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©2000 SpeedCenter Publishing PacWest Racing's Mauricio Gugelmin wrapped up a productive week of testing by logging over 100 miles at the Firebird East road course outside Phoenix today. Gugelmin completed 81 laps of the 1.25-mile track in preparation for the first street circuit event of the 2000 FedEx Championship Season, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach scheduled for April 14-16. "We had a pretty decent day," remarked Gugelmin following his first road course test in the recently unveiled #17 Nextel PacWest Mercedes-Benz. "It's always very slippery at Firebird, but we were able to try a lot of different mechanical things to gain grip. "We deliberately left the car in the configuration that we will run on street circuits, and everything went well." PacWest Technical Director Allen McDonald agreed with Gugelmin's assessment of the day's activities, and was particularly pleased with the performance of the new Mercedes-Benz IC108F engine. "The engine reliability has been excellent - we ran all day without any issues whatsoever," commented McDonald. "We were able to work through various steering and suspension geometries, as well as shock options, and we found some good things. "We'll take a look at the data we generated at both PIR and Firebird and get ready for more testing next week." Gugelmin and his PacWest teammate Mark Blundell will conduct their final pre-season oval test at Homestead-Miami Speedway on March 11-12.
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