Interview with the three Andretti Green Racing principals.
By Bob Jenkins, Wednesday, April 4th 2007
IndianapolisMotorSpeedway.com

BOB JENKINS: The three principals of Andretti Green Racing are with us. The person to my immediate right needs no introduction. He is, of course, Michael Andretti, who will once again return to the Indianapolis 500 this year. Next to him, Kevin Savoree, one of the owners of Andretti Green Racing, and Kim Green is down on the end.

Now, on the agenda that perhaps you were given, it was indicated that Marco would be here. But Michael, I guess he's not feeling well?

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: He's a little under the weather. He was a little sick over the weekend, and it just caught up to him Monday and Tuesday, and he's been really sick.

JENKINS: Michael, was it an easy decision for you to decide that you would return once again to the "500?"

ANDRETTI: Personally, yeah. I think after everything that happened last year, number one, I had a lot of fun doing it. I think, you know, the question was going to be, "How does the five cars affect the team?" I think it affected it in a positive way. And so, you know, from my standpoint, it was easy because I felt like I still had what it took to win the race. And I came very close. So that was fine.

But I think the next one was, all right, if I want to it, can we put together a potential winning car again? So that was the thing that took some time and big effort with these guys to try to put it together.

And I think we're coming up with even a better team than we had last year, and I think we're going to be even more competitive than we were last year.

So that was nice to have it all come together that way so we can now announce this.

JENKINS: Kim, let's skip down to you. Let me ask you about having a five-car team in the "500." How challenging is that going to be for you?

KIM GREEN: Well, I think certainly, every time we've expanded our program to two to three cars, three for four cars, and then running five cars at Indy, it's definitely a challenge.

We're certainly very lucky to have a lot of very, very good key people that make it easier. We've been able to add the staff members that actually make the day-to-day operation at the racetrack fairly seamless.

We have established an additional race team outside of IndyCar this year in the American Le Mans series program, and a lot of those guys are very experienced on IndyCar and will be a big part of Michael's pit crew on Race Day.

Another retiree coming out of retirement again is my brother Barry. And Barry will run Michael's pit, as he did last year. So I think we've assembled a good crew.

And I think we've learned an awful lot from last year about how to operate during the month of May. Obviously, with five drivers and a lot of engineers and a lot of information, it's how well you use that information. I think we learned a lot, and I believe we'll be stronger come this May.

JENKINS: Kevin, we all know how important it is to have sponsorship for the five cars. Tell us about the sponsorship package on Michael's car.

SAVOREE: That's for sure, Bob. This sport, it requires a lot of investment by some great partners. And I think you can probably figure out from Michael's shirt that two great companies, Jim Beam and Motorola, have really stepped up to help make this program happen. And without their support, it may have been hard to get Michael's entry to the level that we really needed to get it to.

And obviously, this entry also helps to support the other four cars in some of the development programs that we've done. And that's something that Michael really committed himself to, if he decided to run the fifth car again, that we really wanted to work hard over the winter for development. And we made a big investment in that, really stepped up the development program over the winter. So without Jim Beam and Motorola, that may not have been possible.

Also, you're going to notice floridabeaches.com has stepped up again this year. And they also helped out at our St. Petersburg race events. So a big thank you to them. And then a great Indianapolis company in Bryant. So a great team of sponsors.

And really, I'm just so happy for Michael. For those of you that don't know, this place means so much to him and to his family. So I'm just happy to see him get another go at it.

JENKINS: And it wouldn't be the same without an Andretti, or several Andrettis around. Let's move over to the car. We'll unveil it. We'll give you guys a photo op.

Now, remember. When we're finished with the question-and-answer session, these guys will be available for one-on-ones. And we'll also, of course, allow photo ops after that.

But for right now, let's unveil the car that Michael will be driving.

ANDRETTI: Pretty cool looking, isn't it?

JENKINS: Yeah.

ANDRETTI: I like it.

JENKINS: Let's just open it up for questions from you people right now, rather than me trying to get things going, because I know there are going to be a lot of questions for all three of our participants.

Q: Michael, you, and all of you, really, have talked about the great chemistry with your team since you formed it, and how it has gone.

You have a new driver, Danica (Patrick), coming in, in place of Dan Wheldon. And Dan was kind of the guy that all of them picked on.

Has the chemistry among your drivers changed somewhat? I mean, same thing, different people? Or has it changed in some respect?

ANDRETTI: Well, I think it's changed a little bit, and I think it's all because it's still all new.

But I think Danica has been accepted, for sure. I know they all stay in contact with each other. I know I see Marco all the time getting texts from her, and him to her. So I know that they still talk outside of the race weekend, so I think that's a good thing.

Obviously, I think Danica comes in as an outsider coming in and trying to be the new guy, and it's maybe a little harder for her. But I think she's doing a good job of getting accepted here.

Q: Has Kanaan gotten (inaudible)

ANDRETTI: TK? You know what? Yeah, they've really calmed down. I think it's pretty obvious now why you see that they've calmed down a lot on the practical jokes. And you see we're missing one guy. (Laughter)

I think we all know who was the guy in background, who was the mastermind. And unfortunately, he's gone to another series. (Laughter)

Q: Michael, as a driver, obviously, you've celebrated wins. How is it different as a team owner now? You had huge success. You had a lot of wins. Do you get the same thrill and excitement and sense of accomplishment as owner, or co-owner, as you did a driver?

ANDRETTI: I get a lot of, yeah, satisfaction out of it. Is it the same? Not exactly. But it still makes you feel really good to be a part of it.

You known, when we won Indianapolis with Dan, it felt like I won it as a driver. It was just such a great day for us.

And, you know, this team is so special. It's like a big family. And you know how it is when a family member does well. It just feels like it was you. And like when Marco won his first race, for instance, it was a huge day for me. It couldn't have been any different than if I had won that one.

So like I said, it's a little different, but it's still very, very special when you win as an owner.

Q: Michael, you've got one son in the group, but coming back, do you feel like you're almost a father figure of all four of them?

ANDRETTI: I don't know. I guess in some ways, because when you sit there and stuff, sometimes you think they're second graders, and you're talking to second graders.

But overall, I think in a way they do look up to me. They know that I pretty much have been around and that I've seen it all. So they know that it's really difficult for them to get anything over on me. So there's none of that stuff going on. So I guess you do earn the respect in that way.

But in the end, no. I've got to say the relationship I have with them is just very special. They're friends. They're not employees to me.

And we all, really, in the end try to help each other. I'll be out there this month, and I'll guarantee you one of them is going to do something to help me. And, you know, I've been around a long time, and it shows that there are still things for me to learn, and I'll be learning from them.

Q: Michael, how can you relate your experience with your son as to your father when you were starting out racing?

ANDRETTI: Different. I guess I get a lot of the same feelings I know that Dad had to have gotten. But because I was on the other side of it, I try to control those feelings a little differently and work them a little differently than what Dad did with myself, because I know if I do certain things, it's going to affect Marco in a certain way, only because I know when Dad did it, he didn't know. So there's that experience that's positive. So I think in that way, it's a little different, because I've been on both sides of it.

But I think deep down inside, all the emotions that I'm feeling I'm sure are very close to what Dad has felt.

Q: Michael, listening to the team communication in the last 10 laps of the race last year, you were running the gamut of emotion.

How does that compare, being in the car, last 10 laps, versus being on the pit wall watching your team do the same thing?

ANDRETTI: Yeah, I'll tell you, that was unbelievable. It doesn't compare. You know, I think from going 10 laps to go running, looking up at the beacon and seeing that we're running 1-2-3-4. And then yellow comes out, and the next thing you know we're in the lead, and we're running 1-2. And then there's a restart, and then all of a sudden, I'm getting passed for the lead by my son. And then all of a sudden, I get passed by Hornish. Then all of a sudden, I see Hornish and Marco going at it, and Marco does a beautiful move in (Turn) 3 and thinks he won the race. And then one lap later, I get a big letdown. So it was an unbelievable amount of motions, those last 10 laps.

And I can tell you that being where I was, you could not have -- these guys can't even have the same feeling, what I had being in the car and being a part of it. But it was funny because I was definitely a spectator there the last three or four laps when Marco passed me, because I don't even remember anybody behind me. So I didn't even look in the mirrors the last three laps. And I think I even chopped Tony and cost him a position because I was just so focused on what was going on up in front and cheering Marco on in the cockpit.

So it was an unbelievable experience.

Q: Michael, what effect did the outcome last year, if any, have on you deciding to come back and race again this year?

ANDRETTI: It had a lot to do. You know, had I finished 10^th or something and not felt like I was competitive, I'm sure I would have looked at it differently. But coming as close as we did.

And I think I had a pretty competitive race. Unfortunately, the experience of what we had in the pits, our pit stops were not very good. So I'd pass like three or four cars on the track, and then I'd lose them. So it was one of those type of races.

But then in the end, to be able to actually go for a win, you know, that definitely had a lot to do with me sitting here right now.

Q: If Marco had won, would you come back?

ANDRETTI: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Q: Kim, you were talking to Mike Horvath and what it's like to try and manage two personalities. Now you have four on a regular basis and five in the month of May.

How do you balance that around? Because each driver obviously has a different way they want a car set up, but you all try to get the end result, being that you want to cross the start/finish line first. How do you manage five teams, five personalities, five cars?

GREEN: Well, I think we have a very good engineering group, first of all, led by Tino Belli and Peter Gibbons, that help sort of tie the engineering sides together.

I think Michael has been a huge part of the success of really handling the emotions and the personalities with the drivers. He's the guy with the experience as a driver. And when there's been a situation on the racetrack, and there's been many because all four of our drivers and all five of our drivers, in this instance, end up racing each other at some point in the "500," and rest of the season it's four drivers racing each other. So Michael gets very, very involved in any of those situations.

Myself, I've been in the business for a long, long time and worked with a lot of race car drivers over those years. And in my own situation, managed to learn a little bit about how to handle personalities. I think I tend to be a bit of a quieting person over the radio in race communications with the driver I work with and really try to understand what they're going through out on the racetrack.

Their heart rate on the track and their adrenalin when they get out of the race car is so much higher than any of us sitting in the pits -- even though we feel pretty excited -- it's being able to help them through those situations.

Having the experience of a Bryan Herta the last few years, Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan, those three drivers have been able to help really jell the whole team. I would say that Bryan Herta was probably the first key to doing that. Those three drivers really helped Marco last year. And certainly Tony, Dario and Michael have been very helpful with Danica so far this year.

Marco is still very, very young. He's matured so much in 12 months. He really did in my opinion, he learned in one year what would take three years for a normal young driver of his age. So the help he's getting from his teammates is unbelievable, and I think we're going to see him continue to develop.

Danica is in a whole new situation where this is completely different for her, the amount of intensity in our engineering group. She's still getting to know her group that she's working with and getting to know our drivers. But I think we're going to see solid improvements in our results in that area, too. So it's really all about teamwork.

Q: Kevin, you're kind of the behind-the-scenes partner in this venture. Kind of explain your role and how you and Michael got together to begin with.

SAVOREE: I'm sure Mike asks himself that every day. (Laughter)

Well, back in I guess 2002 we had kind of an end-of-year reflection meeting with Barry (Green), and Mike was driving the Team Motorola car for Barry at the time, and Kim and I were really running Team Green for Barry, and Barry really talked to Michael about what his long-term goals were. And Mike said he really wanted to own a team some day. Barry, in pretty his pretty typical Australian straightforward way said, "Buy mine." I think Michael, first of all, was like, well, When? And Barry, being kind of the decisive guy, said, "Now would be good." (Laughter). We started moving forward with buy/sell agreements. And Mike got with Kim and I and said, "I like the way you guys run the team, and why don't we do this together, we'll have a lot of fun." So really over the course of a little bit of time, we got the buy/sell agreements done, and we actually signed those the Friday night of the Long Beach race in 2002. And the next morning Mike went out and practiced and managed to smash up a car pretty good. And Kim comes on the radio and says, "Are you OK?" And Mike says, "Oh, that really hurt." And Kim is like, "Are you OK?" And Mike is like, "No, that really hurt." And what he was talking about is it hurt his pocketbook.

ANDRETTI: The first question I asked was, "How much does that cost?" I was never concerned before.

SAVOREE: So we've had our fair share of experiences now as owners with those kind of things. Really, that's how it started. Again I think amongst the three of us we all really have our roles. I think business-guy bean counters need to be way behind, and I'm quite happy with that. There's no greater name in motor racing than Michael Andretti and no better technical guy than Kim Green. So I'm just a lucky guy to have two great partners like Mike and Kim, and I've really enjoyed it. So that's the answer.

Q: Michael, given the way last year's race ended with you coming so close and Marco coming even closer, how long that did it take for you guys to get over that or is that something you never really get over?

ANDRETTI: Yeah, we're not over it yet. I still think about it. It still ticks me off. I know it does the same thing with Marco. It's just one of those things that just -- it was a big letdown. As exciting and everything as it was, there's still that pit in your stomach when you think about it. I'm not sure that will ever go away unless one of us wins maybe this month of May.

Q: Michael, recently there's been a lot of the topic of team orders with close racing in NASCAR, and the topic has come up several times in F1. You guys are going to have five cars on the racetrack, and obviously there's going to be a couple of cars that are ahead in the points over other cars. What's your opinion about team orders and who's going to win, and you're part owner and they're employees, and what do you think of all that?

ANDRETTI: Really, the only order is that if I'm running second to any of them, they've got to get out of my way. Other than that, there's no other order. (Laughter) Like you really think they're going to listen, right? (Laughter)

There are no orders. I think the only order we have is that we have to take care of each other. There may be times we'll call upon one or another and move over a little bit because one is on a different race (inaudible) so it doesn't mess them up or something like that. But it will never be if you're going down to the end of the race for a position, I don't see that happening. And there's a couple times where some of our guys work together to try to help each other and things like that, which is what a teammate will do. But there are no orders to actually move over.

Q: So when Marco went by, you didn't go, "That damn kid passed me."

ANDRETTI: Yeah, for sure I said that. (Laughter)

Q: Kim, how were you able to successfully talk Barry into coming back here and helping the last couple of years. Because I know a couple of years ago you all left here a little bit upset with the way the race came down. How difficult was it to convince Barry to come back and help out during the month of May?

GREEN: I might bring up another thing. Even last year's race result, to be honest, it was a judgment IRL called during the race that probably wouldn't have had Sam -- that gave Sam a break. Sam should not have been in the end of the race apart from an accident during a yellow on a wave-around. So we're all up to judgment calls or officiating. The officiating can be very often a judgment call. I have a lot confidence in the officials in the IRL, so I'm not questioning what they do.

Barry, he's a racer, he's passionate about racing. He doesn't like going to the races as a spectator, and you won't see him at a race as a spectator. He watches our races when we're away on television.

And I think he and Michael probably jointly helped each other's career launch in Indy-car racing in 1986 when they started working together at Kraco. He was a part of Michael's first race win. They really should have won a couple of championships together, but they didn't. So I think Barry has always had an awful lot of respect for Michael. When we asked him to consider coming back and running Michael's pit, it was just absolutely. And same coming back again this year.

Q: I got a little bit of a follow-up to that, too. In '95 you had a bit of a judgment call by a different sanctioning body go against, and you were able to overcome that and go to Victory Lane. So when you kind of think about it here, do you get a little bit concerned with some of these judgment calls?

GREEN: Well, but also yellow flags. I mean, in 2002 it was sort of a yellow-flag situation. In 1994, a late-race yellow flag cost Jacques the '94 race when the big horsepower Penske cars would have had to make one more pit stop if it had stayed green, and we would have won that one. So yellow flags, I think the statistic is, and Brian Barnhart quotes them at the drivers' meeting, 30 percent of the time the guy leading the Lap 190 doesn't win the race. So it's never over until it's over, at this place especially. And all we can do is just keep trying.

I think it's gotten harder these days, because when I first started in the business here, it was all about just finishing this race. But now reliability issues are much less of a problem. Everybody has a reliable engine usually and a reliable race car because of modern engineering. So it's not about finishing this race anymore, you have to put yourself in a position at the end inside the last 10 laps to have a shot at it. And it's two-and-a-half miles around this place; it's a long way from one lap, let alone 200 laps.

Q: Michael, I'd like to get your comments on the additions of more road courses this year to the series, especially returns to Detroit and Mid-Ohio, especially given the drivers that you have. Ganassi said he thinks it will make the big difference in the championship this year.

ANDRETTI: Hopefully it will be for us, where it will be a positive for us. Unfortunately, Ganassi has won the last three.

But yeah, I think it's great for the series. I think it's what we need to be doing. I think it's one thing that differentiates us from some of the other series is to be able to go and do that at different places, just the way we were able to do in the early years of -- well, the mid '90s in CART I think was so very good, the schedule we had, and I'm so happy that we're going back toward that way.

I think one of the things that I think is very different for us that a lot of people can't do is by bringing the show downtown, like we did at St. Petersburg, for instance, and what we're going to do in Detroit. We need to be doing that more. We need to be doing it in other cities and other good markets. And hopefully that's what's going to happen in the next few years here.

But I think it's all positive. I'm very happy with the way things are going. I think there's a lot of positive things for us to be looking at, and hopefully we start looking at them and not all the negatives that people like to look at.

Q: One of the things I think that continues to stagger me about you guys is that in the history of this place, and even the series, three-car teams tend to do the maximum that they can do; Blue Crown, Vel's-Parnelli when your dad was driving in the early '70s.

Three-car efforts, even with Roger (Penske) and (Pat) Patrick when they were running, seemed to be the max that great successful teams could do. And then Andy Evans is here in the mid-'90s and clearly can't put a multiple-car program together, and yet you guys can consistently run four or five cars and continue to do well with all of them. What do you, Kim, and all of you guys, what do you attribute that success to?

ANDRETTI: Well, I think it has a lot to do with these guys. But I think also it has a lot to do with the foundation that we started with. I think if you look at the history of this team, say starting back when I joined the team in 2001, it went from a two-car team to a three-car team, so they had to adapt to that, which they did.

Then we took on an Indianapolis program, as well. So then we had three cars that were added plus an Indianapolis program and were successful at it. Then we built on that in 2002. Then we went from a three-car team and then also three cars at Indianapolis, plus we changed from a Reynard to a Lola, so we started throwing so much at this team. So I think everybody, the base of what we had there, we're starting to learn how to deal with these sort of things, these multiple tasks and these multiple teams that we had in cars and everything. I think that's where it all started. And I think a lot of it had to do with just that we had a good, basic foundation of people. Good people attracts good people, and I think that's what we've been able to do. We've only been able to compliment the team throughout the years with more good people. And I think we developed, through the years, systems to do all this. We made a lot of mistakes, and then you learn by those mistakes. A lot of it has to do with Kim. That's a lot of his area. And, you know, he's been able to do that. I think it's been really impressive.

I think this team is very unique in that way. And you can ask any other team when they try to do it, as you said, it's very difficult. And we've been able to do that here.

And I think it also has a lot to do with the thing that we always talk about is the chemistry. We've been able to -- maybe by luck and maybe some of it by knowing what we're doing, that we've been able to put the right people in the right positions that everybody has been able to work together. When you get multiples, it makes it that much harder. But we've really been fortunate to have good people that understand the concept of what we're trying to do here, teamwork, and it's been able to work. But that is the challenge to continue to keep that, and that's what we try to do day in and day out.

Q: Kim, do you keep your cardiologist on speed dial?

GREEN: Every day is a challenge in this business. What I love about it, every day is different. And you walk in every morning, you might have a thousand problems to solve, but when you break it down into little things, it's just simple solutions.

We have a group of people, you know, a general manager, Kyle Moyer, that was basically bought up by the Bettenhausens out in Monrovia who just lives the business, and so many people like that that work for us that can really help all of us do our jobs. And really trying to hire people that don't have egos. Trying to hire people that it's all about teamwork.

At St. Petersburg, for example, when Tony crashed in qualifying, we have four distinct team uniforms of guys that work on the various programs. Well, in Tony's car getting repaired, it was all colors. So there were guys from each of the other teams over there helping out. That's what we try to instill in everybody; it's all about teamwork. We're very lucky to be blessed with a lot of great people.

JENKINS: Time for one more question.

Q: Kevin, as a self-named bean counter as you are, what was it about this business that got you interested in becoming part of it?

SAVOREE: Well, I grew up around here so Indy-car racing and the Indy 500 have always been pretty special for me. So I think when you grow up in the Midwest or close to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it's pretty hard not to be an IndyCar fan.