FANTASY NASCAR Racin

EARNHARDT GANASSI RACING - Originally this team started out as Team SABCO. It was formed in 1989 by Felix Sabates, a Cuban immigrant who was a self-made millionaire in products such as Teddy Ruxpin. It is owned by businessmen Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates. Since 2001, the team has also fielded teams in the NASCAR Cup Series after Ganassi bought a majority stake in Sabates' Team SABCO Racing, and the team changed names to Chip Ganassi Racing. (See 'Felix Sabates' for info when Sabates owned the team, and before Ganassi acquired majority ownership). On November 12, 2008 Chip Ganassi along with Teresa Earnhardt, widow of Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time NASCAR champion and namesake of their own NASCAR

team, announced that the two teams would merge in time for the 2009 season and run under the name of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. The team fielded Chevrolets in all series for three drivers – the #1 Bass Pro Shops car driven by Jamie McMurray and the #8 car of Aric Almirola from the DEI stable and the #42 car Juan Pablo Montoya from Target Ganassi's stable. In 2009 the season kicked off with two full time race teams. The drivers were Martin Truex, and Juan Pablo Montoya. Truex would only post one top five finish this season, and at the end of the year would leave to drive for Michael Waltrip racing. Truex was

replaced by Jamie McMurray, who was let go after Roush Fenway Racing downsized to four cars and who had previously driven for the Ganassi organization from 2002 until 2005, winning his first Cup race with the team as a substitute driver in 2002. The McMurray/Montoya duo raced for Earnhardt Ganassi through the 2013 season. McMurray won the 2010 Daytona 500 for EGR in his first race in the #1 car. McMurray returned to the winner's circle by winning the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, the first time that he had won multiple races in a season since joining the Cup Series full-time in 2003. Two races later Montoya would win for Earnhardt Ganassi at Watkins Glen, and McMurray got his third win of the season with a victory at the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte during the Chase,

the second time he has won that race (the first was his first career victory in the then-UAW GM Quality 500 in 2002). McMurray and the Ganassi team struggled in 2011 and 2012, and later switched to Hendrick engines looking to improve performance. After more struggles in the first half of 2013, McMurray finally broke back into victory lane at the fall Talladega race, his first victory in three seasons. Teresa Earnhardt had little influence in day-to-day operations of EGR since the merger. In 2014, the team resumed use of the Chip Ganassi Racing name. (See Chip Ganassi below).