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©2000 SpeedCenter
CART Teleconference, August 1, 2000 |
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T.E. McHale: Good afternoon to everyone. Welcome to the CART media teleconference and thanks to all of you for being with us this afternoon. Our guest today is driver Cristiano da Matta of PPI Motorsports who earned his first career FedEx Championship Series victory at Sunday's Target Grand Prix presented by Energizer at Chicago Motor Speedway. Cristiano, good afternoon, congratulations or your victory and thanks for being with us today.
Cristiano's victory was the first for PPI Motorsports, owned by Cal Wells III in the team's six-year history in the FedEx Championship Series. Cristiano became the fourth different first-time winner of a series event this season, joining Max Papis of Team Rahal at Homestead, Helio Castroneves of Marlboro Team Penske at Detroit, and Roberto Moreno of Patrick Racing at Cleveland. Cristiano has finished fifth or better in six of his past ten FedEx Championship Series starts, including a podium finish of third at Cleveland in addition to Sunday's victory. With his win, Cristiano took over fourth place in the Championship. He heads into the August 13th Miller Light 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with 82 points, seven behind third place Gil de Ferran of Marlboro Team Penske, who has 89. The Miller Light 200, round 13 of the FedEx Championship Series will be televised on ABTC TV on Sunday, August 13th, beginning at 4 p.m. eastern time. With that we will open it up to questions for Cristiano. Question: Although you've been with the team a short time, this is the middle of your second season, you can see the team gelling like it hadn't before. When did this start and what effect has Cal Wells being involved in his other venture had on the team?
And since then, we've been improving a lot every single race, and since the race in Detroit, which I think was the beginning, middle of June, we've been running strong every weekend, on the Top 5, on the Top 3, like in Cleveland we were, always being fast in the practice sessions, qualifying sessions. So it's not from Chicago that we got that. We've been doing better since Detroit. For Cal being involved in other business, like the NASCAR and Atlantic Series, he knows what he's doing. He's a very smart man. He's not going to do anything that will compromise the other one of his teams by running another team.
It's not a whole lot different. I mean, the winning feeling is the same, you know. The feeling you get everything right. Your working is being rewarded, you know, all the hard work is being rewarded. So it's a feeling - I cannot say it's emotion, but it's a lot of happiness, but a lot of happiness.
And I ran really hard and didn't make any mistakes, the car was running good. When they finally came out of the pits, they were running traffic. I was running so fast, so I made some time over them, and they come out behind me. So those laps is the part of the day I remember the most.
They are very tough guys because they've been through a lot of bad moments. If you think way back in '95, '96, even '97, when the Toyota program was still starting, they had really all kind of problems, reliability, you know, all kinds of problems a new team would have. Then they had the problem they had like losing Krosnoff as a driver. So they've been through a lot of hard moments these guys. And now I think to be able to get a reward from all this hard work, all these tough moments, it's very pleasant for me.
The track definitely needs a few upgrades to support our cars and the speeds they are going now, on the safety part. I know they're being made, I mean slowly, but they're being made. But it's a wonderful track. On the driver point of view, it's a wonderful track.
I think the people come to our race to see cars that have 900 horsepower going around, you know, and going very fast. I think cutting the horsepower, maybe -- I don't think it's too much right now. I think we have good horsepower right now. I think the engines are very good. And I think what needs to be improved in our series is especially the racetracks. Some of the racetracks we go is some of the racetracks we used to go like ten, even five years ago. The cars are just going a lot faster. The cars, everything has been upgraded, but not the tracks.
I think in this point of view, maybe we can -- some drivers complain about the Handford device. I think we can make it little better to help overtake a little bit. I think the tracks are fine in this point of view. I don't know why people keep on saying there's no passing in our racing, but there is. If you watch the race, I'm sure you were able to see many passing. It's not easy passing. It's difficult passing, you know, hard work passing.
Today you have on the track cars that were going a second, two second, three seconds slower than the cars. They were going fast. When you have these huge difference on performance is when you have passing. On single seats, I am saying. On touring cars, it's not the same. But today you look at all the teams in the paddock, all the teams are good. You look at the drivers, all the drivers are good, which in the early '80s, it wasn't exactly like that. You had maybe three, four good teams, and like seven, eight good drivers. It's just the not the same as it is today. Today, there's nobody that is sleeping. Everybody is there because they worked a lot. They've won in other series, they were before they got there. Everybody is good, all the teams, all the engineerings, everybody on the crews, everybody is good. You know, everybody deserves to be there.
So I think in a team point of view, it will be good, because everybody will get to go home between races, which is not happening right now. I think overall the change will be good. Of course, California and North Carolina are very different places. There are some guys that like going to North Carolina; some other guys don't like it. Everybody is still making their minds. I just wish everybody goes because we have a very strong group right now and we are doing well. I think the many more guys we lose, the more possibility we break our momentum we have going right now.
We're in third gear through the keyhole, then we all the way down the back straight, all the way up to six again. Breaking at the end of the back straight is the biggest overtaking opportunity we have right there. Turn three is a third gear turn. Turn four, you can take it in second or third. It depends on how the rubber in the track is and of course how the races you're running at. Then turn four to the right again. Most of the people take that turn in second gear. Then you accelerate through gear second, third, you go over the bridge, the car jumps a little bit, the rear wheels come off the ground a little bit. Then you're braking to that turn, I lost the count, I think that's turn seven. Braking into that turn, you just brake, you don't downshift, hold the third gear in. On the exit of the turn, there's like an elevation change again. The wheels come off the ground a little bit again. You accelerate on third gear to fourth gear, coming up the hill into that fast left-handed at the top of the hill. We are still in fourth gear. There is a pretty fast turn. We just have time to put a little bit of power after that turn, then you have to brake to the carrousel. In the carrousel, you are in second gear. It's a very long turn. The car always tends to push a lot there. You accelerate out of second gear out of the carrousel to that left little kink before coming to the front straight again, and there you are. It's one of my favorite racetracks. I can say that it's Mid-Ohio and Elkhart.
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