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©1999 SpeedCenter
Greg Spotts interviews CART rookie Luiz Garcia Jr. |
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Introduction: Introduction: Speedcenter caught up with rookie driver Luiz Garcia Jr. moments after he qualified in last place at Long Beach on Saturday, over four seconds behind pole sitter and fellow Brazilian Tony Kanaan. Garcia, who is about to turn 28 years old, finished 12th in the final Indylights points standings in '98, winning from the pole at Cleveland and taking third at Portland. Garcia moved up from Indylights due to a last-minute sponsorship agreement with Tang, the timing of which eliminated the possibility of significant preseason testing. He discussed the challenges of making the adjustment to the bigger more powerful Champ cars, staying motivated in the face of adversity and "finding the limits between the walls" of Long Beach. Garcia did not finish Sunday's race, spinning in turn 11 on lap 17 and then retiring on lap 28 after an off-course excursion. Question: How's it going Luiz?
Every time I go out it keeps getting better but we're still a bit far away from what we can do. We also had two problems with engines, engines and gearboxes which cost us important track time. I know it was going to be tough for the first five races when I got the deal. After Rio we're going to have time to test, so we're going to concentrate on getting everything better for the last fifteen races.
Japan was good experience to do the whole race there. I was eighteenth, and then we ran out of fuel and finished nineteenth. But I learned a lot, so the mileage was important. And that's what I believe I can get out of this race is the experience, the mileage. To see how the race develops, how is the start, how are the pit stops, how do we play with the tactics. When we finally have time to get a lot of testing, we can concentrate on trying to get points and good results. We can do it. We had a day and a half at Homestead and we did pretty decent times in testing. We had problems in the race but we did it. So we need testing and we'll get up there.
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