Not too many teams would be unhappy at finishing second and fourth in the IndyCar Series standings but, for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, which started the 2007 season with a win at Homestead-Miami Speedway and ended sputtering out of fuel less than a mile from the championship, the goal is to do more in 2008.
The team returns with championship-calibre drivers Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon in its familiar red-and-white cars, both bringing title success and near misses into the campaign. Dixon won the IndyCar championship in 2003, finished fourth in 2006 and was runner-up last year, while Wheldon won the title in 2005, finished second on a tie-breaker in 2006 and was fourth in '07.
"I think, with how it ended up last year, it does make you extremely aggressive for the season just because we came up so short," said Dixon, who won at Watkins Glen, Nashville, Mid-Ohio and Infineon during 2007, "It came right to the wire, and it hurt even more so that it came down to a fuel race.
"I think we definitely feel that, as a team coming runner-up the last two years, we've definitely got some unfinished business. Even with Dario [Franchitti] gone, it's not going to be any easier. With unification, there's going to be a lot more drivers out there, and you've still got a lot of great competitors who maybe didn't have the best of runs last year. We've got to try to keep it together, but there's going to be so many people trying to beat us."
For Wheldon, whose two victories in 2007 came in the first four races, the key is to maximise performance each race weekend.
"It's just a case of everything coming together and the whole #10 side working as one unit and extracting the most out of the weekends," the notorious perfectionist said, "Not always are you going to win but if, for whatever reason, you have a third- or fourth-place car and you can bring it home second without putting it in harm's way, that's pretty good. That's the most important thing.
"The wins are great, but I think where you win a championship is when you're having a difficult weekend, getting the most out of that."
