Chip Ganassi Racing team manager Barry Wanser is headed back to Alex Palou’s timing stand to lead race strategy and resume all of his longstanding duties after a successful round of surgeries and chemotherapy sessions during the offseason has eliminated all traces of cancer.
He missed the last two races of the 2023 season when Palou clinched the championship in Portland and carried the celebration into Laguna Seca, but the Ganassi team made sure he was there in spirit with the small likenesses of their friend and colleague attached to pit structures and in victory lane.
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“It was obviously very humbling, but I know I can always count on my team,” Wanser told RACER. “When I got the diagnosis and the biopsy confirming I had cancer in my throat on my tongue, I could have delayed the surgeries, but obviously, getting the cancer out of me was way more important. And I knew the team was in capable hands and they made sure pictures of me were there with the rest of the team to win the championship. It was awesome.
“For them to have the ‘Barry heads’ on a stick was fun to watch from home as I was recovering. I certainly missed being there, but now, six months later, after two surgeries and some radiation treatments, I’m really pushing hard to recover with physical therapy and workouts. I feel great.”
Wanser has been back in the Ganassi shop and helping the newly-expanded five-car team to get ready for its busiest season to date. Going racing after a big cancer scare is his reward for all of the pain and misery he went through with the support of his wife Laurie.
“I feel like I’m 95 percent recovered as far as my body, and I still have some disturbed nerves in my neck, from the surgeries, so that affects chewing and my shoulders and my neck a little bit. But it’s nothing that prevents me putting in a full day’s work or exercising,” he said.
“I didn’t realize how much pain I was in and how bad I felt until I got to the other side, and it makes you appreciative of what it’s like to live without that pain being a regular part of your life. I’m really looking forward to getting back to the racetrack this weekend in St. Pete. Being there with the team is going to be awesome.”