By John Oreovicz
NSSN Correspondent
PORTLAND, Ore. — Sebastien Bourdais’s masterful victory in the Mazda Grand Prix of Portland was the 100th Champ Car victory since 1983 for Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing, making it the most successful team in American open-wheel racing in that period.
Penske Racing has won 94 CART and Indy Racing League races since the start of 1983, but it is the all-time leader with 133 USAC, CART and IRL victories since 1971.
Paul Newman and Carl Haas were opposing team owners when the second iteration of the SCCA Can-Am Series folded at the end of the 1982 season. They never thought about teaming up until Mario Andretti brought them together to create a CART Champ Car team for his full-time return to American open-wheel racing after he spent six years concentrating on Formula One.
Andretti won 18 races for Newman-Haas as well as the team’s first CART series title in 1984.
“That first car was almost hopeless, and it was not supposed to win,” Andretti recalled. “Then it did and the momentum changed for us immediately. We were on a mission forever, and it was so much fun.”
Andretti drove for Newman-Haas until he retired at the end of 1994, and for six seasons his teammate was his son, Michael. The younger Andretti drove two stints for Newman-Haas (1988-92 and 1994-2000) and is the team’s most successful driver, claiming 31 of the 100 race victories and the 1991 CART Series championship.
“The guys at Newman-Haas are very motivated to win, and they have been able to do that for a long period of time,” observed Paul Tracy, who won twice for NHR in his single season with the team (1995). “I think the team has had so much success because Carl maintains the same core group of guys. They have continuity, and they don’t have what I would call ‘burnout syndrome; where guys get tired and don’t want to be there.
“I’m still friendly now with everyone that was on the crew, and it’s 12 years down the road.”
Haas has rarely gambled on young drivers during his 40-year career in motorsports, but he made a sound choice when he signed Bourdais prior to the 2003 season. Bourdais has racked up 26 of NHLR’s 100 wins on the way to his three series titles.
“There are a whole lot of extremely famous names on the list before me, and I’m proud to have contributed my share of wins,” Bourdais said. “When I arrived I didn’t expect to score so many wins or be so successful at Newman-Haas. At the beginning, I didn’t know what to expect, but I got much more than a team out of it — I got a second family.”