RFM Front Page News

TORONTO, Canada (July 12, 2004) -- While defending his 3rd place position in Cleveland, Dale Coyne Racing driver Oriol Servia would make contact with fellow competitor Ryan Hunter-Reay in a hard fought battle, putting the young rookie out of contention, and allowing Servia to continue on to finish 4th. Next weekend in Toronto, while Servia go caught up in the intense battle between series champion Paul Tracy and rookie Justin Wilson at the front, Servia’s Dale Coyne Racing teammate Gaston Mazzacane would go on to finish a strong 6th.

Now consider that only a year ago, the then bright yellow Dale Coyne Racing machines were best known as the first cars to be lapped, and it becomes apparent why this team has been turning so many heads this year. Backed by two major sponsors in American Medial Response (AMR) and YokeTV.com, Dale Coyne Racing once again finds his team able to compete at the front.

It hasn’t happened overnight for the team formed by Dale Coyne – who for many years drove the car as well as performing the duties of team owner. Like many, his interest in the sport was sparked with a visit to the track “It was going to Road America for the June Sprints…I just kind of fell in love with it, and fell in love with the open-wheel cars,” says Coyne. His young team would get its start fielding cars in Super Vee and Formula Atlantic in SCCA club and pro races in the 1970s.

In 1984, Dale Coyne Racing made the move up to the Champcar World Series, and in 1986 even built their own chassis, the DC-1; however, as the team began to struggle due to a lack of funding, Dale made the decision to step out of the cockpit to become a full-time team owner.

“I wanted to move forward, and we had some drivers that had some support and the team to run them – so I decided to step out of the car and get a little bit better budget so we could try to move forward.”

Move forward he did, taking on National Football League Hall of Famer, Walter Payton as part owner in 1994. Walter would remain in that role until his death at the end of the 1999 Champ Car Season.

Since then, Dale Coyne Racing has successfully fielded cars each season – helping to kick-start the careers of current stars Paul Tracy and Michel Jourdain Jr., as well as record the team’s best result to date - a 3rd place finish by Roberto Moreno at the 1996 U.S. 500. Like all Champcar teams, the challenge has always been coming up with the millions necessary to field a car at the top level of open-wheel racing.

“The biggest challenge is finding the budget that you put together, and getting value back to your sponsor, and putting all of the pieces together to get the amount of money that it takes to run this thing – that’s a full time, year long never ending job.”

With funds varying over the years, so has the ability of the team to attract the very best drivers. Though some Champcar teams will only field a car if it is capable of winning races, Dale Coyne Racing is not one of them. Though the team’s willingness to take on drivers that bring their own funding to the team has been criticized in the past, Dale defends his team’s driver choices well.

“Any driver that comes here has a certain skill level – the guy at the back of the field has to have a certain level of skill to be here. We’ve enjoyed trying to get the best out of those guys – whether it’s a guy at the beginning of his career and trying to climb the ladder, get more experience – he needs a vehicle to do that, and we can provide that. Or, whether it’s a guy at the end of his career and this has always been his goal, and he hasn’t touched it… this is a dream for people to do and, yes money can get you in to do it, but anybody in this field is a world class driver, because they’re tough cars…”

As an example of the later case, Coyne gives Charlie Nearburg, who in 1997, at the age of 47, and late in his racing career decided he wanted to experience his dream of racing Champcars.

“Charlie Nearburg is an example I love – he was a guy that was older, he was married, he had kids and always wanted to do these races. So he came with us, and did three races, and we pushed him a little bit, but the by the time he got to his third race, he was very respectable – and he’s got that to carry with him the rest of his life.”

Coyne continues, “My hat’s off to anybody – whether you’ve the talent to get here or you have the checkbook to get here, if you’re going to come here and do it, that takes a lot of guts – a lot of guys have done very well and we’re happy with that.”

Though the results may have varied over the years, one thing that has not is Coyne’s confidence in his crew, and their drive to succeed.

“The game is to be competitive… We’ve had some times in the past with Alex Barron and Andre Lotterer where we were as competitive as anybody out there. I always know that the team can do that – it’s just having a good driver, and having all of the right elements at the right time coming together.”

While Coyne has gone through many drivers and sponsors over the years, the team’s very experienced, and well-rounded crew has remained relatively constant.

“We’ve had a lot of people that have been here a long time, so it runs pretty smoothly – they know what to do, what’s right and what’s wrong…I think our guys have more fun sometimes [than the larger crews], because they do more areas of the car – one guy will do a little bit of everything, rather than a big structure where one guy’s doing only – front suspension or something. You actually ended up with better-rounded mechanics.”

Meanwhile, with the turbulent off-season Champcar experienced, many of the larger teams had to make significant cutbacks, which has had an impact on the series.

“…a lot of the larger teams have cut back their headcounts this year – they’re not as large as they used to be. So, I think that equity is closer together now.”

This year, with the addition of two new sponsors and two new and experienced drivers, Dale Coyne Racing has been turning many heads as the most improved team in the Champcar paddock.

After landing full season sponsorship from American Medical Resources (AMR) - the largest ambulance provider in North America, Dale turned his efforts to finding another sponsor that would allow the team to field a car for Catalonian driver Oriol Servia.

“That came together late – it was a sponsor we came up with – YokeTV.com. They had expanded into NASCAR, we saw they were an up and coming company and looking to get some exposure in motorsports, so we presented them with a proposal, and it worked out well and worked forward…”

Asked why YokeTV.com and other companies would use Champcar to market their product, Dale had a very simple response.

“It’s value, it’s exposure, we’ve worked hard to bring the costs of the racing down so that the value for the sponsor fits a little better than it has in the past. In the case of YokeTV, it’s a high-tech sport – the demographics are very very strong. They’re an internet-computer driven company, and that’s the kind of people that follow this racing.”

The success with sponsors has translated into success on the racetrack – as Dale Coyne Racing is poised to have one of their best seasons in years.

“We’re vastly improved this year over where we’ve been in the past. That’s driver-driven as well as team-driven and we want to continue with that…”

“[In Cleveland] we led a couple of laps, were running second quite a bit, ended up 4th in the race and that’s a good finish, and people don’t always expect us to necessarily do that…”

As for the future of the growing squad…

“Now that the series is established and people know the series will be here, we’d like to make some long-term sponsor partnerships so that we can have some good drivers in this team well into the future.”

In a world that has grown increasingly cynical about racing and why people do it, and where ‘all about money’ is the mantra du jour, we applaud Dale Coyne Racing, and the man Dale Coyne who has always had the courage, not only to follow his own dream, but to help so many others – drivers and fans alike – follow their dream too.

CHAMP CAR INTERVIEWS:

Alex Tagliani
Patrick Carpentier
Paul Tracy
Michel Jourdain, Jr.
Sebastien Bourdais
Nelson Phillipe
Justin Wilson
Bourdais at Vancouver
Rodolfo Lavin