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A three-day Goodyear tiretest begins today at Michigan Speedway, with participantsexpected to include Michael Andretti (Kmart/Texaco/HavolineSwift Ford) and Christian Fittipaldi (Kmart Swift Ford) ofNewman/Haas Racing, Al Unser Jr. (Marlboro PenskeMercedes) of Marlboro Team Penske and Gil de Ferran(Valvoline/Cummins Special Reynard Honda) of WalkerRacing.
The session will also include testing of the new HanfordDevice adopted by CART to help reduce the speed of itsChamp Cars on superspeedways. Designed by MarkHandford of Swift Engineering, the device is a wing-likeaerodynamic piece fitted to the rear of the car which createsdrag and reduces downforce.
The Handford Device will be utilized for the first time at theU.S. 500 Presented by Toyota, July 26 at MichiganSpeedway. It will also be used in the FedEx ChampionshipSeries season finale, the Marlboro 500 Presented by Toyota,Nov. 1 at California Speedway .
"Racing and car development is an evolving process," said J.Kirk Russell, CART's vice president of competition. "It wasquite apparent that if car development was left unchecked, thespeeds at this year's Michigan Speedway and Fontana[California] events would increase over the phenomenalspeeds which we saw there last year.
"We feel that by slowing the cars down a bit, we increasesafety, as well as enhancing our drivers' ability to race andrace comfortably," Russell said. "We are always concernedabout safety and we are always concerned about the ability ofour drivers to race each other. The Handford Device helps usprogress toward both of those objectives."
Testing of the Hanford Device by Unser and Bryan Herta(Shell Reynard Ford) earlier this month at CaliforniaSpeedway resulted in a reduction of some 17 to 23 miles perhour from the world-record, 240.942 mile-per-hour qualifyinglap of Mauricio Gugelmin (Hollywood PacWest Mercedes)last year.
Source: CART News Service
