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[h=2]Vasser's 1992 Long Beach splash[/h] Thursday, 06 April 2017


By Marshall Pruett / Images by Dan R. Boyd

Twenty-five years ago in Long Beach, IndyCar fans got their first proper introduction to Jimmy Vasser. The Californian open-wheeler, fresh off a breakthrough season in the Toyota Atlantic Championship with Genoa Racing, was drafted into the new Hayhoe/Cole Racing team to drive a year-old Lola powered by an older generation A-spec Chevy engine.
Compared to the powerhouse teams—the Penske, Newman/Haas, and Galles/Kraco organizations, in particular, the tiny, underfunded Hayhoe/Cole outfit should have been buried at the tail end of a packed field. Especially with a rookie left to find his way in cast-off equipment. Although his car and engine were far from special, Vasser would quickly learn the team that surrounded him more than compensated for any vehicular deficiencies.
"When I was racing in the Atlantics for Genoa in '91, we met Jim Hayhoe through Rick Galles who was going to the races as their guest," Vasser (pictured in '92) told RACER. "And Jim just started saying, 'Let's see if we can put an IndyCar team together.' He was very entrepreneurial that way. So he had the help of Jim McGee and at that race in Long Beach. Mike Hull was team manager. Bill Pappas was the engineer. George Klotz was a mechanic. Jeff Grahn was a mechanic.
"My board man was the famous artist and painter Ron Burton. Dennis Weaks was my fueler. We had a legitimate cast of all-stars. It turned out to be all-stars, but at the time, people probably thought we were more like the Bad News Bears. I was fortunate to have my first IndyCar races with that caliber of professional racers."
Against Bobby Rahal, Mario and Michael Andretti, Rick Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi, Al Unser Jr and Danny Sullivan, and other living legends, Vasser was a complete unknown. During his first two races at Surfers Paradise and Phoenix, a pair of 15th-place finishes did little to pique anyone's interest, but with CART's visit to Long Beach – a track he knew rather well from Atlantics – Vasser used Round 3 to make a statement.
Dressed in the Stars & Stripes livery arranged by Hayhoe with the America's Cup program, Vasser pushed the No. 47 Lola-Chevy to 13th on the grid in qualifying. In a field with 24 cars, the midfield run left him within reach of the heroes he openly worshipped.
"I was definitely pleased with that qualifying session," he said. "Those were the times when you were leaving pit lane as a rookie in IndyCar, and the rear wing in front of you is Mario Andretti or Rick Mears. You're just going out for practice and thinking, 'God, that's Rick Mears' rear wing. Jesus, that's Emerson Fittipaldi!'"
Vasser's qualifying performance thrilled his team and also caught the attention of one of his idols.
"I remember clearly, our transporter was pitted across the way, nose to nose with Penske," he said. "And I remember Emerson came over and said really nice things about my qualifying and stuff. Those kinds of things from a superstar to a young driver really get emblazed in your mind."
If things went well for Vasser and the Hayhoe crew in time trials on Saturday, fortune was definitely waiting to smile on the No. 47 team during Sunday's Long Beach Grand Prix.
"I do remember that, racing with Rick Mears towards the end, and trying to get by him," Vasser said with a laugh. "I mean, you don't go into a race at that point in your career thinking Mears...Penske car...let's go around them at a street race. He ended up finishing right in front of me in sixth and I was seventh. You get out of the car and look at the names of the guys ahead of you and it's Mears, Scott Goodyear, Little Al, Emmo, all the biggest stars of the day. For a rookie, it was crazy to come right after those guys."
That seventh-place finish would stand as Vasser's best in 1992, and in two more seasons with the Hayhoe/Cole team, he'd get his first podium in '93 and capture a handful of top fives in 1994. With the little team running low on money and preparing to close, Vasser's mighty efforts with an underdog program came close to going unrewarded.
That was, until, his former team manager Mike Hull – who'd moved to Chip Ganassi's burgeoning IndyCar effort – lobbied his boss to give the California kid a shot in 1995. One year later, the Target Chip Ganassi Racing outfit had its first of many IndyCar titles.
"It was only four years after we worked together at Hayhoe that that we won the championship with Chip," he said. "It seemed like it took a lifetime to go from Long Beach in '92 to getting the championship, but four years, as you get older, goes by so fast. It's a great trip down memory lane to think about how everything took off 25 years ago for us."