USA Today

Brant James





Seeking more avenues to burnish a mounting racing legacy and new fans to appreciate it, Chip Ganassi Racing Teams has launched a two-car program in the burgeoning Global Rallycross series.

Ganassi, who has emerged as one of the most diverse and successful owners in motorsports the last 25 years, announced the project Wednesday with multi-regimen action star Brian Deegan and GRC regular Steve Arpin as drivers.Ganassi's teams campaign Chevrolets in NASCAR and IndyCar, but will utilize Fords like their TUDOR United SportsCar program beginning with the May 31 opener in Tampa, Fla., because of Ford's performance history in the series, said Ganassi president Steve Lauletta.Ganassi has built a winning resume in other series, having captured the Indianapolis 500 four times, the Daytona 500, the Rolex 24 a record six times (including this January), the Sebring 12-Hour and 17 total championships."Make no mistake about it," Ganassi said, "we are in this series to win, both on and off the race track."That's been the plan for more than a year. Lauletta said the project, vetted by team junkets to the X Games and the season finale in Las Vegas last year, continues the plan "to begin to position our team and our brand as a place for the younger race fan to gravitate to." The plan originally was centered on leveraging the youth and potential of Sprint Cup driver Kyle Larson, 22, part-time Xfinity Series driver Dylan Kwasniewski, 19, and IndyCar driver Sage Karam, 20.And whereas NASCAR teams have in recent seasons signed action stars such as Travis Pastrana, Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart and attempted to integrate them and their youthful fans into stock car racing, Ganassi and IndyCar counterpart Andretti Autosport before it went the other direction. Ganassi is joining a series that boasts a fan base that, according to GRC, is an average of 10 years younger than that of other motorsports and two-thirds of which is in the lucrative 18-to-29-year-old demographic."Watching everybody in motorsports trying to develop their product and attract a younger fan base, GRC has a lot of that, those things that people in the sport would identify as what's needed to be done," Lauletta told USA TODAY Sports. "Shorter time frame, the fact that it's driven social media, digital media, the access you get in the paddock, the cars being the cars that a younger demo can go buy."All those things are really right on target and so if you're looking at it, as we are, we're not only a race team, we're a motorsports marketing platform. Having that younger audience is really important and I think a lot of teams will start looking seriously at it."Brian Deegan, shown here performing in Los AngelesBrian Deegan, shown here performing in Los Angeles before the X Games, is a 10-time medalist. (Photo: Kevork Djansezian, AP)Global Rallycross contests two divisions – Super Cars and GRC Lites – over a 12-race schedule that includes a stop at Daytona International Speedway and two races in Barbados.Ford, Volkswagen, Subaru and Chevrolet are official partners of the series, supplying 600-horsepower production models of their compact sports cars that are retrofitted with chassis, engine and safety upgrades to enable acceleration to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds and the durability to endure 70-foot jumps and courses over various types of terrain.Ganassi's GRC operation will be housed in its Concord, N.C., NASCAR shop and be overseen by former Ford World Rally Championship engineer Carl Goodman. About 10 employees are expected to be hired, Lauletta said. Ganassi is partnering with Loenbro, an industrial company, in the GRC effort.Ganassi often deploys his driver roster beyond their normal regimens to great effect, with Sprint Cup drivers Larson and Jamie McMurray teaming with IndyCar counterparts Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan to win the Rolex 24 this season. Dixon, a three-time IndyCar champion, had hoped the GRC team would be run out of Indianapolis to allow him to satisfy his curiosity. He sounded hopeful of getting a chance in a Ganassi car although his last rally run ended with a crash "after about four corners.""Hopefully when I get a drive in one of those – that would (be) pretty sweet – hopefully I can make it a full lap," he told USA TODAY Sports.Much more will be expected of Deegan, a 16-time X-Games medalist. Deegan will drive the No. 38 RockStar Energy Drink Ford Fiesta ST in seven events as part of a schedule that also includes Freestyle Motocross and Monster Jam. Arpin, a former ARCA driver who contested seven races in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports in 2010, will run a full season in the No. 00 ENEOS Ford Fiesta ST."I look forward to working with them and building a winning GRC program that can win GRC championships," Deegan said in a release.Regular GRC competitors include action sports veterans Pastrana, Ken Block and Tanner Foust, and former open wheel and NASCAR driver Nelson Piquet Jr. Andretti Autosport added former Formula 1 and Sprint Cup driver Scott Speed to its lineup with Foust for this season.Now Ganassi Racing hopes to assimilate, adding a younger breed of fan to its roles and a grittier brand of trophy to its collection. But it's unlikely the owner, ubiquitous in his white Oxford atop NASCAR and IndyCar pit boxes, will attempt to blend into GRC with a flat-brimmed cap and T-shirt."Yeah," Lauletta laughed. "You can ask him to wear that."