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T.E. McHALE: We will welcome now Michael Andretti of Newman/Haas
Racing who finished fourth in the 1999 FedEx Championship Series good
afternoon Michael thanks for joining us today.
T.E. McHALE: Michael's 1999 performance marked the 10th Top 4 Championship finish of his 16-year FedEx Championship Series career during a season which also saw him top the 100 point mark for the 14th time in 16 seasons. He also added to his CART career victory record by collecting his 38th at Gateway International Raceway, which allowed him to tie Rick Mears' CART record of 12 different seasons with at least one victory. Michael also earned his 32nd career pole position at Road America which ranks second all-time. He led the 6,000th lap of his career en route to a 4th place finish at Michigan Speedway, the first CART driver ever to reach that milestone. He scored 14 points -- he scored points in 14 of 20 starts and finished fourth in the series with 237 laps led. Michael is a two-time winner of the season opening event at Homestead having to driven to victory both in 1997 and '98. He finished fourth in the 1999 FedEx Championship Series with 151 points. At this point we will open it up to questions for Michael. Question: Looking forward to Homestead this year, you tested well, do you think you are going to become like Al Unser was at Long Beach the king of the road at Miami?
Question: At spring training you had the little pieces attached to the front of the nose of the car. Did you keep those or go back to a smoother nose?
Question: Did it provide any information that you needed?
Question: From your standpoint, the Lolas feel, at this time in the game, you guys had a quite best of testing, how different are they for you?
What we are seeing going back with Lola is that we feel that the other program that we had was a huge drain from our team, especially from the engineering standpoint because our guys had to do more than just make the car go fast. They had to make them reliable. They had to do everything. We really didn't have the support; whereas, with Lola, we have a factory, we feel, supporting us more. I think because of that it has freed up our engineering again to go back and just worry about getting these cars to go fast. I think that is a big relief on our team. Being with Lola has been more that way,; whereas, it has freed up our engineering resources again as the other one was taxing us. Question: Do you have any plans at all on attending the U.S. Grand Prix this year as a spectator?
Question: I don't believe so.
Question: Talk with your dad about possibly maybe driving with him later in the year, maybe one race?
Nowadays, it is so competitive it is hard to really break yourself up that way and I am just trying to keep 100% focus on my main job at hand which is winning the CART Championship. Question: What have all the years taught you and where have they put you in position this year to make another run for the Championship?
I feel that if I lack anything of speed or anything like that, that I don't have from the youth side, I think I can make it up with the experience. I think one thing experience teaches you is, hopefully for me, which has only been one of my critiques is patience. I am hoping that I can be a little more patient and wait for things to come to me. I think if I do that, I will be better off. Question: Can you explain competitiveness of -- you have been around it for basically a long time. How much more competitive is it going to get?
Now we are going into this year, it is like it is going to be more competitive. We are going to have to worry about the Penskes again. There is other teams, I mean, it is just going to be so incredibly competitive. Toyota is going to be much more competitive. It is just amazing. It amazes me every year. This year is definitely no exception. May be -- Question: What did you learn from watching your dad be competitive all the way into his 50s? What did you learn about that as far as maintaining, I guess, his edge?
Question: After what happen last year Michael with Greg and Gonzalez, are you concerned about track safety and what do you think can be done to improve it?
The goal is for 100% safety which that will never happen, but you got to always make that your goal and hopefully we can learn things from those things. I know what happened to Gonzalez now at Laguna Seca will never happen again because they are making the changes there on the track. With what we learned out of Greg's accident, you know, they are making the changes on the racetrack to make sure that that doesn't happen again. At least those things aren't being a waste, but there still has to be the goal of making every place and -- the race cars and everything 100% safe. Realistically, that will never happen, but that has got to be our goal. I think that is one thing that CART does look at very heavily is the safety aspect and, you know, they are always addressing it. I think -- when I look at these cars now and the race tracks from now compared to when I started, I mean, it is just incredible how far they have come. I am hoping another five years from now I will look back and say, God, I can't believe I even drove these cars that I am driving today. That is just the way it works. I think that we are all striving for that. Question: I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the sort of the renewed relationship with Lola. I mean, is it -- is it sort of like, you know, picking up right where you and the team left off or is it, you know, was there -- I mean --
Now they have their own new state of the art wind tunnel, things like that, that are going to help us. Those guys are racers. They really -- they know what it takes to win and they are going to do what it takes to win and that is a mentality, I think we are facing more on the other program -- we didn't have that mentality in the other program, but these guys are very hungry and they are racers and they are going to get the result. But to compare it to before, it is just different because it is different people. Question: Overall thoughts about the new car itself. It clearly appears to have the edge.
It is reacting like a race car should and that is the way it should be. Whereas, I think the last few years, we were fighting some problems there. Where it is nice to get back in a car and it react the way it is supposed to react. It has been really good. Do we have an advantage? Maybe a little bit. But I don't think it is as big as every everybody thinks. Question: I didn't hear the first part of Eric's question, but obviously whatever state the Lola is, you are transitioning again. Last year you were transitioning tires. Are you going to be fast out of the box? I mean, you have been in testing. And No. 2, are you a little disappointed that Chip decided to run the same chassis?
We have a big support of Lola which is really going to help us a lot. Am I disappointed that Ganassi has it? Yeah, very disappointed because if there is any advantage, well, one of our biggest competitors has the same advantage. Question: How many race wins is a Champion going to need this week and conversely how many DNFs or no-point finishes can you survive?
Question: Compare 15, 16 years ago to today, by competitiveness, that is the main difference?
Question: 16 years ago you probably wouldn't have recognized CART today?
Question: You and Greg Moore had some great races down in Homestead last couple of years. What is it going to be like starting this year without Greg?
Question: Over the past several years you have been very, very strong on the ovals, almost I would say dominating, especially in the race. Are you doing anything differently this year to bring up your level to the same kind of performance on the road courses?
I know Christian made some gains even just this week down at Homestead, so we feel like we are on to a lot of basic things that hopefully will help us on the road courses. I think we have been -- we are getting a little bit more competitive and getting more competitive on the permanent road courses, like Elkart Lake, for instance, we have been very good there, and a couple of other places. But it is the street circuits, as well, that we lost a little bit of hand on and that is where we are really concentrating hard on and trying to be more competitive because those have been -- there is some tracks that haven't been competitive where I used to be really dominant at. We just -- we have to try to learn what the other guys are doing and try to get to that point again. We feel like we are on to a few things that could get us there. Question: I don't think I saw you test at Nazareth yet this year. Is that why you have bypassed that oval in saving the days for road course testing?
They used last three days that we had and they went down to Homestead road course and ran Christian down there to hopefully learn some more things and they did. It was pretty worthwhile. We feel like on the ovals hopefully we will be competitive at Nazareth. We feel like -- we did run at Phoenix, I ran and Christian ran at Phoenix and we felt like we had a pretty good race car there which is a small oval which is similar to Nazareth. So we feel like we need to put more concentration on the road course and that is where we have been pushing. Question: Were you thinking of Toronto when you were just talking now about street circuits?
We have just lost a little bit of that side of it. I think it has to do with the way the cars have evolved and stuff and with the rules and stuff and I think we have -- we found some of the problems and we feel like we are on to -- I mean, answers to the problem. Question: The last couple of years you have really attacked fitness, it seems to me as an area where you can gain something. Is there anything similar with yourself as opposed to the car this year or that you were talking earlier about focus?
Last year I made way more mistaken takes than I would have liked. I just got to cut those out. I believe if I do, and if the team does as well, I think together we will win this Championship if we run a mistake-free year, I believe. Question: Have you kind of reviewed those mistakes or how do you come to grips with them?
Question: Did you do that in the off-season or are you thinking back to as the season went on?
I think my biggest blunder of the year to me was the one at Vancouver, just that could never happen again. Question: It was a lousy day?
Question: (inaudible) last four years seems like you have always changed something that you had a big questionmark going into the season, whether it was going to the Swift moving to Firestones, do you think this is your best shot in the last four years to win the Championship?
The Ford engine has just been terrific through all the testing and the packaging of the whole engine and being on -- being a year with Firestone now, we feel like that helps us a lot going into this year as well. So we feel are -- we are quietly very confident. Question: The longer your career lasts, do the offseasons seem to get shorter or longer?
Question: Are you surprised that the Forsythe team is having as much problem with the Swift as they are having or appear to be having?
Question: And why?
Question: Can you express in words what it is that you get out of driving a race car? You have seen guys get hurt. What is it that you get out of like driving a race car that makes you want to go back into it besides the paycheck?
Question: Like the last couple of years though, you know, who knows how many of your mistakes last year were mistakes by you or mistakes where you were trying to make up for maybe a lacking in, like I said, up here on the road course and things like that, is that what people don't understand sometimes about your sport?
Question: When was it when you came to the realization, like you said, a lot of people critiqued you in the past, if anything, you know, maybe sometimes you have driven too hard, too long, too quick, whatever, but I am wondering when did you come to that realization that patience pace or -- you can't be total --
T.E. McHALE: Michael, thanks for spending some time with us. Michael, thanks again for being with us. Best of luck in Homestead and through the rest of the FedEx Championship Series Season.
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