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T.E. McHale: Good afternoon to everybody. Welcome to the CART media teleconference. Thanks to all of you for making the time to join us today. Our guest this afternoon is driver Scott Dixon of the PacWest Racing Group who became the youngest race winner in CART FedEx Championship Series with his victory in Sunday's Lehigh Valley Grand Prix presented by Toyota at Nazareth Speedway. Good afternoon, Scott, thanks for being with us today.
T.E. McHale: Scott, the driver of the No. 18 Powerware Panasonic PacWest Toyota Reynard etched his name in the CART record book. Winning his victory at age 20 years, 9 months and 14 days, made him the youngest driver to ever win a CART Champ car event. Greg Moore, who was 22 years, 1 month and 10 days old when he won at Milwaukee in 1997 had been CART's previous youngest winner. Scott also became the first CART rookie to win his first FedEx Championship Series start on an oval. His victory from the 23rd starting position represented the second deepest point on the starting grid from which anyone has driven to victory, exceeded only by Mike Mosley, who drove from 25th to 1st at Milwaukee in 1981. Scott, the 2000 Dayton Indy Lights champion scored the 43rd FedEx Championship Series victory for an Indy Lights graduate since Paul Tracy claimed the first at Long Beach in 1993. Indy Lights products have won all three events contested thus far this season, with Christiano da Matta winning at Monterrey, Mexico, and Helio Castroneves at Long Beach, California, prior to Scott's win on Sunday. Heading into round four of the FedEx Championship Series, the May 19th Firestone Firehawk 500 at Twin Ring, Motegi, Japan, Scott stands 7th in the Championship Series championship with 20 points. Firestone Firehawk 500, round four of the FedEx Championship Series will air live on ESPN on Saturday night, May 19th, beginning at midnight eastern time. With that, we will begin taking questions for Scott. Question: Could you reasonably have anticipated winning this quickly? At the start of the year, what was a reasonable expectation on your part?
Question: I'm just wondering what you know about Greg Moore? Had you heard of him before you got to Indy Lights?
Question: You are the second youngest Indy Lights winner after Greg. You won a race a lot faster than he did. I guess, what does that mean to you?
Question: Can you tell me what you thought about the track in Vancouver the first time you saw it?
Question: What you thought of the Vancouver track. You won in your first race there.
Question: The PacWest team has been without a win for quite some time now. How much did this win mean to them and to you?
It's really just going to help the team a lot emotionally. Everybody at the shop here the last few days, everybody is just so happy, working a lot harder. I think it's going to help a lot. Question: Do you feel this win will help maybe the team secure a primary sponsor for your car, maybe even from your homeland of New Zealand, or maybe Australia?
Question: Have things come as easily as you thought they would this season in Champ cars? I know it's been difficult, but have things come a little bit easier? Your third race, you have a win.
Nazareth was basically one of the places that definitely showed that we lost a lot of time on Friday, didn't really get it set up for qualifying. The race care was excellent. It's hard to say, you know, but it's definitely a shock. The car was so good in the race. For me, the race was not so difficult. Like it was probably easier than I would have imagined never having been in that situation. Question: Did you guys do anything different during the race that changed the car that made it drive on rails during the run?
After the qualifying, we basically just didn't change a thing, maybe a few minor things for the race. But the car that we qualified was (inaudible). Question: Indy Lights, the last rung of the ladder before CART, can you tell us what that discipline was able to translate to realities in CART and talk about how the ladder system has helped you?
It puts you in the spotlight for Champ cars, which enables a lot of the guys to move up. Without the ladder system, it would be definitely pretty hard to break your way in. Question: Were you able to translate some of the learning discipline to CART or is quite a bit different?
Last year with the Indy Lights, being able to run full down force on the shorter circuits, nearly being flat all the way around, it's been pretty difficult to change for the shorter ovals. Question: Going into Motegi, obviously you've not been there. Are you looking at videos? What kind of preparation are you doing for that?
It's going to be interesting. We'll probably look at making Motegi a little different way than how Nazareth went. Question: I know at Texas, we were watching you during the rookie practice session that you had out there. You certainly were turning in some real good laps there. I won't say you were putting it to the other rookies, but you certainly were holding your own out there. How do you compare that track back with Nazareth? Did the experience there help you with feeling confident at Nazareth?
You know, I think it's a totally different circuit (inaudible) flat out the whole way, and kind of easy for the driver, I guess, you know, gaining time out of the circuit. Definitely a lot harder for the engineers. I think Nazareth, it's probably a little more even for both the driver and the engineer. Question: How was the week with Mauricio being out, the bruising incident, and emotionally the team was on a roller coaster with the death of his son, how were you able to prepare for Nazareth facing all of that?
It's a shame what happened. I think it made Nazareth quite hard in a way, only having one car, only able to feed off of one car for information. It would have been a little easier, I think, the weekend having Mauricio there just because he's so good with helping the team. Question: For Scott your perhaps yourself, T.E. I've read that Scott is not only the youngest Champ car driver to ever have a victory, perhaps he's the youngest driver in major open-wheel racing worldwide. Does anyone know?
Question: I heard that McLaren was 22.
Question: How much confidence does this give you now going into the rest of the season, to have your first win under your belt so early?
T.E. McHale: We will wrap it up for the day. Scott Dixon, thank you for joining us. Congratulations again on your victory last Sunday. Best of luck in the Firestone Firehawk 500 at Motegi and the rest of the season.
T.E. McHale: Thanks to you who took the time to be with us this afternoon, and good day. | ||||||
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