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Carpentier to return to Putnam Park for test
For the second time in a month, Patrick Carpentier and the Team Alumax Reynard/Mercedes-Benz will be heading west of the Indianapolis to conduct a two-day test session at Putnam Park.
However, this trip will be for a different purpose.
While the April 18-19 test came about as the result of difficult race weekends at Surfers Paradise and Long Beach, the latest test — slated for today (May 15) and tomorrow — is the pursuit of additional knowledge based on what was learned in April.
"We found some interesting things about the rear of this car," said Tom Brown, chief engineer and managing director of the team. "We are going back to Putnam to work on developing those things. We have some new rear suspension setups to evaluate"
In addition to suspension setups, Carpentier sees another value tied to this test.
"We learned a lot of things in our first test at Putnam that should be helpful for future street-circuit races," Carpentier pointed out. "But we also learned things about ourselves that helped when we raced at Nazareth. We were quick there for a lot of reasons like the fact that my engineers, Tom Brown and Bill Trowbridge, knew the track so well and the fact that we had such a good tire test there for Goodyear in March.
"But like I told everybody at Nazareth, the test was also good because it helped us determine that the best thing to do in the future was to let Tom set up the car and just let me tell him what the car was doing and drive it. That system has really worked well in the past two races — our times show that"
As they had during the April test at Putnam Park, the plan for the upcoming test is to once again utilize the .547-mile short circuit and concentrate on second-gear corners.
Source: CART News Service


		JUST RELEASED! — The Official Directory for CART Racing

		Back to the Short Track ©1997 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc. Carpentier to return to Putnam Park for test For the second time in a month, Patrick Carpentier and the Team Alumax Reynard/Mercedes-Benz will be heading west of the Indianapolis to conduct a two-day test session at Putnam Park. However, this trip will be for a different purpose. While the April 18-19 test came about as the result of difficult race weekends at Surfers Paradise and Long Beach, the latest test — slated for today (May 15) and tomorrow — is the pursuit of additional knowledge based on what was learned in April. "We found some interesting things about the rear of this car," said Tom Brown, chief engineer and managing director of the team. "We are going back to Putnam to work on developing those things. We have some new rear suspension setups to evaluate" In addition to suspension setups, Carpentier sees another value tied to this test. "We learned a lot of things in our first test at Putnam that should be helpful for future street-circuit races," Carpentier pointed out. "But we also learned things about ourselves that helped when we raced at Nazareth. We were quick there for a lot of reasons like the fact that my engineers, Tom Brown and Bill Trowbridge, knew the track so well and the fact that we had such a good tire test there for Goodyear in March. "But like I told everybody at Nazareth, the test was also good because it helped us determine that the best thing to do in the future was to let Tom set up the car and just let me tell him what the car was doing and drive it. That system has really worked well in the past two races — our times show that" As they had during the April test at Putnam Park, the plan for the upcoming test is to once again utilize the .547-mile short circuit and concentrate on second-gear corners. Source: CART News Service