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©2000 SpeedCenter Publishing April 10, 2000, Indianapolis Indiana: American driver Memo Gidley breezed through his rookie test at Indianapolis this morning, completing the multistage examination in a mere 80 minutes and posting the fastest speed of the morning rookie session at 214.388 miles per hour. Best known for competing in ten CART races last season on road and street courses, Gidley had not run a lap on an oval since the 1998 Toyota Atlantic race in Milwaukee. Shortly after running the fastest speeds of his young career, Gidley recounted his hat-in-hand approach to obtaining a license to drive the brickyard: "Well, I've been here since Tuesday trying to get my rookie test done with no money. I've been going around seeing shops trying to get something going, but most teams told me the necessary seat time would cost between twenty and fifty-thousand dollars. I don't have that kind of money, and so it wasn't until 10:30 Sunday night that Dale Pelfrey said 'Yeah, I'll put you out on the track no problem, be there at 7 a.m. tomorrow. I hope you can bring some guys with you to work on the car, because we're shorthanded.' So I changed the pedals and helped to get the car ready for the track." Impressed by the scale and history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway facility, Gidley said "as soon as you enter the gate, you realize that the people who work there are old-timers who love racing and have seen a lot of history. On rookie orientation day I got to drive the track in a van, and I'll tell you it takes forever to get down the straightaway at 100 miles per hour with the rev limiter maxed out, that's how big this track is." Gidley felt immediately comfortable in his 1999 Dallara/Oldsmobile/Firestone, noting "The faster I went, the better I felt. I have gone 200 on the straight at Road America, but I had never entered a turn at faster than 145 before. You're jamming right along when you enter a turn at over 200, I mean you're really cooking. The last session, I wanted to go a lot faster, but the officials ask you to maintain a steady speed just above 210 miles an hour." Gidley is currently in discussions with Dale Pelfrey regarding an Indy qualification effort next month. Referring to his on-again off-again negotiations to substitute for injured driver Shinji Nakano at CART's Long Beach event next weekend, Gidley said "If I could tell you the roller coaster I've been on this week… It's typical of a day in the life of my whole deal, which is you never know what's going to happen around the corner. Because I was able to get in the car and get up to speed pretty quickly, I came in and just really, really wanted to race that car. Hopefully I will be able to do just that on Memorial Day."
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