Rebuilding Year? Not ; Team Ganassi says there's no such thing.

Chip Ganassi stands alongside the race hauler in the garage area at Fontana Speedway where teams and media have assembled for CART's ``sneak preview.'' The first scheduled race is still more than a month away. It's cold and windy for Southern California in late January, and a nasty little dust storm has just socked in Route 10. The abrasive winds seem to suit the gritty landscape.

Ganassi jams fists into his coat pockets and squints into the wind, describing his goals for the new season. As he speaks, looming over his right shoulder, up on the side of the transporter bigger than life, is the Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team crest, the one that says ``CART Champions: 1996-1997-1998-1999.'' And expectations are high again this year, exactly where Ganassi has always placed them. But this is a new year and there have been changes at Ganassi Racing. In fact, since their last championship, nearly everything has changed: drivers, chassis, engines, leadership. Everything except the expectations.

``The very first test we did, we took them to Nazareth. Some people would call that cruel,'' he says with the patented Ganassi smirk, all teeth and sunglasses, the cheerful yet malevolent grin that can seem cocky. ``But they took to it like fish to water,'' Ganassi says. He is speaking of his two new drivers, Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian. Both are CART rookies, and neither had laid eyes on an oval track before Ganassi strapped them into his 800-hp torpedoes and tossed them into the concrete fishbowl at Nazareth. ``Listen,'' he says. ``I think these guys are going to win races this year. If I didn't think they could do it, I wouldn't have hired them. We can't afford a rebuilding year. That's not what we do here.''

Junqueira is a 24-year-old Brazilian, while Minassian, 28, comes from Marseilles, France. Formula 3 and F3000 dominate both their resumes. Of the two, Junqueira might be better known in the States for his Williams Formula One testing exploits and for his F3000 championship last year. Actually, Junqueira won the title by only three points

over Minassian. To Ganassi, his two new drivers are the top prospects in the world, oval experience or not. ``I wouldn't say there's no oval track mystique anymore. I would say that every year there's a little less,'' Ganassi says.

Junqueira seems not at all cowed by the transition to CART. ``Champ cars have more power, a little more downforce and more grip. But the biggest difference is the power. These cars are very fast on the straights,'' Junqueira says while barely suppressing a giggle. ``For sure the biggest challenge is the ovals. It's very different from what I've always learned to do. The ovals are so fast.'' Another giggle: Clearly, he likes the speed.

``It's a different car,'' Minassian says. ``It's bigger, has more power and more downforce. In F3000 you just come