"I didn't want to be involved in any of that" - When Chip Ganassi reflected on merger with Teresa Earnhardt's DEI amid her family tensions

Last year, Chip Ganassi discussed the 2009 merger between his racing team, Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR), and Teresa Earnhardt’s Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI). He explained how the merge came about and how he ended up in the middle of a family feud.

DEI faced financial issues when drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip, along with sponsors like Anheuser-Busch and the U.S. Army, left the team in the 2000s. It later merged with CGR to become Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and DEI's base in Mooresville was shut down.

In a conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his Dirty Mo Media podcast in 2023, Ganassi revealed that Max Siegel, who was the President of Global Operations at DEI, reached out to him. Siegel suggested taking over the car for DEI with sponsorship deals.

Ganassi also admitted that he did not want to get involved in the family drama with Teresa Earnhardt refusing more control over the company to Dale Jr. and sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller.

"There were all these questions and everything all the time. I was going like, 'Well, what about this, and what about that?' You know, like, I just didn’t want to be involved in any of that. I just wanted to go racing. You know what I mean? And, you know, that was pretty much it...that was one of those periods where, hey, I was either gonna have to lay off, you know, 150 guys or something," Ganassi said (01:50).

Trackhouse Racing bought Chip Ganassi Racing's NASCAR operations in 2021.

"I've talked to you guys more in the last 15 minutes" - Chip Ganassi on interaction with Teresa Earnhardt

Driver Álex Palou and Chip Ganassi (R) after winning the series championship - Source: Imagn

In the same episode, Ganassi also revealed that he had very little direct interaction with Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s mother Teresa Earnhardt, during the merger.

“I'll tell you, I've talked to you guys more in the last 15 minutes than I've talked to her the entire time...I mean, I had lunch with her a couple of times, and that's about it...Max was enough. I had, you know, 10 conversations with him, and that was about it,” Ganassi said (02:28).

He added that Max Siegel was the one he worked with and that his limited communication with the former NASCAR team owner did not affect the merger's success. Ganassi also opened up about the rebranding of the team and stated:

"I wasn’t so hung up on having my name. Didn’t care. No, I didn’t care. I just wanted to make sure I was there. I knew I was running it, so it didn’t matter to me. You know, it was my team," (03:15).

Now turned into a museum in Mooresville, North Carolina, the DEI honors the accomplishments of Dale Earnhardt Sr.