Target is withdrawing from IndyCar at season’s end, after 27 years on Chip Ganassi Racing’s Indy cars, although it will continue sponsoring the team’s NASCAR entries.
The partnership has seen a Target-sponsored driver win the Indy car championship 11 times since Michael Andretti scored Ganassi and Target’s first two wins back in 1994.
Since then, Scott Dixon, whose #9 IndyCar currently carries the Target colors, has amassed four titles, Dario Franchitti took three, Alex Zanardi two, and Jimmy Vasser and Juan Pablo Montoya one apiece.
However, Target cut back from sponsoring the #9 and #10 cars in 2014 to just Dixon’s from 2015, as Tony Kanaan’s machine took on the NTT Data brand. But the Kiwi again delivered with a sensational last-gasp title win at Sonoma last year.
It is believed that Dixon’s future at Chip Ganassi Racing is unaffected, and a team spokesperson says it is Chip’s intention to again run four full-time cars next year, as it has since the start of 2011.
