The open-wheel veteran, who has a one-race IRL deal for the Indy 500, recently has given more thought to a career in NASCAR.
By BRUCE LOWITT
Published May 24, 2003
INDIANAPOLIS - Things change. So do minds, like Jimmy Vasser's. He's another open-wheel racer hoping to take the off-ramp toward NASCAR.
For the moment it's just a detour. Vasser drives the full CART Champ Car circuit, and the IRL's IndyCar Indianapolis 500. Now, though, he has tasted stock car racing, driving in the Busch Grand National race at Daytona this year.
That's like the appetizer. He wants the main course, Winston Cup.
"I've spent 11 years in (Champ Cars)," Vasser said late last year, "and I wouldn't like to change at this point."
But as he prepared for Sunday's Indy 500, his eighth, it was clear he's thinking of switching gears. "I'm intrigued by the challenge of NASCAR, the level of competition," Vasser said. "I've been in open-wheel racing all my life, basically. . . . I see myself in the near future really doing Winston Cup full time. I'd like to create an opportunity. When and if I get it, it's going to have to be a full-time thing. And I think I can do well."
The Indy 500 is his lone stop in the IRL, which began racing in 1996 as an economical alternative to CART. Vasser and most of the big-name drivers in this race stayed with CART. They boycotted or were shut out of this Memorial Day weekend spectacular.
A few years ago, team owners began making U-turns, returning to the IRL and its crown jewel of open-wheel racing in the United States. Former CART teams owned by Chip Ganassi, Roger Penske, Michael Andretti and Mo Nunn are here, along with Vasser's team owner for this race, Bobby Rahal, who also runs the full CART circuit..
Vasser drove for Ganassi in CART and is tight with Andy Graves, who oversees Ganassi's Winston Cup team. Vasser, who missed the 1996-99 Indy 500s, is the only CART driver competing here this year. But 16 former CART drivers are here as well.
And Vasser is, in a small way, thinking of following the tracks of Robby Gordon, who drives the Indy 500 and the full NASCAR schedule, including Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600. And open-wheel-turned-NASCAR drivers Tony Stewart, John Andretti and since-retired Scott Pruett. And Larry Foyt and Casey Mears. They don't race open-wheel despite being the adopted son and nephew, respectively, of four-time Indy 500 champions A.J. Foyt and Rick Mears.
"You're always going to have that," Michael Andretti said when Vasser's name came up as the latest on the list of drivers eyeing or racing NASCAR. "I was one of those guys. ... If we can build (open-wheel racing) up they're not going to be so intrigued to go and look at the other side."
After Sunday, Vasser said, "I've got Milwaukee and a couple of other CART races. Then I'm going to focus more on filling in my schedule with some more Busch racing, maybe even a couple of Winston Cups, this year.
Vasser's stock car debut in the Busch race at Daytona has to be considered a qualified success. He was running fourth heading into the final lap when Todd Bodine rear-ended him and sent him skidding into the outside wall. Vasser finished 28th.
His best Indy 500 finish is fourth, in 1994 and 2001. He has run 1,147 laps here; he has led 25 of them. Vasser said he really can't imagine what winning it would be like, but that in one sense it wouldn't have much of an impact on him. "I've won races before. This is still the Indy 500; for sure it's a big race, but I've been racing for a long time," he said of starting with midget cars at age 6 in 1971, "and I'm not sure I'm going to let winning an Indy 500 change my life. But it will change a part of me. This is something I've always wanted to achieve and it'll make me feel I've accomplished one of my life's goals."
Vasser, 37, won the 1996 CART championship, was third the next year and second the year after that. In the four-plus years since, he has won just twice, Houston in 2000 and Fontana, Calif., last year. "Obviously the runway of my open-wheel career is getting shorter and shorter as I get older and older," he said. "My best years in it are drawing to a close. The runway for racing for me is a little longer in NASCAR. You can compete there when you're higher in age. ...
"I'll have to learn a whole new way of racing. I'll have to learn about the aerodynamics of stock cars, new strategies and techniques. Driving there is certainly different. It's not as physical. And the racing's a lot closer (bumper to bumper and side to side). You don't rub sides here."
