HOMESTEAD, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 -- Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice recorded the first official road-course lap in an IRL IndyCar

 

POST-TESTING SESSION QUOTES:


DARIO FRANCHITTI (No. 27 Andretti Green Racing Dallara/ Honda/Firestone): "It's fun to be back on a road course. We're just ironing out teething problems right now, and trying to get sort of the fundamentals of the car right. It's obviously quite different than anything we've done with this car before so we're kind of one step at a time, but it's definitely fun to be back on a road course. We're just learning our way."

ALEX BARRON (No. 51 Red Bull Cheever Racing Dallara/Chevrolet/ Firestone): (About turning right and left for the first time): "Road course racing is where I've come from. I enjoy it a great deal. I like the ovals, too. I think it will be good to have a good mix for next year. We'll have road courses, a street course, short ovals, long ovals, superspeedways - that's what makes the series so neat to watch. It changes, and I think it will mix the field up more."

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Marlboro Team Penske Dallara/ Toyota/Firestone): (About car's performance): "I was very surprised. The car doesn't seem to have problems. The weather may have something to do with it not getting as (overheated), but that's out of our control."

SCOTT DIXON (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz G Force/ Toyota/Firestone): "It's good to be out running a road course, but there's still a lot of work to be done. So far, so good. I think there were a lot of people worried about cooling, but there have been no problems with that. We haven't had much time to run because of the weather. There's no use running in the rain because we only have one car in this trim. So hopefully, the weather will improve (Thursday) and we can get some work in then."

 

Great find... But where are the lap times?

 

IRL did not release lap times. This is just a test.

 

HOMESTEAD, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 23, 2004 -- IRL IndyCar

 

POST-TESTING QUOTES:


SAM HORNISH JR. (No. 6 Marlboro Team Penske Dallara/Toyota/ Firestone): (About driving an IndyCar Series car on a road course): "Things are working pretty good right now. I've never driven an open-wheel car of this size on a road course. It's all new to me. These other guys have had experience driving CART cars and what not. It's taken a little time to get used to driving a little heavier car on a road course." (About how IndyCar Series cars will race on road courses): "I think we're going to have competitive races. It's hard to tell with five guys out there, and everyone is running different stuff, so you don't know what to expect (next year.)"

MICHAEL ANDRETTI (Co-owner, Andretti Green Racing): "It's been real good. The cars have responded even better than we had hoped. So far so good." (About racing on road courses in 2005): "It was a must for open-wheel racing, and I think it's the first step in getting us back to where we used to be. We were excited as a team, and I know as a series, I think everybody is excited."

ALEX BARRON (No. 51 Red Bull Cheever Racing Dallara/Chevrolet/ Firestone): "The weather was quite good, so we ran through a lot of things setup-wise. We were working with the guys from Chevrolet quite a bit, and we were happy with the results. We tried some things for Firestone, and after running in the rain quite a bit yesterday, we set some pretty good lap times. It was quite fun. I'm glad to say to we're going to run road courses next year. It will bring a little more variety into the series with the different kinds of ovals we run, and maybe bring in some new fans."

SCOTT DIXON (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz G Force/Toyota/Firestone): "We had a lot of rain on the first day, so we didn't bother to run much, just because of no spares. We made a lot of gains, but I think Dario's (Franchitti) thing there with the Honda-Dallara looks pretty fast, so we've got a lot of work to come. We know in which areas where to go, but it was good to give the team a baseline. They did a pretty terrific job to have no problems right off the bat. We'll just go back and look at all our data and see where we need to improve."

BUDDY RICE (No. 15 Rahal Letterman Racing Pioneer/Argent Mortgage Panoz G Force/Honda/ Firestone): "I think everything is good. Most people were kind of surprised how good the cars were, but they're still race cars. Panoz G Force and Dallara have built cars to do all kinds of stuff, so I think they knew what they had to do, what they had to make in mind, so everything is good. We're happy with the way everything went here at the test. Most all of us have road racing backgrounds, so for us to be able to go and do that, it's always fun to be able to get back there and get after it again."

 

 

IRL Homestead Test Pics

http://www.motorsport.com/photos/select.as...riv/Test&Y=2004