Gordon Starts in Back After Practice Incident ©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing Without practice backup car was no option Practice Friday at the GP Telemar Rio 200 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ended abruptly for Robby Gordon and Team Gordon when Paul Tracy collided with Gordon in Turn Four, 30 minutes before the end of the weekend's first and only practice session. Thursday's practices were washed out due to rain. Gordon's Johns Manville/Panasonic/Menards Toyota Swift was hit in the rear, damaging the rear suspension, gearbox and rear wing. The team was unable to fix the damage before the afternoon's qualifying session and will start Saturday's race from the back of the field. There was an opportunity to qualify the team's backup Reynard chassis, but the team felt fixing the Swift and skipping qualifications was a better choice. Teams are required to race the chassis they qualify, and while shortened, the practice time with the Swift was beneficial enough to stick with the chassis for the remainder of the weekend. Saturday's 108-lap race is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. local Brazilian time, 11:30 a.m. EDT. Robby Gordon on the accident: "I went into four and tapped the brakes like a normal lap. The back of the car stepped out a little, forcing me to lock the rear brakes for an instant. All of sudden Tracy had me. I don't know if he didn't see me, but I sure didn't see him. He hit me right in the kisser. It's a tough break for us, we were starting to gain on the car and I was feeling good about our progress. The option to fix the rear end and skip qualifying is the right thing to do. I feel good about it. Running the Reynard cold-turkey in a two-lap qualifying run, and then being committed to racing it, just didn't seem the way to go." On the race - "It's no fun having to start in the back of the field, but what really makes me upset is the reason why - being unable to qualify. For the race, we want to stay out of any trouble early and just try to move forward. Morning practice will be crucial to us. We need to pack two days' worth of track time into 30 minutes and hopefully find a good setup for the race." Mike Held (Co-Owner): "Ouch. The rollercoaster of motorsports strikes again. It put us in a position where we had to make a choice that wasn't great on either end. Run our backup or miss qualifying. Ultimately, we decided to shelve the backup, skip qualifying, and fix the Swift. It really didn't make sense to qualify a car that hadn't turned a wheel all weekend. We'd be committed to running a car that we have no data on here, and it would have been run with a blind setup. We're not too happy, but that's life and that's racing. You do everything you can to prepare and somebody throws a curve. Good news is we have the parts to replace the ones we lost in the crash, and the car will be ready to go in the morning." Source: Team Gordon

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