Race No. 12
US 500
Presented by Toyota
Michigan Speedway — Brooklyn, Michigan
July 24-26, 1998
Raceday Quotes from Brooklyn: | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda Finished: 3rd |
| ALEX ZANARDI | |
| It was a very long day. At one point, I thought it was just because I was concentrating on what we were doing because I didn't hear too much from [owner] Chip [Ganassi] on the radio. It was a long race but very exciting. At one point, I felt like I had everything covered. After our late pit stop, the car was just beautiful. Then, just before the end, something went wrong, an oil leak or something. We're happy to finish third. It was a great race. | |
 | Valvoline/Cummins/Craftsman Special Walker Racing Reynard Honda Finished: 16th |
| GIL de FERRAN | |
| I can't tell you how disappointed I am. I had a great car all day and I was saving it for the end. I really didn't want to lead. I didn't have the car to lead. I was waiting in the draft for traffic and then I would open it up because I had a great car in traffic. I passed Greg and Scott on the restart for what we thought was going to be the race to the finish. It was a great race, a fantastic race, but what can you say? The engine let go and that was the end for us. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford Finished: 6th |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| It was scary. When you are running at 220 mph wheel-to-wheel, all it takes is one guy to make a little mistake and he could have taken a bunch of people out. It wasn't fun that way. We don't have fenders like NASCAR. It was just very close racing. But in saying that, [my fellow Champ Car drivers] drove really well. I mean guys were giving room and it only came really tight near the end. When we go to California though, they may need to do a little more adjusting on the [Handford] wings to put a little more driveability in the car. | |
 | Miller Lite Team Rahal Reynard Ford Finished: 7th |
| BOBBY RAHAL | |
| Unfortunately, towards the end the car picked up a push which would kill all of my momentum going into the corners. But the engine ran beautifully all day. [On his last race at Michigan Speedway]..Like I said before, I am always pleased when I walk out of this place | |
 | Shell Team Rahal Reynard Ford Finished: 10th |
| BRYAN HERTA | |
| It was a really competitive race. There was a lot of dicing around out there. Unfortunately, we were sliding around a lot. I think we missed just a little bit on the setup, but we were close enough and the Ford engine was really good horsepower-wise to keep our car running in the lead draft or at least right behind it. | |
 | Budweiser/Ralph's Della Penna Racing Swift Ford Finished: 5th |
| RICHIE HEARN | |
| It was a pretty wild race. I told everybody that this was probably going to be the best race that they have ever had here. Even though this was our best finish, I am still a little disappointed because we had a car that could have won. I made a mistake when I missed my pit and it was just really hard to get in to my stall when Michael [Andretti] was in and it didn't help that I couldn't talk to my crew because of radio problems. To set up the car during the race is very difficult and there were some things that I wanted to do, but I couldn't tell them and that kind of hurt us a bit. But overall, the car went 500 miles and we finished in the top five, which is our best finish. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford Finished: 25th |
| CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI | |
| We picked up some debris out on the track that punctured a hole in the radiator which caused our engine to overheat. It's too bad, the car had a lot of power. This whole weekend has been disappointing. Right before we picked up the debris the car was coming around. | |
 | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda Finished: 2nd |
| JIMMY VASSER | |
| I thought I'd get a good shot off [Turns] 1 and 2. I had some good distance, but I got stuck in a rev that was 1,000 [revolutions per minute] less from what we wanted. It must have been a sensor problem. We joked all weekend that no one wanted to lead the white flag lap, but it's hard not to take the lead when you can. I thought I had enough of a cushion. Obviously, I didn't. | |
 | Bettenhausen Racing Alumax Aluminium Reynard Mercedes Finished: 12th |
| HELIO CASTRO-NEVES | |
| This was my first 500 mile race and it was fantastic. I did have a problem with a push all day long and at times it really got bad. But I felt that I was learning something every lap I completed. In the end, they made a change to the car and that made it much better. | |
 | Hollywood Reynard Mercedes Finished: 13th |
| MAURICIO GUGELMIN | |
| That was a long day, one of the longest I can remember. Once the flag dropped, I went backwards. I couldn't run high and I couldn't run low. It was worst in traffic -- the car was very loose. We found a problem with the right rear shock after the race. It didn't have any fluid, and I suspect the problem was with me for most of the race. On the bright side, the car was reliable and the guys gave me really good pit stops. I'm just sorry we didn't get any points for the effort. | |
 | PacWest Motorola Reynard Mercedes Finished: 17th |
| MARK BLUNDELL | |
| I tell you, that was the longest 500-mile race I've ever run. We didn't have a good balance on the car in the beginning and went down a lap early because we were suffering in traffic. Then we ran into a number of minor problems in the pits that compounded our situation. I'm a little disappointed because we've never finished outside the top six, but that's racing. Today I ran a 500-mile race knowing very well I ran every mile. | |
 | Herdez Competition Payton/Coyne Reynard Ford Finished: 18th |
| MICHEL JOURDAIN | |
| With the first tank of fuel, my car become very loose, while the next tank full the car produced a push. In traffic, the car felt looser as we believe the front wing was started to come loose. | |
 | Visteon Reynard Ford Finished: 4th |
| SCOTT PRUETT | |
| It was unbelievable. Any one of us could have won. I was pushing sideways, I think Greg [Moore] and I could have bumped, Gil [de Ferran] and I may have bumped at one time, I mean bumping at 220 mph is a bit scary. But the Visteon guys did a great job. We broke an air jack and we had a problem with the pop-off valve, I mean our day was not very good, but they overcame it. We really turned things around. | |
 | LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group LCI Reynard Honda Finished: 11th |
| TONY KANAAN | |
| It was a long race but I learned a lot and we came out of here with a couple of points so I'm happy. The car was a little loose in the beginning, and then we had push all the way around but it wasn't that bad. The car worked fine, the tires were fine and the engine was running pretty good. We had a consistent car but we were a little bit slower than the leaders. We need to try to improve that for the future. We need to improve our race pace. I'm not sure what we need to do, but we need to look at the data to see what is happening. | |
 | Arciero/Wells Reynard Toyota Finished: 27th |
| ROBBY GORDON | |
| The car was running good. I was feeling comfortable and running good lap times. Jimmy [Vasser] moved up on me but he had the line. It seemed like it was slow motion as the car slid into the wall. There were a lot of marbles. The car was dancing around and it was like running on ice. The track was dirty and it didn’t have a lot of grip. It was basically a one-line track. If the track were clean, I think I could have saved it | |
 | MCI Arciero Wells Reynard Toyota Finished: 19th |
| MAX PAPIS | |
| I want to thank all of my MCI crew and my engineer, Iain Watt. They did the best with what we have in our hands. It would have been nice to see the checkered flag, again, for MCI and Toyota. We finished the last three races in the points and, hopefully, we can do a good job at the upcoming race at Mid-Ohio. I understand some people were hurt here today and I am sad for them and their families and they are in my prayers. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda Finished: 21st |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| The car was terrible the first half of the race. By the time we finally got it dialed in we were two laps down. I was fighting the car; it was really nervous. We were adjusting the tire pressures and that finally settled the car down. We were pretty quick there at the end. That was some great racing out there. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda Finished: 9th |
| PAUL TRACY | |
| The car was great. We might have had too much downforce on the car. We weren't the fastest on the straightaway, but I think we were one of the best handling cars. My strength was coming off the turns. Guys would pass me on the straight, I'd pass them coming off the turn. This team is ready to win we've just got to get everything together. We made seven pit stops and on the last one, the right rear tire guy did not get the wheel up on the drive pegs properly. When I went out, I could feel the rear was wobbly right away so I had to come back in and that put us at the back of the field. It's tough to make up that difference. I think the new the Hanford Device is great. I think you saw that it made for some fantastic racing. | |
 | Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes Finished: 8th |
| PATRICK CARPENTIER | |
| That just goes to show you the quality of the work done in the pits by the Player's crew. I'm very happy with the outcome, especially since this is the first time I have crossed the finish line in a 500-mile race. | |
 | Castrol/Degree AAR Racing Reynard Toyota Finished: 15th |
| ALEX BARRON | |
| I'm glad that we were able to walk away with a solid finish here. We had a pretty difficult weekend but the team never gave up. The car was pretty good today but we still need to make some big gains before the Fontana race. | |
 | Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford Finished: 23rd |
| ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | |
| Paul Tracy was coming up behind me on the inside and took the air off me. He didn't hit me, he went in to the inside of me and instead of keeping his line, he went straight up and I got up high and there was nothing I could do." THE ON BOARD BLUE BOX IMPACT SENSOR MEASURED FERNANDEZ'S IMPACT AT 92 G's. | |
 | Baan Software Davis Racing Lola Ford |
| ARND MEIER | |
| The car was very good when I was driving alone. I was going flat out on the track, but in traffic I had a lot of oversteer. It was a struggle when I was in traffic. At the start, I overtook a few people and I thought the car was working great, but then I got a couple of big slides exiting in Turns One and Two, and from that point I was very careful with the car. I didn’t see any debris [from Fernandez’s accident] so I didn’t think I had too much to worry about. Then the car got very unstable and I had to come in. I was a little surprised, because I didn’t think I hit anything. | |
 | Castrol/Degree AAR Racing Reynard Toyota Finished: 24th |
| P.J. JONES | |
| I don't know what happened to the car during the race, it was perfect this morning. We put a ton of front wing into it and it still pushed. The Castrol/Degree team worked really hard as usual, it's disappointing that the engine let go. We've had some bad luck lately but we'll get it together. | |
 | Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes Finished: 1st |
| GREG MOORE | |
| The last five laps were pretty intense. Jimmy [Vasser] and Alex [Zanardi] had both been having great restarts, and I thought to catch them, I'd have to have a good draft off [Scott] Pruett. Once we got the white flag, I got a good run into Turn 1. He took the outside and I took the inside, and I got a good run down the backstraight and was able to hold on. It was a pretty eventful day. I stalled twice in the pits, we had a problem with the pit lane speed limiter which caused that, but Magneti Marelli got that corrected and it didn't happen again. It was a great day for everyone involved on the Player's team. We were able to gain several positions in the pits thanks to their great work. It was a great way to shake the monkey off our backs after a tough last four races. [On the Handford Device] I think for superspeedways I'm a fan of it. It made for great side-by-side racing. Everyone respected each other's air today. I'm definitely a fan of it. | |