©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing
Photos by Mike Levitt
By all indications, it was a success as Gordon and his No. 22
Menards/ Panasonic/ Johns Manville/ Duracell/ Turtle Wax-sponsored race car
posted a fast lap of 1 minute, 8.667 seconds (an average of 117.33 mph)
around the 2.238-mile permanent road course over the two days of
testing. A total of seven cars took advantage of the annual CART open
test at Laguna Seca. Team Rahal's Bryan Herta, last year's race winner
at Laguna Seca, posted the fastest lap of the two days at 119.92 mph in
his Ford-powered Reynard, an unofficial track record.
Having taken delivery of the car on Sunday, Feb. 14, the newly formed
Team Gordon worked fast and furiously to paint and prep it in time to
make the two-day test. Tuesday morning's opening session represented
the first time the new car had turned a wheel. By the end of the two
days, the car had completed 73 laps in all.
ROBBY GORDON, OWNER/DRIVER - "I don't know what the big deal is (said
jokingly), it's just a big bag of bolts with some bodywork thrown on
top. It's not like this thing is a space ship - it's just a car!
Seriously, though, I'm extremely pleased with how it went. We came here
to basically shake the car down. We went out for the morning session on
Tuesday and ran 35 laps trouble-free. The plan here was not to break
any track records, but to make sure the car functions properly. And it
took a lot of focus and discipline to not stray too far from that plan.
We're looking forward to going out and seeing what this car can really
do."
MIKE HELD, CO-OWNER - "We came out here to essentially get our feet wet
for the first time. We've hired some first-rate personnel and, in
addition to shaking the car down, we wanted to see how everyone works
together. It took a Herculean effort to get the car ready for this
test. Everyone performed admirably. And the car's initial performance
turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We went out and ran in the 1:09s
by the second session and figured that if we could get into the high
1:08s, we could consider the test a success. Well, we made down to
1:08.6, so you might say we're pleased. But we've got a big mountain to
climb, yet."
BRIAN BERTHOLD, CHIEF ENGINEER - "We made some tremendous progress
considering this car has only existed for two days on the racetrack. We
ran our fast time in the morning session (on Wednesday) just as the
checkered flag came out. Had we had a few more laps, there were still
three-tenths to a half-second left in that setup. We found that every
time we put a new set of tires on the car, it took about five laps to
heat them up, and the fast time came on only the third lap on a new set
of tires. Optimistically, you might have seen us in the 1:07s had we run
more in the afternoon session. But, for the first time working
together, we're more than happy. With Robby, we've established a solid
level of communication and I feel like we're on our way to developing
that unspoken chemistry that you need between driver and engineer. I'm
really happy with Robby's input, and his consistency on the track. In
the morning session on Wednesday, we addressed 70% of Robby's complaints
with the setup, so were on our way to setting even faster times."
It was only a little more than
a week ago that Team Gordon, the newest competitor on the CART FedEx
Championship Series, took delivery of its first Swift chassis. But
already, driver and team owner Robby Gordon has put the Toyota-powered
car through the paces in two days of testing concluded yesterday at
Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey.
The team continues preparations for next month's CART FedEx Championship
Series season opener at Homestead, Fla. (March 21) with test sessions
scheduled for Phoenix and Homestead in the coming weeks.
TEAM QUOTES
Source: Team Gordon
