Pacwest and Bettenhausen Tests Successful

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Pacwest and Bettenhausen Tests Successful
©1997 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.
Milwaukee and Putnam Park tests called productive
Milwaukee Test Successful For Gugelmin And Blundell
PacWest Racing Group's CART team returned from a two-day test at the Milwaukee Mile, April 17 -18. In a confident mood for the upcoming short oval portion of the PPG Cup schedule.
The next four races on the PPG CART World Series calendar — Nazareth (April 27), Rio (May 11), St. Louis (May 24) and Milwaukee (June 1) are all on short ovals. This weekend's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Nazareth can be seen live on ABC TV at 2:00 p.m. (ET).
"I think we'll be much more confident on the short ovals than we have been for the past couple of years," said Hollywood PacWest Mercedes-Benz driver Mauricio Gugelmin. "It's obvious that the PacWest team has been competitive everywhere we have raced in 1997, and we need to make sure that we carry that momentum into the short ovals."
"We are a lot more confident about our prospects on the mile ovals this year," commented Vice President of Racing Operations John Anderson. "At Milwaukee, we looked at race setups as opposed to chasing the clock for a fast time. Both the drivers are very pleased with the progress we have made toward giving them a fast and consistent car over a full load of fuel."
"Short ovals are a great deal more fun when the car is handling well," offered Motorola PacWest Mercedes-Benz pilot Mark Blundell. "Based on our work earlier this year at Phoenix and the miles we've just completed at Milwaukee, I'm very pleased with the progress we've made. I've still got to learn the Nazareth track, but I'm in an optimistic mood as we head into the oval portion of the schedule.
"I ran a lot of laps — nearly 350 in all — and did some good stuff with full tanks," Blundell continued. "We got a lot of good feedback, and relative to the conditions (temperatures in the 30s and 40s), the lap times were pretty good. It's important to get some good constants for working through a fuel load. I think we got plenty of good data to take to Nazareth, and once I've learned the track, we should kick off quite strong."
Gugelmin set the best time of the test on his very last lap.
"We went through a full fuel load — 33 gallons on one run and I did my quick time (21.1 seconds) right at the end just to show off," he joked.

Team Alumax calls Putnam Park test productive
Two days of testing at the Putnam Park Road Course produced plenty of laps for Patrick Carpentier in the Team Alumax Reynard/Mercedes-Benz and also gave the team a chance to gather data that should be useful down the road.
What Carpentier and Team Alumax did for two days, April 18 and 19, was concentrate on slow, second-gear corners that are prevalent on the temporary street circuits. The exercise was to work on trying "to get the power down" and stabilize the rear of the car, a pair of problems that surfaced at recent PPG CART events on the streets of Surfers Paradise, Australia, and Long Beach, Calif.
So instead of running on Putnam Park's 1.9-mile road course used by most CART teams, Team Alumax utilized the .547-mile, five-turn configuration. In two days of running, Carpentier made 270 trips around the compact course. That comes to approximately 147 miles and Carpentier's best lap was at 24.168 seconds, good for an average speed of 81.91 miles per hour.
All parties agreed it was a productive test.
"There's nothing you can do about Surfer's Paradise and Long Beach except forget them, but we still have street races at Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto and Vancouver to go on the schedule," team owner Tony Bettenhausen pointed out. "So even though we've been trying to figure out what happened in the first two street races, we're also really trying to prepare for future races on the streets. We don't want to have a repeat of those performances."
"We discovered some things which will be helpful to us in the future on street circuits," added Tom Brown, chief engineer and managing director of the team. "We ran a lot of laps and got some good information. We also got some additional seat time for our driver."
"It was a good test," Carpentier said. "I think that Tom (Brown) learned a lot about my style of driving and I learned more about how to set up an Indy car. There is so much difference between Atlantic cars and Indy cars in terms of horsepower. I just let Tom set up car and I just told him what it did and that was better because he has so much more experience."
Source: CART News Service


		JUST RELEASED! — The Official Directory for CART Racing

		Pacwest and Bettenhausen Tests Successful ©1997 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc. Milwaukee and Putnam Park tests called productive Milwaukee Test Successful For Gugelmin And Blundell PacWest Racing Group's CART team returned from a two-day test at the Milwaukee Mile, April 17 -18. In a confident mood for the upcoming short oval portion of the PPG Cup schedule. The next four races on the PPG CART World Series calendar — Nazareth (April 27), Rio (May 11), St. Louis (May 24) and Milwaukee (June 1) are all on short ovals. This weekend's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Nazareth can be seen live on ABC TV at 2:00 p.m. (ET). "I think we'll be much more confident on the short ovals than we have been for the past couple of years," said Hollywood PacWest Mercedes-Benz driver Mauricio Gugelmin. "It's obvious that the PacWest team has been competitive everywhere we have raced in 1997, and we need to make sure that we carry that momentum into the short ovals." "We are a lot more confident about our prospects on the mile ovals this year," commented Vice President of Racing Operations John Anderson. "At Milwaukee, we looked at race setups as opposed to chasing the clock for a fast time. Both the drivers are very pleased with the progress we have made toward giving them a fast and consistent car over a full load of fuel." "Short ovals are a great deal more fun when the car is handling well," offered Motorola PacWest Mercedes-Benz pilot Mark Blundell. "Based on our work earlier this year at Phoenix and the miles we've just completed at Milwaukee, I'm very pleased with the progress we've made. I've still got to learn the Nazareth track, but I'm in an optimistic mood as we head into the oval portion of the schedule. "I ran a lot of laps — nearly 350 in all — and did some good stuff with full tanks," Blundell continued. "We got a lot of good feedback, and relative to the conditions (temperatures in the 30s and 40s), the lap times were pretty good. It's important to get some good constants for working through a fuel load. I think we got plenty of good data to take to Nazareth, and once I've learned the track, we should kick off quite strong." Gugelmin set the best time of the test on his very last lap. "We went through a full fuel load — 33 gallons on one run and I did my quick time (21.1 seconds) right at the end just to show off," he joked. Team Alumax calls Putnam Park test productive Two days of testing at the Putnam Park Road Course produced plenty of laps for Patrick Carpentier in the Team Alumax Reynard/Mercedes-Benz and also gave the team a chance to gather data that should be useful down the road. What Carpentier and Team Alumax did for two days, April 18 and 19, was concentrate on slow, second-gear corners that are prevalent on the temporary street circuits. The exercise was to work on trying "to get the power down" and stabilize the rear of the car, a pair of problems that surfaced at recent PPG CART events on the streets of Surfers Paradise, Australia, and Long Beach, Calif. So instead of running on Putnam Park's 1.9-mile road course used by most CART teams, Team Alumax utilized the .547-mile, five-turn configuration. In two days of running, Carpentier made 270 trips around the compact course. That comes to approximately 147 miles and Carpentier's best lap was at 24.168 seconds, good for an average speed of 81.91 miles per hour. All parties agreed it was a productive test. "There's nothing you can do about Surfer's Paradise and Long Beach except forget them, but we still have street races at Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto and Vancouver to go on the schedule," team owner Tony Bettenhausen pointed out. "So even though we've been trying to figure out what happened in the first two street races, we're also really trying to prepare for future races on the streets. We don't want to have a repeat of those performances." "We discovered some things which will be helpful to us in the future on street circuits," added Tom Brown, chief engineer and managing director of the team. "We ran a lot of laps and got some good information. We also got some additional seat time for our driver." "It was a good test," Carpentier said. "I think that Tom (Brown) learned a lot about my style of driving and I learned more about how to set up an Indy car. There is so much difference between Atlantic cars and Indy cars in terms of horsepower. I just let Tom set up car and I just told him what it did and that was better because he has so much more experience." Source: CART News Service