Race No. 6
Motorola 300
Gateway International Raceway — Madison, Illinois
May 21-23, 1998
Saturday Quotes from Gateway: | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda |
| ALEX ZANARDI | |
| Our last pit stop was really the key to the race. The race today was one of track position and traffic, and Michael was going to be very tough. I had passed Jimmy and Greg on the track, but Michael was running very strong and it was going to be very difficult to get in front of him. But my guys did an excellent job all day long, and our Honda was giving us excellent mileage, and we came out of the pits in first place. I also have to thank my friend and teammate, Jimmy. He did all the testing here, and it was his set-up that I put on my car this morning and ran in the race. | |
 | Valvoline/Cummins/Craftsman Special Walker Racing Reynard Ford |
| GIL de FERRAN | |
| It was a long day. The car's balance and consistency kept changing. I would change the weight jackers and sway bars to get a handle on it, but I was chasing [the car] all day. It was a very physical race and to tell you the truth, I'm knackered (exhausted). These are some of the harder [championship] points I've worked for. I guess, considering were we qualified and the lack of practice, sixth means something in a race and a weekend like this. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| It was a race of track position and traffic, and we didn't get either at the end. We lost track position in the pits, but I thought we were still going to be O.K. because I felt like we had a better car [than Zanardi] in traffic. But we didn't encounter much traffic at the end. The car ran beautifully all weekend. Our pit stop wasn't even bad, they just had a real good one. We gave it our best and we almost came up with it. They just did a great job, you can't take anything away from them. I think we were being careful to make sure we got every drop of fuel in the car [during the pit stop], because if we hadn't had a yellow flag afterward, it would have been really close. The most important thing is that we collected points. There's a long way to go in the championship, and we scored some valuable points today. Unfortunately, Greg and Alex did too. … I like the speedway wings. I think it's a step forward in making these oval tracks a little safer and more driveable. It's tough … it's not an easy way of racing, but it brings a little bit more of the skill back into it, I think, and I like that. | |
 | Budweiser/Ralph's Della Penna Racing Swift Ford |
| RICHIE HEARN | |
| Those guys were racing really hard. It looked like they were about threewide in the corner. Dario (Franchitti) lost it high in Turn 3, and I went low to avoid him.One of the Players guys, I think it was (Patrick) Carpentier, that came down and hit me.I was already low, in the grass; I didn't have anywhere to go. I was just in the wrongplace at the wrong time.It's very disappointing. I could tell from the first turn that the car was going to be goodtoday. | |
 | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda |
| JIMMY VASSER | |
| We had a good car early in the race, but the switch that operates the weight jacker broke [approximately lap 60]. That shifted all the weight to the right side of the car. That made the handling pretty difficult for the rest of the day, but we soldiered on and got some good [championship] points. And it was a great day for the team, today. Alex had a fantastic run and I'm happy for him and the whole team. | |
 | Visteon Reynard Ford |
| SCOTT PRUETT | |
| First and foremost I am happy to finish a race. We had a good run a Miami, the first race of the year. Then we ran into some tough times. I want to thank the Visteon guys for a great, total team effort. I had to be cautiously aggressive today meaning that when the opportunity was there to move up I made my move. It was a good end to a very tough weekend for the Visteon/Patrick Racing Team. Especially since we were not able to test here this year. | |
 | LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group LCI Reynard Honda |
| TONY KANAAN | |
| The brake pedal starting going down, down, down. I was going into Turn Three and the pedal went all the way down. I pumped it twice and it came back, but it was too late. The wheels locked up and I spun and hit the wall. We were having a good run up until that point. I had a little bit of push in Turn Two, but the car was pretty good. | |
 | Arciero/Wells Reynard Toyota |
| ROBBY GORDON | |
| We had a pretty good weekend; things were looking up. The Panasonic Duskin/MCI car was better than it showed. Something went wrong early in the race. I honestly felt after this morning’s practice that we could have finished in the top-five. We felt we had a car that we could have raced for the win. But something happened after the first yellow and we got a wake-up call. The car handled well all day. It's one of those things. We still had a good weekend; the reliability of the engines is better. I'm looking forward to going to Milwaukee next week.We run great on the one-mile ovals. I've had a lot of success there before [1995 fifth, 1994 sixth and 1993 tenth]. It should be a race we can run well with the Toyota package. Hopefully, we can top the seventh-place finish we had at Nazareth. | |
 | MCI Arciero Wells Reynard Toyota |
| MAX PAPIS | |
| We had a good car today and we were improving it as the race went on,. Then I went into the corner and Arnd [Meier] chopped me off. I’m very disappointed for MCI and the crew. I hope CART will do something about what happened. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| The car had been nervous all weekend. This morning in warm-up it was doing a little bit of everything. On the first lap, I turned into turn three and the car got loose under braking. There were two or three slides. I caught the first ones, but the last one was too much and the back end went out from under me. We weren't really up to racing speed yet, but the cold tires and the bump in three were an unlucky combination. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| PAUL TRACY | |
| I didn't see what happened. There was some smoke and a big pile-up in front of me. There were cars sliding around and I got hit from behind and pushed into the car in front. I had slowed down to make my way through, but no luck, and ended up bending my front suspension pretty good. It was disappointing for us and the team, we had a good car in the warm-up, but I guess it wasn't meant to be today. | |
 | Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes |
| PATRICK CARPENTIER | |
| We've just had bad luck. It's no fun, because we have a fast car and we'rerunning the same speeds as the leaders. Today it seemed we hit everything therewas to hit out there," said Carpentier. I'm really looking forward toMilwaukee. We'll see if we can't turn this bad luck into good luck. | |
 | Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford |
| ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | |
| The weather conditions were very tough. It was really hot out there. It wasn't that physical of a race it was just the heat was very difficult. We had a few close calls, especially early in the race. A lot of people were getting loose. We made a good decision on the set-up this morning and the Tecate/Quaker State guys did a great job preparing the car and in the pits. Since we didn't test here and didn't get very much practice time we sort of had to guess at the set-up. The Tecate/Quaker State car was good enough to finish in the top five, but I don't think it was good enough to finish in the top three. The guys in front were just a little bit quicker than I was. We were competitive out there then the engine went. It just wasn't our day. Ford has done a great job with the engine. We have been competitive in just about every race. We just had a little bad luck today. The competition for the championship is very tough. We just need to continue to be consistent and pay attention to detail. Everything considered I am very happy to be in the position I am. | |
 | Baan Software Davis Racing Lola Ford |
| ARND MEIER | |
| I don't really remember anything during the accident. What I do know is that I gave a lot of room to the leaders. It's disappointing that we got out of the race because of a questionable move of another driver. I went high and Max (Papis) saw a spot that just wasn't there. Before the accident, we were loose a bit after the end of a fuel load. I'm just happy I'm fine and ready for next week's race at Milwaukee. | |
 | Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes |
| GREG MOORE | |
| The car was unbelievably loose and sliding all over the place at the beginningof the race, but we made some adjustments which improved the car Because we came here without too much testing, we were a bit behind the eight ball. We really didn't know what the car was going to do in traffic. At the beginning of the race, the car was unbelievably loose and that's what allowed Michael to get by me. After that, it was pretty painless. For everyone on the Player's/Forsythe team, especially considering that we didn't have more than 45 minutes of practice on the track two days before the race, we have to be very pleased with our result today. | |