Lee White (Toyota): Toyota is pleased with our progress this year, withthe RV8D. We've worked significantly on power delivery, torque,driveability, weight reduction, heat rejection and all the other thingsthat affect how the drivers and teams are able to utilize the engine inthis league. We've made significant progress, for those of you who've paidattention to trap speeds and the like, everything but finishes. And we'requite pleased with our engine. We've worked very hard with out teams toimprove their race craft. We're looking forward to podium finishes beforethe end of the season.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): I think, for us, Greg stole my speech.Basically, we're very pleased with the progress we've made with the engine. There's no doubt that we can't say anything else at this point in theyear, really. I think all of us get to try out parts and things during thewinter, and then put those things on the racetrack during the first half ofthe year. Then it's about improving the performance of those parts. Weknow that we've made significant gains, both in top-end performance and indriveability. According to some of our drivers, it's not enough, and we'vegot to keep going at it. So obviously we're still flat out on in, thedriveability side of things, increasing the performance of the engine andit's a tremendous battle, especially when you have people like Robertsitting next to me who've somehow seem to capture all the limelight, allthe time. So it's just a constant battle for us to just keep pushingforward and finding what the next weak link of the engine is. For us,driveability and road course performance needs to be improved dramaticallyfrom both our own and our team's perspective. That's obviously the area offocus for us.

Robert Clarke (Honda): Our situation is kind of the opposite of Greg andPaul's. We're extremely pleased with the performance of our teams and ourdrivers. In fact, we believe that is Honda's biggest advantage right now,the strength of our teams and drivers. On the other hand our enginedevelopment, if anything is behind schedule, we have not achieved thetargets that we would like to achieve this year, and we're workingfeverishly to achieve those targets within the season. So we're notsatisfied with the results so far - I mean, obviously we're pleased withthe on-track results, but we have not met the objectives we originally setout for this season so, we're still working very hard on that. It's mainlythe top-end power, we're pleased with the driveability, we've had very goodsuccess on the electronics side but on the mechanical side we're a littleshort of our targets.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): Drivebility is really about low-speed performanceon racetracks. You have to think of these cars as driving a reasonablypowered road car on sheet ice. Because that's about the amount of grip youhave a low speed and anything you can do to make the engine performancesomewhat of a linear relationship obviously tremendously helps giving thedriver the ability to drive the car. Because these things are incrediblydifficult to drive, any abrupt power delivery or change in torque isn'thelpful, and a lot of what we're trying to do is make this better. But therules are actually very restrictive with what we can do and can't do. Soyou're fighting rules problems as well that restrict you from makingcertain changes.

Lee White (Toyota): Certainly from Toyota's view, we consider it to beparamount that in the future there be one open wheel series, and that we beable to go to the Indianapolis 500 and compete. We are very willing toconsider almost any option, in rules, in order to achieve that, withinreason, that meets our marketing objectives, and the other reasons we'reinvolved: technological advancements and so on. But it's very high on ouragenda right now to try and help make that happen. The possibility exists.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): From Mercedes viewpoint, it's clearly veryimportant to get one series in this country and obviously we'd like to getback to the speedway to be able to continue the short tradition we startedthere in '94. But, it can't come at any price. It's very important thatMercedes compete in high technology series. That is one of our reasons forbeing here and so yes we are prepared to make some compromises to make thetwo series come together, and we're happy to take part in any discussionsthat are going on.

Robert Clarke (Honda): For the livelihood of the sport, it's obvious thatHonda feels the two groups need to come together. We're not totallydissatisfied with this series. In fact, we're quite satisfied witheverything other than the promotional side, the TV ratings and marketing.Honda also is willing to make compromises, as long as they are within thecorporate philosophy and the objectives we've set out for HPD.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): I think I would repeat what Robert just said.Basically, we're taking the approach of considering any form of changeswith a very open mind. We're happy to discuss anything but we're notcapable of changing everything that we've built up over the past four orfive years and just say 'that doesn't work anymore'. The way the enginemanufacturers work with CART and within CART, works very, very well. It'san extremely successful engine formula, and the way we interact with ourteams and provide engines and so on is extremely successful. To head offin a different direction, of selling engine parts to anyone that just wantsthem isn't necessarily the best way to represent Mercedes in this country.So it needs to be done with a little bit of rationalized thought, to getthe best answer to the problem and not just throwing engines about in theair.

Lee White (Toyota): Certainly from Toyota's point of view we'd prefer thesystem that we have in CART, because it helps us protect the technologythat we've been able to develop, and I'm sure that the other threemanufacturers here agree with me on that. We, Toyota, are involved youknow in the Atlantic series, where we have five approved engine builders wesell parts to that build and supply engines to 40 to 50 competitors inNorth America. We've considered and do think that if something like thatwere to be proposed as a, not as an alternative, but as a companion methodof doing business in a combined series we would give that consideration. Ithink it has some possibilities. But we would prefer to still be able tolease engines as well.

Greg Sprecht (Ford): That's a major sticking point, and leasing versusselling may come down to semantics. What we're concerned about is to makesure that we protect the technology that we now have, and the technologythat we will develop in the future. Having said that, there are ways toaccomplish that and we don't think that the lease versus selling is the'job stopper' in terms of putting the two series back together. We reallybelieve, as my colleagues have said, there is a way to accomplish thatwithout compromising the technology that we possess, and without drivingcosts in the series to the point where people who are currentlyparticipating in both CART and IRL can't afford to do it. If we can reachthat agreement in terms of the rules and if we think that it representsstability, Ford is ready to go out and design, develop and build acompletely new engine for that purpose.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): The problem isn't the design and the prototype,it's actually making enough volume to be able to provide the field withsufficient quantities.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): Equally, there are lots of ways of achievingparity as well. An individual manufacturer's engine, there are lots ofways of achieving parity without everyone feeling they need to build theirown engines in order to feel that they have that parity.

Question: Myself, over the last couple of weeks in talking to a lot of drivers,you get the sense that some kind of an agreement is close. One more thingI want to throw in here. I had a chance a week ago to talk to the Disneypeople, and they told me there is nothing planned there or next year, thatthere has been no indication given that there will be a race there nextyear at all.

Greg Specht (Ford): I'll throw my two cents worth into it. Certainly, Iagree with Lee. If we reach an agreement by Labor Day, we could have apackage ready by 2001. That's the first thing. But there is a sense ofurgency to 'getting it done' in order to accomplish that. And, are weactively pursuing it? You bet.

Lee White (Toyota): I hope you all understand that there may be somereluctance to go into too much detail. Please.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): Gee, thanks Lee. It would be very difficult,because obviously there's enormous differences between the cars, theengines, the performance of the engines, normally aspirated versusturbocharged. But there are obviously things you can do with the enginesto limit the performance of either engine - air restrictors and all sortsof things we'd all be agreeable to trying. But equally, there is theopportunity to adjust the speed of the car with aerodynamics. The HandfordDevice is a very, very useful device for actually slowing the cars down, aswe've seen here. And it's quite 'trim-able' to actually be able to get thecar whatever top speed you want it to have, based on the performance of theengine. And so if we can match our engine performance roughly on topspeed, or peak power I should say, between normally aspirated andturbocharged engine. Then trim the rest of the vehicle with aHandford-style wing, then you've actually got something there that can giveyou enough equivalency on super speedway style tracks to make it a viableoption for one year. I think it'd be very risky to consider it for morethan one year. And, as we all have said, given enough opportunity we couldhave (a joint formula) ready for 2001 anyway. So really we're only lookingat about a year.

Greg Specht (Ford): I guess I would follow up on what Lee and Paul said.Certainly, long term, none of us wants to get involved in that(equivalency). But, maybe taking a look at whether the glass is half-emptyor half-full, for 2000 it might be fun to go there and have the finalshowdown between CART and the IRL and have some kind of equivalency rule.Can you image all the controversy and the arguments and fun things thatwould happen around that - it might make for a hell of a race and a hell ofan event. The validity of it may be in question, but it might be fun.

Lee White (Toyota): In a lot of ways, we're just passengers on this train.Just like the rest of you.

Lee White (Toyota): Another thing the Handford wing does well is reducedownforce. So I think the reason from a team standpoint there wereconcerns about the engine were everyone thought there'd be so much drag youwould just have a very high duty cycle, with the driver's foot flat to thefloor all the way around the racetrack. Which, on a perfect lap, that'strue. But once the guys started running in the race, and start running inthe draft, the drivers are actually gear-shifting, they gain so much speedwith the draft down the straight they have to lift in the corners. So theduty cycle, form our standpoint, has been somewhat reduced. Certainly,last year, we saw great durability and great racing so we're all very muchin favor of that (Handford) system.

Lee White (Toyota): I think it's Robert's turn.

Robert Clarke (Honda): An open and free design formula.

Greg Specht (Ford): I guess that's a good way of putting it, Robert. Whatwe want to maintain is the ability to use our creative juices and ourenergy and expertise to push the envelope. And I think that is one of theconcerns that we all have, that it doesn't become so conservative that itdoesn't really generate that interest on the part of us and our engineers,and you, and the fans. That's a key point.

Lee White (Toyota): Certainly, we all want to work technology and prove ourengineering and grow our young engineers and compete with each other. Thisis a big part of why we're all here, not just the fact that we compete witheach other as companies, in the market place. And, if you posed thatquestion as 'what would we like to see', we'd all like to see what Robertjust described, what Greg just described. But I think we also accept thefact that there's going to have to be some degree of compromise, and we'reall prepared to go - some of us more than others in the degree ofsignificant compromise - but if you assume, and we've used this analogyamong ourselves. If you assume that Formula One is a "10" on a scale of 1to 10, and NASCAR is probably more than a 2 or a 3, probably more of a 3.5in terms of it's technology for people who really know about it. CART'smaybe an 8. We're hoping that somewhere between a 5 and a 7 is where weend up, and I think the 'other side' is probably hoping for somethingbetween a 3 and a 5. But for sure we'll have to see how those discussionscome out. The 'plumb' is out there: one unified competitive series withraces at the highest level in this country, the ability to export thatseries overseas, showcase it, bring back the fans, bring up the TV ratings,get some return on our investment and at the same time retain the abilityto compete among ourselves, as companies, both in technology and in themarketplace.

Paul Ray (Mercedes-Benz): Technology obviously is something that is excitingto a lot of people. Formula One is arguably the largest, most-watchedmotorsport in the world. It showcases very high technology, and clearlytechnology does sell. It creates a good image and it is very important toMercedes-Benz to be involved in a high technology series. We're currentlyinvolved in several high-technology series. It's part of our program, it'spart of why we compete in auto racing at all. And therefore maintaining acertain level of honesty where you can say 'this is our high technologyengine' and not report it as high technology when they're really not, isnot a marketing program we want to get involved in. So we want to maintaina certain level of technology, and would certainly hate to see thattechnology taken away in order just to compete.

Robert Clarke (Honda): It's been reported before, and I'll say it again:Honda considers itself an engine company rather than an automobile orengine company. And we pride ourselves on the expertise and technology ourcompany has. We like the challenge of showing that through our racing.And we basically entered this series because we viewed it as the premierracing series in North America. And that premier series should have veryopen and challenging rules. We've accepted the CART rules, they are ofcourse to a degree limiting, particularly in materials. But then open inother areas to allowing our engineers to explore them. And we have foundit to be a very big challenge, and we enjoy competing against ourcounterparts here. But as Paul said, it would be very disappointing to usto lose the ability to show that technology. We feel we are quite good atit, and to take that away, to take away the ability for us to express thaton the track, also takes away the challenge to our engineers, and that isvery important to Honda. We have three objectives to our program. One ofcourse is to win on Sunday so we can sell on Monday. But the others are tomotivate our associates throughout our company by being involved in such aseries that showcases high technology. And the third being to train anddevelop engineers in our company. So, the technology is extremelyimportant to Honda.