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A lot of the driver changes have been made for the up-coming IRL season which is scheduled to begin at Miami-Homestead on February 29th. Some of the driver movements are a little baffling to me. For one thing, I can't figure out why Tomas Scheckter would leave an organization like Ganassi Racing for Panther Racing. There had to be a lot of money involved or else there may have been personality conflicts. I'll keep my ear to the ground on this one and maybe the reasoning will come out in the future. Scheckter takes the place of Sam Hornish Jr. in the No. 4 Pennzoil Chevy, who left Panther Racing to fill the seat of retiring Gil de Ferran in the No. 6 Marlboro Toyota at Penske Racing. Mark Taylor has been hired to be Scheckter's teammate at Panther Racing for the 2004 campaign in the No. 2 Menards/Johns Manville/ Dallara/Chevrolet/Firestone Indy car Taylor won the 2003 championship in the Menard's Infinity Pro Series with seven wins and nine top five finishes in 12 races. John Menard has joined Panther Racing as co-owner, so Taylor will be racing for someone he is already acquainted with. Chip Ganassi Racing suffered a terrible loss with the recent death of newly hired Tony Renna who replaced Tomas Scheckter in the No. 10 Toyota. In all due respect, there should have been a longer period of time before Chip Ganassi hired a replacement for the fallen driver. But, as we all know, there are time restraints to racing, as testing and team building has to continue. The new season will be starting on schedule regardless of what happens to the teams and drivers during the off-season. Given these circumstances, Chip Ganassi didn't have a choice in putting the matter off any further. He chose an experienced driver out of the CART series who hails from England to pilot the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz G Force/Toyota/Firestone for the 2004 IRL season. Darren Manning, a native of Yorkshire, England, drove for the CART team of Walker Racing this past season earning 14 top ten and three top five finishes. The 28 year old driver has plenty of experience in the open wheel cars beginning with Formula Vauxhall and F3 and culminating with F-1 testing and a stint in the CART series. Manning joins his new teammate, 2003 IRL IndyCar Series Champion Scott Dixon, at Ganassi Racing. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article 2004 Driver Changes in Indy Racing League is owned by Thomas M. Sampson. Permission to republish 2004 Driver Changes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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