Race No. 2
Budweiser 500
Twin Ring Motegi — Motegi, Japan
March 26-28, 1998
Sunday Quotes from Motegi: | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda |
| ALEX ZANARDI | |
| Coming out of Turn Four, I was following the car ahead of me closely and I lost down force to the front end. I kissed the wall and thought I'd be okay, but when I came to Turn One, the suspension fell off. | |
 | Marlboro Penske Mercedes |
| AL UNSER, Jr. | |
| Firstoff, I'd like to say how proud I am of my guys.They gave me a great car today and our pit stopswere excellent. I was really happy to finallylead a lap for the first time in over a year; itwas a weird feeling. The last restart was set upfor a good old Saturday night sprint car race. Itwas one of those deals where if I could havegotten around Adrian, he would have had problemsgetting back by me. But Adrian was expectingthat, and he was prepared. It was great to bethere, and it's great to be here. | |
 | Valvoline/Cummins/Craftsman Special Walker Racing Reynard Ford |
| GIL de FERRAN | |
| I'd like to thank Honda forbringing a CART race here to Japan, for giving mea great engine today, and for putting together afantastic facility such as this. I was tryingreally hard to bring home a win for Honda at itshome track, but it was not to be. But things bodereally well for the Valvoline/Cummins team. Nextweek, we go to Long Beach, a track where wetypically do well. Hopefully it's [a victory]just a matter of time for us. There was a lot ofovertaking going on throughout the race. I washoping to challenge Al and Adrian late in therace. Unfortunately, there were a few too manycars between me and Al. It was a great racethough, and I hope the fans enjoyed it. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| We really had a great car today. It was so good that we might have been able to lap the field. We had to work hard to get the set-upfor the car here. I had a big question in my mind about the car before the race and fortunately it was answered. It's a shame we ran out of fuel. They waved me out of the pits and all of the fuel hadn't gotten into the car yet. When we calculated the amount of laps we could run on that fuel, we based it on what we thought went into the car and miscalculated.We were one lap short and it lost the race for us. It's a team effort and I've made my share of mistakes. | |
 | Miller Lite Team Rahal Reynard Ford |
| BOBBY RAHAL | |
| I'm really disappointed. Our engineers gave me agreat race car today. I had a car that was onrails. Thank God for the safe cars in CART. Itwas a wild ride. The car was awesome. I don'tknow why I hit the wall. I was on my normal lineand the car went straight to the wall. I don'tknow if something broke or what. We were in aposition for a podium finish. They knew we werehere today. The crash must have been morespectacular from the outside because thingsweren't too bad for me. A lot of things wereflying around but I was okay. The CART safetyguys were right on the scene. They did atremendous job too. I'm just mad because that'sthe best oval car I've had in several years. Iknow this is the 'Rahal's Last Ride' tour butthey can't get rid of me that fast. | |
 | Budweiser/Ralph's Della Penna Racing Swift Ford |
| RICHIE HEARN | |
| The car felt good to me all weekend. We worked on race set-ups during the practice sessions. When we were ready to go for speed, the rain started. We knew starting from 21st would be tough, but we were optimistic about the race. It's unfortunate we couldn't finish better for Budweiser here. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford |
| CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI | |
| At the beginning of the race, the tire sensor showed the left front tire was going down but the sensor was wrong. You have to react tothose things though. I got back into the field and into my starting position before the green flag but JJ didn'tstand on it. I can't wait my whole life to start the race and I had to keep up with the guy in front of me. For all I knew, his car was breaking. You can't afford to loose five to six seconds. I got a stop and go penalty because I was in front of him at the start/finish line. It put us immediately one lap down. | |
 | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda |
| JIMMY VASSER | |
| I'm just real disappointed. At the beginning of the race the car was great, but after the first stopwe couldn't make anything work. We struggled with the car being loose, then stalled the engine, on our last stop. If I could have had the car I had at the beginning of the race throughout, we could have won. | |
 | PacWest Motorola Reynard Mercedes |
| MARK BLUNDELL | |
| We had a long day. The car was a bit short on gear and we ran out of revs. At the beginning of the race, the car was unbalanced andwe suffered from a lot of push. The guys made some changes to the tire pressures and that corrected the problem. Towards the end of the the race the car was a lot more consistent. On the last lap we were running in ninth position and I got pinched down low between turn one and two and that allowed Ribeiro to get around. That's racing. | |
 | Visteon Reynard Ford |
| SCOTT PRUETT | |
| The car was loose at the start of the race. I made some adjustments from the cockpit and the Visteon crew made some changes on the first pit stop that helped some. But we developed a push and then in the end we experienced an engine problems | |
| LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group Lola Honda | |
| TONY KANAAN | |
| I am very happy,. This is my first finish and I am the highest finishing rookie. It was a day of firsts for me — first pit stops, first restarts, first checkered flag. My arms are really tired, but it feels good to get a race under my belt. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| We just didn't get it right. The car understeered all day. The problem developed during the race. We tried a lot ofthings: putting in more front wing. The car was just so far out of aero-balance all we could do was hang on. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| PAUL TRACY | |
| We just got killed in the pits. I thought I had fourth place when I got Greg Moore on the restart. Greg and I bumped wheels — my back, his front. Then I had to slow for a car in front andhe got me. | |
 | Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford |
| ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | |
| I want to thank the Patrick Racing organization, my engineer John Ward and the wholeTecate/Quaker State crew. They did a fantastic job all weekend. I also want to thank Firestonetires. The tires were very strong and what was great was that over the course of the race they gotstronger and stronger. Also I want to say thanks to the guys at Ford and Cosworth they did agreat job with the engine." I was sick this morning. I started feeling a little weird two days ago and then I started vomitinglast night. But after the warm-up session this morning the car felt so good and the adrenalinestarted pumping I just forgot about everything but the race. I guess I have to get sick every race. On the last restart, I knew Al's car was very strong. He was strong in turns three and four and Ithought I was stronger in one and two. I had a lot of push but, I wanted to make a big re-start. Thatwas the key. I took one and two flat and didn't lift in three and four. I looked and saw I was in front.From then on I felt the race was ours. At the start I was a little nervous. I was remembering the last time I was along side JimmyVasser ('96 U. S. 500 Vasser and Adrian were on the front row and had an incident on the paradelap that knocked Adrian out of the race) and I just wanted to make sure that something like thatdidn't happen again. I haven't started form the front row in a while so I talked to Scott (teammateScott Pruett) before the race. I came to the start/finish line with momentum and I was strong inturns one and two. That gave me a lot of confidence for the race | |
 | Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes |
| GREG MOORE | |
| Paul is a brave guy because he passed me on the {last] restart by going really high on the outside, but I had a goodrun at him with two laps to go in Turn 3. He squeezed me, but I didn't back off and my nose touched hiswheel. With one lap to go, we were both stuck in traffic, but I wasable to pass him because I was faster coming out of Turns 3 and 4. | |