A very happy birthday to IndyCar star Jimmy Vasser. In today's Great Read, the Champ Car title winner opens up on tricky team-mates, winning the Indy 500 as a team owner and Stefan Johansson's super-strong coffee
Jimmy Vasser has been making headlines in American motor racing for more than 30 years and today he remains in the winner's circle with his Lexus GT3 team in the IMSA sports car series.
As a teenager he won America's Formula Ford championship, graduating to Indy Lights in 1988 and CART/Champ Cars in 1992 before getting his big break with Chip Ganassi in 1995 and winning the championship in '96. Along the way he flirted with Formula 3000 in Europe, was thwarted in his dream of Formula 1, and returned to the States to build a career in CART and IndyCar that lasted until 2008.
As a team co-owner with Kevin Kalkhoven he won the Indy 500 when Tony Kanaan claimed victory in 2013 by less than a second for KV Racing. Today his Vasser Sullivan IMSA team is flying high – GTD Pro champions with British drivers Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat – and there are plans afoot to go IndyCar racing too...
