NOW AVAILABLE! — The Official Directory for CART Racing
Four of the Top 10
©1997 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.
1997 PPG CART World Series
Mauricio Gugelmin, driver of the Hollywood Reynard/Mercedes-Benz, wasfourth quickest in the first practice session for Sunday's U.S. 500 at MichiganSpeedway in Brooklyn, Mich. Gugelmin and the PacWest crew spent the sessionworking on a race set-up for their car.
Three other Mercedes-Benz entries were also among the session's 10quickest cars, as Greg Moore in the Players Reynard/Mercedes-Benz, Al Unser Jr.in the Marlboro Penske/Mercedes-Benz and rookie Patrick Carpentier in the AlumaxReynard/Mercedes-Benz finished the session eighth through tenth, respectively.Adapting quickly in his first superspeedway appearance, Carpentier was thefastest rookie in the practice.
A second practice session is scheduled for this afternoon, withqualifying Saturday afternoon. Sunday's 200-lap, 500-mile race will start at 1p.m. and be televised live by ABC-TV.
 | Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes-Benz |
| GREG MOORE | |
| "We have not tested here this year, but we were very fast here last yearand we also ran at California Speedway, so we had what we believed was a goodbaseline to start the session. The speeds the cars run here, the draft reallyplays a big role in the race, but for qualifying, we think we're good. We wereable to turn good laps running on our own. I don't think we'll see the speedsget much faster because of the new underwings here." (CART has mandated specialaerodynamic changes for this race on the 2-mile superspeedway in order to slowthe cars down.)" | |
 | Bettenhaused Racing Alumax Aluminium Reynard Mercedes-Benz |
| PATRICK CARPENTIER | |
| "We have an amazing setup even though we've never tested on asuperspeedway before. We just put the car on the track, and already I'm drivingflat-out. I've never gone that fast in my life -- I'll have to tell my friendsabout it. Actually, you don't really feel the speed so much because of thebanking." | |
 | Hollywood Reynard Mercedes |
| MAURICIO GUGELMIN | |
| "We worked a lot in that session, drafting with other cars and working onthe race set-up. The car doesn't feel bad right now, and we were very fast whenwe ran on our own. Look at the trap speeds, and you can see which cars got a bigtow from another car on their fastest lap. We were able to run fast without abig tow. We were able to see how the car would behave during the race traffic.We did a lot of laps (57 laps during the session), so that we could get the feelfor the race." | |
 | Hogan Racing Reynard Mercedes |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| "Yeah, it's a bit quick!... When you're out there, the speed doesn't seemso fast because the track is wide, and it's so wide open around the track,especially along the back straight. The speed is not so evident when things aregoing well and the car is handling good, like ours is. If you have a 'moment' orget near the wall, I'm sure you'll feel how fast you are going." | |