Racer

Marshall Pruett

Ford's long-awaited return to domestic and international sports car racing takes its first major step this weekend at Daytona. Assembling a new racing program isn't rare, nor is it particularly hard for those who've been through the process. Whether it's in Formula 1 or MotoGP, the art of building a racing team from scratch is far from impossible.

But when it involves dual programs, based on two continents, competing simultaneously throughout the world - all things that Ford has chosen to do with its new twin-turbo V6 GT road car - the complexities are mind-boggling.

This massively ambitious project, led by Chip Ganassi Racing, will dispatch two Ford GTs from its headquarters in Indianapolis to every round of IMSA's American-based WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. And from a newly-formed remote base of operations in England, its FIA World Endurance Championship effort will spend the next two years globetrotting with its pair of Ford GTs.

Together, the men and women representing the Blue Oval through the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing (FCGR) teams will trek to Dubai, to Florida for the famed 12 Hours of Sebring, to Belgium to compete on the world-renowned Spa-Francorchamps circuit, to China, Japan, Germany, to the streets of Long Beach in California, up the coast to Monterey's Laguna Seca and its revered Corkscrew, to Georgia's Road Atlanta and, for Ford's most highly anticipated return, to France for the biggest of them all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The task facing FCGR was monumental. Turning the concept of a two-series, four-car endurance racing program into reality for one of the largest auto manufacturers on the planet is a daunting proposition, and for an American team with only domestic competition on its resume, tackling the international scope added another degree of difficulty.

Building a team like this, on such a grand scale, with such high expectations, and in a relatively short amount of time, might happen once a decade. It made sitting down to delve into the timeline and assembly process behind forming Ford's halo racing team with Mike Hull, Chip Ganassi Racing's managing director, a fascinating experience.

Hull's insights, and willingness to open up and explain how the team went about establishing its first global effort on behalf of Ford, provides a rare look into the this process. Barring a few areas where additional explanations are needed, here's our extended conversation on bringing FCGR to life.

PRUETT: Let's start with the general timeframe the Ford GT program came about. The Ganassi Grand-Am team used BMW power for your DPs through 2013, then you announced you'd be switching to Ford engines and bodies for the united Grand-Am and ALMS series in 2014. How early in the Ford relationship did starting the GT team come into play?

HULL: When we made a commitment with Ford with the DP engine that was in that car, we had the frame of mind to be ready with a GT program. At that point we didn't know what the GT program was going to be. They were in the initial design phase with a car, and that was three years ago, 2013. We did know we needed to work from that point forward to assemble a core group of people from the DP project into the GT project. It really went back about two years ago for that part, and we knew it was going to be a team of multiple cars.

We had our hearts set on being involved in the GT arena, but it seemed like most of the other [manufacturer programs] were taken, and by very good teams. We didn't try and go after those teams - the Ford deal was something that came at us, and we pursued to see if it was a serious thing. It was, and they were serious about wanting to do something, so they strengthened their racing department while we strengthened ours to prepare while we were racing the DPs. It seemed like a natural thing to be involved with them and carry it forward.

As things looked like they were going to change on the IndyCar side last summer (Ganassi's IndyCar team planned to reduce from four cars to three), there were also opportunities for them available on the GT side knowing full well that was the direction we were going. The planning wasn't so much short-term; it was long-term, and here we are getting ready here to do the first race with the GTs.

PRUETT: This is probably going to sound like a dumb question, but where do you start when it comes to building a team on this scale? What's the first item on that to-do list?

HULL: Our model is people, people, people. We accept input and viewpoint from everybody in the room when we work on a project, whether it be starting a new one like we are doing with this program, or an existing program. Viewpoint and perspective drive the group of people together to make a difference.

We are going to race outside the United States with this project. We start by sitting in a room with a group of people that look at the 'what if' factor. What if this, what if that? How do we conquer this? How should we look at this? Should we look at creating this team in a conventional way? An unconventional way? Or the Chip Ganassi way?

I think the Chip Ganassi way is truly about respecting the viewpoint of everybody who works for us. And as time goes on with any of our projects, the acceptance of people mentoring everybody within the system to accept the way of doing business is the reality of how we do things. A computer isn't the place to start a team. It's with people, talking out ideas, giving feedback, and coming up with agreement on how we should create the team before we go to the next step. It's done as a group, first, and we use what we've learned to make the most informed decisions we possibly can.

I'll give you an example. When we raced for the first time in Grand-Am at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2004, it was overwhelming. It truly was overwhelming. Both prior to, during and even after the event, when we looked back on it. But the way we proceeded after the event may be a good way to look at how we came together. Because it's how we ultimately work now on things like the Ford GT program.

We got everybody in a conference room after that first race at the shop, and in that room we have every department represented that took part at the Daytona, and even some that weren't physically there for the race, but supported the program. Our discussion went all the way, it covered the gamut: travel, transportation, how people ate, how they slept or didn't sleep, how the race cars were prepared ahead of time, during and after the race. How we solved the problems we faced versus how we needed to solve the problems.

From that roundtable discussion in the conference room with a dozen people sitting there, maybe more than that, we developed a working list for the 2005 Daytona 24 Hour race. I think the first attempt to turn what came out of that meeting, all the changes and improvements, went on an Excel spreadsheet that ended up having 410 items listed! That to-do list you asked about; it crept towards 500 items as we added to it after our first 24-hour race. From that spreadsheet, we started the Ganassi perpetual motion machine that kept going for the next 11 months and 20 days until the 2005 race.

So, I tell that story to say we look at things very systematically. We look at them in a very thorough manner. I don't believe we groupthink; I believe we think as a group of people, which is different. I don't think that we are easily convinced - even with each other - until we have talked about it. And that free exchange of information is what drives programs like the one we are presently on with Ford.

From how we do things in that conference room setting, we've established a pretty solid process on how to put all the key people together, and then drill down to arrive at the goal that's in front of us, whatever that goal is. In this case, it's the process of how to build a new racing program.

We then incorporate from the inside, from the interior walls of Chip Ganassi Racing, all our partners. In this case, it would be Ford, Michelin, Multimatic, which we've brought in to run Chip Ganassi Racing's WEC program in the UK, Roush Yates engines, the drivers themselves, and all the other partners that are associated with our program, whether they be a vendor, sponsor, whatever they are, and we have them in that discussion to get them involved and get their thought process moving along with ours.

PRUETT: I'd guess some would imagine you or Chip using a blueprint - something taken from IndyCar, or NASCAR, or one of your other programs, and sure, maybe you'd add a few extra layers here or there, but it would be repetition-based, it would be creating the Ford GT team off a slightly modified template. It's not like you lacked sports car experience, but you didn't exactly have an 'international program for major auto manufacturer' template to roll out.

HULL: When we first started the Grand-Am program, we were an open-wheel team, and we had had some success in open-wheel racing. Not to downplay that by any stretch of the imagination when I say that, but we were apprehensive going into Grand-Am racing because we had never been in that style of racing. We recognized we could not expect to do well in Grand-Am by simply replicating how we did things in open-wheel. It was not only new to us, but it was different, and had different demands on the team. What we discovered was we were a pretty good group of people together in this new sports car thing we were attempting.

We thought at first we'd hire a bunch of ringers to help us - old sports car veterans - but then we thought, do you know what? Let's rely on ourselves, because it is ourselves that got us here and it will be ourselves as a team that gets us up the ladder for sports car racing. For the most part, that is what we have done with the Ford GT program. It's a group of people that have been redistributed a bit internally, then we filled in the blanks needing more people. So we fortified all the departments of the building and fortified the race team.

PRUETT: So, that's the theory and application side of putting the Ford GT team together. Let's talk numbers. Two cars per championship, four cars total, all of the management and support staff to put IMSA and WEC programs in motion ...

HULL: Our rule of thumb for the Ford GT effort is 15 people per entry, covering all types of expertise. That means it's 15 for the [IMSA No.] 66 car, 15 for the [IMSA No.] 67 car, in our case, Stateside. And the same would be true for Multimatic with what they are doing for us from the UK base of operation. Thirty people there, two entries. If you multiply that out times four, that's 120 people that you have to accommodate going forward.

We put a person or persons in charge of each series. In our case, on the competition side, we worked really hard with people in the UK to make sure what we're doing on both sides of the Atlantic is identical. That's the big priority. You can't have two teams under the same banner out of sync and expect to have success. The cars we build and maintain in each series resemble each other totally. They are the same so that the information we gain when we test or race can be shared equally on two continents with no question of its accuracy.

The basic alignment and set-up equipment is the same, the instrumentation is the same, the way that the instrumentation is read is the same. The software is the same. The operational mode of building the car is the same. That is a big, big task. If you get that right, your program should be right? It makes a lot more sense to push hard to establish uniform practices for our teams in both series while it's all fresh and new than to try and get on top of it after we go racing together for the first time.

And then we have to move this big group of people. We have a department that works really, really hard to put everything together logistically to cover what we do here in North America and in the UK. The way that they go about their daily life is this: They look at everything that needs to happen, movement-wise.

Our Ford GT teams will visit 10 countries this year; the IMSA team will go to Le Mans, the WEC team will come to America, the IMSA team will also go to Canada, and then you have all the shipping of people and equipment to the rest of the WEC races. The IMSA program races at home, mostly, but there are still a lot of moving parts.

And they do more than just book plane tickets. If I were traveling, what would I want to have? How am I going to eat, sleep, get from point A to point B? Transportation? How do I pack? What do I need in terms of credentialing for my passport? Visas? It's all the things you need as a Chip Ganassi employee on the road, whether it be at Le Mans or Road America. The total package, so each person has nothing left untended. That is how our logistics side looks at it.

It isn't part of building the physical team, but we also have some team-building exercises that have worked for us in the past that are being used with the Ford program this weekend. We have one of the WEC drivers (Stefan Mucke) driving for us at Daytona, for instance. That was not by accident. And it wasn't because Ford necessarily wanted it, although they loved the idea of having a WEC driver at Daytona. It is the fact that the driver is going to be a conduit back to the WEC side of the team for all the things that are currently going on with the racecar. Andy Priaulx, one of our WEC GT drivers, is driving one our prototype cars at Daytona, he took some laps at Daytona in a GT car.

That is what we have done. We also have technicians and engineers from the WEC team involved in what we're doing at Daytona. They were here for the Roar; they're here for the race.

We try to integrate everyone as fully as we can. It's all about getting the 'universal answer.'

When we ask a question, we want to get the same universal answer. From the crew, the drivers, the engineers, you name it. We want no differences from car to car, or series to series. That is really hard to do. I don't know that we are the best at it, but we work hard to be as good as we can be in terms of being able to supply the same information to everybody in the system at Chip Ganassi Racing, Ford, Multimatic, or any other partners.

PRUETT: What does the organizational chart look like for both programs? How wide or direct is the reporting structure?

HULL: The way that our system works is we have a manager for every five or six people through the whole system. I happen to be teetering on the top of the pyramid, but the reality is I only have five or six people that report to me. I don't micromanage the next layer of management, the next layer of management below them, and so on.

The responsibility of a manager in our building is, number one, listen to his or her people. Number two, communicate that in both directions. Number three, show up for work every day. If you get those three things working, then you have a chance to do what you want to achieve.

At the top on the IMSA side of things is Michael O'Gara. He's the general manager, or team manager as some might consider it. We really don't care for titles here, honestly. The person, not the title, does the work. Mike's responsible overall for the program, the competition side, the technical side, what each person does to make the program better each day.

Then we have Mel Harder, who we've hired and who worked at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a long time - he's an administrative person. He works on the total administration side of managing the IMSA program. He reports to Mike, but he is responsible for taking a lot of the administrative load off Mike so Mike can concentrate on what we want to do, and that is race cars. Mel recently made a trip to France and he's getting ready to make another one to get the IMSA side ready for that event.

He's wrapped his arms around what it takes to get in and out of their racetrack, he works on logistical side of what we do. He works on the equipment that is behind the pit wall, making sure the guys that go over the wall have all the things that they need. He makes sure the food is ready for them at the right time of the day.

He does all the things that maybe some people would take for granted. We want our people to be buttoned up thoroughly so when the person that represents the Ford GT program shows up to work, they aren't slowed down by oversights. We want that side to be absolutely seamless for them so they can do their job. That is what Mel does to make us better.

Then we have an engineering group, John Hennek and Brad Goldberg, and they have two people that work for them. And then Julian Robertson is our technical director who works with them to make sure they have everything they need within the resources from our R&D people. Any support they need electronically, for any of the tests that need to happen, Julian would help them to make sure they have what they need. The personnel would be assigned to them for those tests from other areas in our building.

The damper guys work with them in the same fashion as they do on the IndyCar side. Our transportation manager reports back through Mel and Mike to make sure the engineers have what they need in the trucks. Then on the shop floor we have two crew chiefs, one responsible for each car. That crew chief has four or five mechanics, depending on the situation, plus the people that come from the assembly shops that travel with them on the weekend.

We have a manager on the shop floor. The chief mechanics go to Mike O'Gara for direction. So that communication activity goes in two directions quickly.

Grant Weaver, who has been with Chip Ganassi Racing almost from the start, is the manager for everything that goes on in all the job shops in the building. He has five managers that report to him. Managers being somebody for the paint and carbon shop, somebody from assembly, the electronics department, the transportation department, and so on. So he controls the flow of all of that on the competition side for everything we need with the five managers that report to him.

PRUETT: That's a lot of moving parts.

HULL: With the other teams we have actively competing, it's what you need to stay on top of everything you face. Those five managers are integral in terms of the process because Grant sets priority based on what each of the teams need. The teams are like piranhas. They are swimming around in the building and they will consume everything they can unless there's something to stop them

Let's say, as an example, they will consume all of the fabrication/machine shop's time for their project. We have more than one project going on, so Grant has to schedule when it comes to being able to manage correctly, getting everything done and out the door when it is meant to. Without Grant, one project would get everything they need while another would come up short, which can't happen. He's there to make sure they get what they need without taking away from the others.

We really do like to do everything that we can in-house because we like the efficiency; we like the fact that it is done the same way each time - that each part on each car is massaged by the same people in the same department. Then, when that racecar is run, the engineers, when the data comes back at them, if there is something odd, through process of elimination, they can immediately find out why. We know it isn't different part because they are all the same. And the drivers in the 66 Ford cannot say the drivers in the 67 car have better parts than we do. We don't do it that way.

The inner workings, the inner mechanism of our management structure relies on the efficiency of being able to manage four or five people through the system. I don't know how other people run their businesses, but it works well for us.

PRUETT: I'd assume the WEC operation is structured the same way?

HULL: That is our goal. Our IMSA team goes racing three months before the WEC season starts, which means our staffing needs here needed to be completed much sooner. The WEC infrastructure is close to being solidified. George Howard-Chappell is responsible for us there. You can compare him to Mike [O'Gara] in terms of what he does. He has Julian Sole that does all the engineering on the car itself. They are still in the hiring process over there, getting people on the payroll. We compare notes and we are trying to get it as close or identical to what we do as possible.

PRUETT: Are there core management philosophies you look to bring to the Ford GT project to make an international program like this work?

HULL: First, I would say my personal management style, and I only know one style, is that you cannot restrict communication in any way whatsoever. Like I said before, this isn't about titles, and it also isn't about power, so being connected with each other on this task is where you start. There are no dictators here.

If you slow down on communication, you slow down the process. When you slow down the process, you slow down your ability to do a couple things. One, which is the most important thing, is to be able to react to change quicker than your competition. That is a key element, I think, in the management structure here. I would think it is probably the same in any major business that you would run.

That, to me, is absolutely vital. So how do you do that? It means you have to reinforce the fact that people cannot be afraid. They have to be able to have the freedom of expression, to be heard, that is the second thing.

The way that our management system is set up here overall is, I don't have 130 people that report to me directly every day. I interact with a good portion of them by walking through the building, conducting a meeting, or just walking up and asking somebody a question. I think that is very important. We're all committed to staying connected to each other, in some way, and that's the philosophy we embrace. That's the spirit behind all we do, and what we'll do here in Daytona and everywhere else we'll travel with this project.

PRUETT: You said the team's first Rolex 24 (ABOVE), your first sports car race, was an eye-opening experience which led to a big post-race review and improvement in a lot of areas. Where do you feel this new Ford GT team is at ahead of its first Rolex 24?

HULL: Personally, I feel like being at the bottom of the Himalayan mountains with a group of Sherpas that are trying to help you get to the top. We have a big climb on our hands here. I think whenever you find territory that is uncharted, which GT racing is for us, it is very difficult to have complete confidence in where you are going to go. But at the same time, you have enormous confidence in your people on that journey with you. And the process.

What we are lucky to have here, unlike when we started with the Grand-Am in 2004, is that Ford and Multimatic worked really hard to deliver racecars to us on schedule. So that has given us an opportunity to test and to prepare for what we're going to do this year. We have had several long distance runs with the car, which is good. Roush Yates worked hard on the engine so that side was prepared. And Michelin, and all the other partners.

Overall, it has been a good process to this point. And I'm not sure we are in a position where we are ready to exhale yet, but I think we're pretty good here in terms of just being ready with the new car and being in a new series. But with that said, this GT Le Mans class is one of the most competitive categories we have ever been in. Perhaps that is the unknown. We can't yet say how that competitive category is going to treat us.

PRUETT: Ford isn't returning to GT racing, or going after another win at Le Mans, with second-place finishes in mind. What kind of expectations have been set for you and the team on high by the Blue Oval?

MIKE: I think they have expressed their expectation by the unselfish support they have given us. They care about this program. They didn't just say, here are the keys to the kingdom, we will see you later. Ford has been very, very supportive of everything and anything that is possible. Any direction we wanted to go in terms of change, they have been very supportive of that. They have worked closely with all the partners in the program to make sure that the racecars have everything that they need.

And this is certainly a new category of racing for them also. They are not coming in with reservations, but more with curiosity of how to make this project better with the expectation when we go to the racetrack, we'll be the best. They are a company that has always been the best.

Nobody has called and said they expect us to win. You look at the commitment they have made, the resources they've made available, the partners that have become involved, and that's the statement. The intent to win has been made through actions, not with words.

If you study the history of Henry Ford from the very early 1900s, the culture has always been about taking the technology, the most current technology, and making it better. I think that standard, that commitment, is what we all represent with the car and this team.