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©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing Team KOOL Green got the New Year off to a productive start with two days of testing at Miami-Homestead Speedway last week. Paul Tracy ran a total of 338 miles in the KOOL Reynard 99I-Honda on January 7 and 8, turning a best lap of 26.2s on the 1.5 mile oval in the process. Team KOOL Green was among the first teams to run on the Homestead oval since the Christmas holiday break and found the track conditions less than optimum. Tracy also spent the balance of the test running Firestone control tires which, in concert with the slippery track, accounted for the fact that his times were about 1/2 second slower than when he tested at Homestead in December." Thursday, January 7 saw Tracy run a total of 124 laps (186 miles) with a fast time of 26.2s. The following day he ran an additional 101 laps (152 miles) and posted a best lap of 26.37s. "I estimate the grip factor was down about 10%, compared to our last test at Homestead," said Don Halliday, Team KOOL Green technical director/chief engineer. "The track was grainy and, with the control tires, it was a bit of a challenge to get the car's set-up suited to the conditions. Nevertheless we actually achieved a very good balance — better than we'd had in December — but it wasn't reflected in Paul's lap times owing to the circumstances. " "I was very impressed with the way Paul gets on with the program, no messing about, Halliday continued. "That contributed to what was really a productive test. We ran for two days without a significant mechanical problem; we tested different components and worked through a range of adjustments on the chassis that we would otherwise have waited to try at Spring Training in February." Team KOOL Green's next Champ Car test is scheduled at Arizona's Firebird International Raceway (East) on January 18-19 with Dario Franchitti. Source:Team Kool Green |
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