I can’t think of a stranger and more emotion-filled end to a race than the IndyCar Series’ first visit to Nashville Speedway and what we encountered with our little Sam Schmidt Motorsports team.
Known today as Arrow McLaren, the team founded by former IndyCar driver Schmidt that was run by the husband and wife duo of Larry and Lee Anne Nash, made its debut in 2001 in the Indy Racing League. We spent the year dealing with the whiplash of highs and lows that marked the 13-race season.
Davey Hamilton was done after five races due to the sickening injuries he suffered to his feet and legs in a massive crash at Texas Motor Speedway, and with our No. 99 SSM Dallara-Oldsmobile completely destroyed in the incident, it was time to build a new car and welcome CART IndyCar veteran Richie Hearn to the team for the next race. He’d take the car to ninth at Pikes Peak International Raceway, delivering our best finish of the season, and while we all thought he would be a perfect fit to stay in the car, we soon learned Hearn was one-and-done.
IRL journeyman Jaques Lazier, the younger brother of 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner and 2000 IRL champion Buddy Lazier, was newly available from Team Xtreme and duly signed by Schmidt to take over from Hearn starting at Richmond International Raceway. It was an ambitious move, but Schmidt’s faith was immediately rewarded.
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At RIR, Lazier produced the team’s first major achievement by earning our first pole position, and while we posed for the P1 photos, there was a feeling that maybe the dark cloud from Texas had lifted. The green flag brought us back to earth as Lazier fell to fourth and before 20 laps had been completed, the No. 99 was sailing backwards into the wall after tripping over a slower driver.
The next race at Kansas Speedway was unremarkable as we finished 18th, but fortunes turned in our favor as we headed to the inaugural race at Nashville. The brand-new facility, with its oddball concrete track surface and distance of 1.33 miles, was an outlier among the other venues on the calendar, and while our starting spot of 14th was unremarkable, there was more speed to show in the race.
It was also the site where Hamilton, confined to a wheelchair, made his return to the track. With his legs and feet in casts, the severity of the impact which tore the front of the tub away from the car, was on display. Davey was his usual charming self, but it was hard to see him in such a frail state in public.
Lazier was on a charge from the start, improving to seventh by the 30th lap of the 200-lap contest. By the halfway point we were running fourth, and from there, as Jaques’ brother continued running away up front in his Hemelgarn Racing Dallara-Oldsmobile and lapping most of the field, we settled into third.
And that’s how the first Nashville Speedway race ended, with Buddy sitting right behind Jaques — opting not to lap his sibling — as the Lazier brothers finished 1-3 and SSM picked up its first podium. The run to third also came with a healthy payout of prize money for Schmidt, but there would be no profit for the team that day. That’s where the bizarre finish to SSM’s best day in IndyCar came into play.
Moments after crossing the finish line, looking down at the laptop, I noticed most of the items on the Pi telemetry data had gone to values of zero. Speed. Engine RPM. Tire pressures. It was like someone turned off the car on the cooldown lap. And that’s exactly what happened.
Amid the loud sounds of engines and cheers at the checkered flag, and our own jumping up and down while celebrating our first podium, we didn’t hear the crash. The first notion that something went awry was with the absence of telemetry data, and then as the first cars started to trickle onto pit lane, the absence of Jaques and the No. 99 became evident.
He’d climbed from the car before we were able to try him on the radio, and moments later, an IndyCar official told us we’d blown a right-rear tire just as Lazier entered Turn 1, which caused him to spin and smack the wall with considerable force. Once the car was brought in dangling from the back of a tow truck, the severity of the impact was obvious: another chassis destroyed.
“There were some brutal times in 2001 but lot of good times too,” Schmidt told RACER as he was preparing to fly to Nashville. “I remember us crossing the checkered flag and everybody’s jumping out of their skin, even for the third place, and then it’s like, ‘Well, s***, where’s the car?’ And even though the prize money was substantially better in those days, it was quickly evaporated.”
Two SSM Indy cars written off in a span of six weeks was a lot for Schmidt to handle on the financial side. The No. 99 raced with empty sidepods at Nashville and sponsorship was relatively light throughout the season. But we’d shown what a good group of racers could do on a modest budget, and even managed to turn the depressing events at Texas with Davey into something with the unheralded Lazier that made people take notice. That, too, also became a problem.
Signed to a race-by-race deal by SSM, Lazier’s pole and podium caught the attention of the series’ biggest team and wealthiest entrant, John Menard. While processing the mixed outcomes at Nashville, we went to Kansas Speedway hoping for a repeat of the positives from Nashville and we did well to claim 12th. Menard’s driver, 1999 IRL champion Greg Ray, was having a terrible season amid frequent crashes and uncompetitive showings. He’d won once at Atlanta, but every other result was outside the top 10.
And that’s where the last significant kick to the crotch arrived as we learned Jaques was leaving, effective immediately, to replace Ray in the No. 2 Dallara-Oldsmobile starting at Gateway, site of the 11th race.
“And then Jaques leaves,” Schmidt said. “We made him look good, right? Probably too good.”
We signed former Penske driver Alex Baron to take over from Lazier. Baron crashed with another driver while leaving the box after a pit stop and was duly traded for the returning Hearn for the next race — the penultimate round — at Chicago, which Lazier won. It stung.
After the attacks of 9/11 pushed the season finale at Texas back to October, we welcomed in our fifth and final driver of the No. 99 for 2001 with Formula Atlantic ace Anthony Lazzaro. We finished 13th — a perfect number for SSM’s first season as an IndyCar team.
“For me, it was extreme highs, extreme lows,” Schmidt added. “And that whole year was a lot of that between the speed we had at the Speedway, and then Davey’s crash at Texas, and then pole for Richmond, and then crashing almost right away there, and then our first podium, and then wrecking the car. If I wasn’t so goddamn stubborn, I would have been a good time to quit!”