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Indianapolis 500 Chase Rookies Chat
Indianapolis 500 Chase Rookies of the Year Jerry Sneva, Josele Garza and Steve Knapp met the media this morning in the Economaki Press Conference Room.
Sneva was Chase Rookie of the Year in 1977 after finishing 10th, Garza in 1981 after starting sixth and finishing 23rd and Knapp in 1998 after finishing third.
Sneva is retired and helps his son T.J. race Legends, Thunder Cars and Late Models at O'Reilly Raceway Park in nearby Clermont, Ind. He was in the tire business after racing.
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Knapp currently works for his company, Elite Engines, which builds road-racing engines.
JERRY SNEVA: "We had seven rookies in 1977. The Rookie of the Year was something I didn't expect because Danny Ongais and Janet Guthrie were in the race. We finished 10th. It's something that my brother (1983 Indy 500 winner) Tom Sneva didn't win, so I went one-up on him for the only time." (About racing at Indy in that era): "We didn't have engineers like they do now. You told the crew chief what the car was doing, and he would make some changes. It was easier to go slower, but going faster was real difficult. The real jump was getting the car to go from 184 mph to 186." (Memorable incident): "Mike Mosley was my crew chief, and he told me to go flat out one day. I wanted him to change the tires, but he sent me out. I went through Turn 1 and Turn 2 and down the backstretch and thought that I'd better do what he told me. So I went into Turn 3 flat out, and spun into the infield grass and then back across the track. I got back to the pits, and he asked me, 'What did you do?' I told him, 'I did what you told me to do - I went flat out.' He (Mosley) changed the tires then."
JOSELE GARZA: "The Rookie of the Year award was something very meaningful for me. It was a great feather in my cap back then, and it opened up a lot of opportunities, even in Formula One. I went to Monaco that year and was even offered a Formula 3 ride because of it. Even today in some areas, it's still meaningful." (About his life since racing): "I've gotten away from racing in the last several years, but before I retired from racing, I had Formula 2 and Formula 3 teams in Mexico. But then NASCAR Mexico had taken over, and I retired. I still go to the tracks once in a while. This is my second time back here (since his last race in 1987). I was here for only a couple qualifying days in 1996, I think." (About his age when he was a rookie): "I think there was a mistake made on my age when I came here (in 1981). They had me listed as 21 or 22, and I was only 19. I'm not sure who made the mistake, but just in case, I still have my old ID." (About the changes in racing since his driving career): "I think the biggest change in racing here is in the technology. With the telemetry, you can't lie to the engineers anymore. You tell them you're flat-out all the way around, and they tell you, 'No, you aren't.'"
STEVE KNAPP: (About winning the Chase Rookie of the Year Award): "To me, it was a goal that I had. The team that I ran with was ISM, and they had Jeff Ward, who had won the Rookie of the Year the year before, so I was hoping that we could do the same thing and, you know, we had a pretty big rookie class that year. It was nine or 11 rookies or something, and Robby Unser was a strong runner the whole month. You didn't learn that you were Rookie of the Year until at the banquet that night, and once you get that, it's something that nobody can take away from you. Coming back here now, coming and seeing the cars on the track, it's something special, and you'll always have that with you." (About practice during May 1998): "I went out there and ran with about as many people as I could find, and come to think of it, my owner called me in a few times and I stayed out to keep learning some more, and he got kind of mad at me. But I knew what to expect." (About the 1998 race): "The thing that kind of caught me up was I had heard all these stories about how at the start you get sucked into the vacuum and it's hard to breathe because of the fumes and everything, so I was prepared for that, and my whole goal was to kind of fall into line. When we got the green flag and came out of Turn 2, it was like, 'Oh, the race has started,' because everybody was rocketing away from me. A couple of guys passed me, and I was like, 'This is not an endurance race; this is a 500-mile race.' I came through US Ford 2000 series, and we ran IRP and New Hampshire and a couple of other ovals. We had a practice day the Thursday before, and we would pretty much run all day long, so I got a lot of oval experience just in one season of racing there, and that helped a lot."
PaddockTalk Perspective
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