,” said Ganassi. “So it was kind of like, I think Jeff was a great driver and, obviously, had a lot of skill. He obviously, had a lot of skill. I just didn't think he was as seasoned a driver as Zanardi was at the time. And Jeff was coming out of Japanese F3000, and Zanardi had won in F3000 in Europe, and been in Formula One already.
“So it really wasn’t an apples to apples comparison, in terms of experience, but we needed to see how they did at the test, not just on a piece of paper. Jeff was just at a different stage of his career than Zanardi was. He was coming up and Zanardi was already there. He was ready to go and it seemed like it would take Jeff a little bit of time to hit that level of comfort.”
Hull says he would have liked to have seen his friend chosen for the job, but after weighing all of their findings, Ganassi couldn’t be faulted for selecting Zanardi.
“Jeff didn't have the big horsepower [open-wheel] experience that Alex did, although he got on top of it pretty quickly. The difference was that Alex was at ease driving an 800 hp IndyCar and Jeff was making a pretty big step there. But he didn't seem to lack in being able to peddle the thing around a racetrack, and he certainly was not at odds on the oval; whereas, Alex wasn't the best on the oval; it took him a little bit of time to get going. So it was kind of a balancing act between the two guys. But I do understand what Chip’s talking about and I understand the reasons why he went with Alex.”
Krosnoff would have liked to receive the nod from Ganassi—Zanardi would go on to place third in the 1996 PPG Indy Car World Series championship before earning consecutive titles in 1997 and 1998—but Ganassi wasn’t the only team that had expressed an interest in his talents.
Zanardi and Krosnoff were also up for a seat at the sophomore Arciero-Wells team, run by the highly successful off road team owner Cal Wells who looked after Toyota’s Baja and stadium racing programs.
As crazy as it sounds, and further proving that Krosnoff was ahead of his time as an open-wheeler who forged deep ties with auto manufacturers, it was his time spent as a factory driver for Nissan in the SCCA Coors Racetruck series that helped bring him to the attention of Wells.
PHOTOS: Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Jeff Krosnoff Retrospective.
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