Chip Ganassi Racing clarifies Dixon's radio problem

[speedway_navigator]

Chip Ganassi Racing clarifies Dixon's radio problem

Scott Dixon didn’t spend all of Sunday’s 100-lap race without the ability to communicate with his team on pit lane. But the eventual second-place finisher did lose contact with his Chip Ganassi Rac…

racer.com

At the end of the 2006 season Mike Hull and I agreed I would continue as the team's radio tech for 2007. He shook my hand and said
"Let's do it again". The next week I met with Scott Harner to sign my contract. He told me he "hired a kid from Purdue" as an engineer and wanted me to train
him to handle their radios.
I basically told him to pound sand and walked out.

I worked that season providing internet service to some teams and vendors, I would hear stories about how the radios kept failing during races from my former teammates.
At one point Chip got so mad he slammed the radio down on the timing stand.

Dan Wheldon's radio crapped out during the last race of the season, they were trying to tell him to slow up so Scott Dixon could draft off him to save fuel.
The plan didn't work and Scott finished far enough back from first he lost the points he needed to win the 2007 Championship, all because Scott Harner wanted to save $45,000.

Bobby Rahal lost the Michigan 500 one year because his radio wasn't working. I told the crew chief the car radio was years old and needed to be replaced, he did not have the budget for a new radio, around $900. I remember telling a crew guy the difference between 1st and 2nd prize money would have bought a bunch of new radios.

 

[TheMann00]

The places they will pinch pennies is CRAZY to me.

 

[jbella]

You mean like possibly not having a backup generator for production trucks?

 

[16b]

I'm the "radio guy" for a club racing team, so these stories are interesting to me. Based on the amount of money I see getting thrown around even at the club level, I'm kind of shocked that Indy teams would have radio problems that are attributable to anything that piles of cash could solve.

 

[jbella]

When it comes to radios, the notion that piles of cash solves problems is false. Real world experience in field communications is a necessity to program and service the 'proper' radios for the job.

 

[16b]

When it comes to radios, the notion that piles of cash solves problems is false. Real world experience in field communications is a necessity to program and service the 'proper' radios for the job.

Don’t know if we’re agreeing or disagreeing here, but good equipment, and quality people to maintain it never come cheap. It’s certainly possible to spend lots of money on bad equipment and lousy people, but you’re never going to get proper radios and good people with real world experience without being willing to put a dent in your bank account. I find that this basic concept holds true well beyond the realm of radio communications, too.

 

[jbella]

We're basically agreeing.

The younger generation are the ones taht think money solves everything. It's more the effective spending of money. "Oh we'll get the best radios possible!" In comes the Motorola saleman and you've spent twice as much as you wanted on superfluous add-ons you'll never use.

Although I've worked in racing, I've never bene in a race team, howveer I dealt with public safety radios for a long time and am sure the unique set of conditions in racing aren't dissimilar to public safety. Just different <wink>

 

[speedway_navigator]

You mean like possibly not having a backup generator for production trucks?

Back when ABC was producing the brickyard 400 with in house talent the track got hit with a power failure about an hour before green flag. The backup generators kicked on but some trucks lost power. They quickly figured out they had the same power capacity from early races but had added more trucks as they added more fixed and in car cameras, so the load was too great.