IndyCar Notes and Quotes - Feb. 26, 1996
The PPG Indy Car World Series opens this weekend with ABC-TV and ESPN2 providing race and qualifying coverage of the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami presented by Toyota at the Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex. ESPN2 starts the weekend coverage beginning Saturday at 5 p.m. with a one-hour, tape-delay broadcast of pole qualifying. The cable network also will rebroadcast the qualifying starting at 12:30 a.m. later that night. On Sunday, ESPN2 will provide a half-hour, pre-race show beginning at 1 p.m. The coverage then shifts over to ABC for live broadcast of the race beginning at 1:30 p.m. The Grand Prix of Miami presented by Toyota will be the first of 12 IndyCar races to be televised on ABC-TV this season.* KEYS TO SUCCESS (AND A MERCEDES)
The Marlboro Pole Award returns to the PPG Indy Car World Series for its fourth season and will add a new twist to its generosity. In addition to its $400,000 in bonus money, Marlboro also will give away a 1996 Mercedes-Benz at the season-ending Toyota Grand Prix of Monterey. Each pole winner throughout the season will receive a Mercedes key for his efforts and then will use their accumulated keys to find the one that starts the car at the season finale. The program begins with Saturday's qualifying for the season-opening Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami presented by Toyota. The program awards $10,000 to the pole winner (excluding the U.S. 500) and an additional $15,000 for also winning that race. If the pole-sitter does not win, the bonus rolls over to the next week. This week's race will have a $45,000 rollover from last season, leaving a $55,000 bonus for any driver who can capture the pole and a victory at Homestead.
* IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING...
Christian Fittipaldi had an impressive four-day test session for Newman-Haas Racing last week at Texas World Speedway. The team completed more than 1,600 miles during the preseason test from Feb. 19-22 and Fittipaldi posted a top lap of 234.9 miles per hour in the Kmart/Budweiser Lola Ford Cosworth on Goodyear tires. "When I first got out of the car, it took me awhile to get used to being still," Fittipaldi said. "It was like I had been twirling in a chair for hours and then tried to get up and walk. It was excellent to get a lot of practice one week before the season starts. Like with any sport, the more you practice, the more you learn." The Newman-Haas team also learned a good amount about the durability of the Cosworth XD engine. "We chose Texas World Speedway because the track is very demanding," team manager Lee White said. "You have the throttle down over 95 percent of the lap. We were very encouraged because we tested three engines for 550 to 570 miles each with no problems. The test was specifically to prepare us for the U.S. 500 and the Marlboro 500."
* ROOKIE ORIENTATION ARCIERO STYLE
IndyCar rookie Jeff Krosnoff is in good hands with co-owner Frank Arciero Sr. Arciero has been a master at helping mold young careers, including those of Parnelli Jones, Bobby Unser, Al Unser and Michael Andretti. His racing teams also have won four rookie-of-the-year awards in Indy Car racing, all of which came in a three-year span. Randy Lanier was the top Indy 500 rookie in 1986, Fabrizio Barbazza swept the IndyCar and Indy 500 honors in '87 and John Jones was IndyCar's rookie of the year in 1988. "I have always believed in hiring rookie drivers,'' said Arciero, who shares the IndyCar team with Cal Wells III. "They tend to listen more. My father always told me that you bend a tree when it's young, not when it's old because then it will break." Krosnoff will be driving the No. 25 Arciero-Wells Racing 1996 Reynard Toyota on Firestones.
* EDUCATING ALEX
After 27 Formula One outings, Target/Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Alex Zanardi will be immediately introduced to oval racing in his debut at the PPG Indy Car World Series opener this week at the 1.51-mile Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex. Zanardi, driving a Reynard Honda on Firestones, got a taste of what to expect in February during Spring Training at Homestead and he produced a lap of 191.980 mph. "It was a very good test for me,'" said Zanardi, who competed for Jordan, Minardi and Lotus during his Formula One career. "It was very important because I felt how the car was like in traffic. In the tests we did before, I was not driving with other cars around me. It was something that I had to learn." Zanardi's teammate, Jimmy Vasser, has the top lap of Spring Training at 195.936 mph.
* PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Player's Ltd., a sponsor of IndyCar rookie Greg Moore, has welcomed six of Canada's top young drivers into its new Driver Development Program for the upcoming season. Lee Bentham, 25, of Richmond Hill, Ontario, Patrick Carpentier, 25, of Joliette, Quebec, and Alexandre Tagliani, 22, of Lachenaie, Quebec, will compete in the Player's/Toyota Atlantic Championship. Andrew Bordin, 19, of Woodbridge, Ontario will race in the USAC F2000 Championship and four Indy Lights events. Jean-Francois Dumoulin, 19, of Trios-Rivieres, Quebec, and Jean-Francois Veilleux, 22, of Boucherville, Quebec will run in the BFG F1600 Series. "These six men have demonstrated that they have the talent and the desire to pursue a career in this demanding sport," said J.C. Torchia, event associate for Player's Ltd. "Canada has become a power in open-wheel racing, and I believe that through our program this group of drivers, along with our drivers in IndyCar and Indy Lights, will keep our country on top." Player's has committed up to $500,000 in this first season of its long-term Driver Development Program. Also, the drivers will receive ongoing physical and psychological training, and instruction in team building, goal setting and the business aspects of the sport.
* U.S. 500 QUALIFYING ON ESPN
ESPN will provide live coverage of the inaugural U.S. 500's two-day qualifying session scheduled for May 11-12 at Michigan International Speedway. The cable sports network will broadcast the time trials Saturday, May 11 from 2:30-4 p.m. and Sunday, May 12 from 4-5 p.m. EST. "ESPN's decision to televise live coverage of the U.S. 500 time trials is a reflection of the growing public interest in the race,"said Rena Shanaman, general manager of the U.S. 500. "ESPN is the leader in motorsports programming, and we're happy to have their additional involvement in the U.S. 500." The broadcast of the qualifying will push ESPN's total coverage of the event to six hours. ESPN will broadcast live the U.S. 500 beginning at 2 p.m. on May 26.
* NEW ARRIVAL FOR GOODYEAR
Scott Goodyear and his wife, Leslie, announced the birth of their second child, Michael Evan, on Feb. 23 in Indianapolis, Ind. Michael weighed seven pounds, six ounces and was 211/2 inches long. The Goodyears' other child is four-year-old Christopher.
* ON TAP
IndyCar drivers Emerson Fittipaldi, Paul Tracy and Bobby Rahal, as well as former star Rick Mears, will be participating Wednesday in a Marlboro-sponsored celebrity bartender event at Dan Marino's American Sports Bar & Grill in Coconut Grove, Fla. The cost to attend the event, which runs from 6:30-9:30 p.m., is $10 and all proceeds benefit the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis. Fittipaldi, Tracy and Mears also will join Al Unser Jr., as well as several other IndyCar drivers, on Thursday for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle caravan to the Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex. The group will depart at 11 a.m. from the Harley-Davidson South dealership at 17631 S. Dixie Highway and head to the track, where they will take a parade lap around the oval on their Harleys.
Source: IndyCar Web Site
Used by permission