Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda
ALEX ZANARDI
I'm pretty happy because my expectations were not that great for this track because of our past experiences here. We modified the car a bit today so I feel a little more confident. If we can improve the balance I can see a lot of speed for us.

	Marlboro Penske Mercedes
AL UNSER, Jr.
The car is not handling at this point. I think it's pretty obvious we're struggling badly. I can't really be more specific because we really don't know what the problem is. All I can say is it'll be a long night in the OK-corral.

	Shell Team Rahal Reynard Ford
BRYAN HERTA
This is a tough track to get setup on. We've found that out. We keep working with the car, and I wasn't real happy with where we started. It's getting better though. I think Firestone has a good tire here, it's just setup wise, we are a couple of changes out of where we need to be before we can get serious and take advantage of the tire. Because if the car isn't setup right here... well, it's not your dream date.

	Hogan Truck Leasing Reynard Mercedes
JJ LEHTO
We obviously made some improvement in time from the morning session, but things still aren't where they should be. We need to get more out of the car. We're concentrating on race set-up for today. We were able to gain some valuable information from our test last week at Gateway, which should help us here in qualifying.

	Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI
I am pretty happy with the car and where we are. There are still a few things we need to do to improve for the race, but we were able to acomplish the kind of things you need to cross off the list early on. We had some longer runs in the afternoon, and a quick time in the morning session.

	Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda
JIMMY VASSER
We had great practice sessions here in our recent testing, and we still feel pretty good about things, but we did have a tough time today. We had some miscalculations this morning and this afternoon we lost a right front wheel bearing. The times don't look all that great but we're still confident.

	Bettenhausen Racing Alumax Aluminium Reynard Mercedes
HELIO CASTRO-NEVES
Tom Brown (engineer) is amazing, not only him but Tony (Bettenhausen), too. The car feels great, very good and very fast. For today, we did a good job. But tomorrow we'll have to check the condition of the track and the car. It may be sunny, or it may be cloudy, so it could change. We'll have to see. Tomorrow is the important day.

 

	Hollywood Reynard Mercedes
MAURICIO GUGELMIN
I'm pretty happy with the way the weekend has started. It's our first race of the year with the '98 car, so in some ways, the season starts now. We're getting there. The balance of the car was pretty good. I had a hard time with traffic in the morning, but we had a good baseline setup to work from and we keep making improvements. It's nice to be back up front where we belong.

	PacWest Motorola Reynard Mercedes
MARK BLUNDELL
In the morning, we concentrated on getting the car set up for the race by running with a lot of fuel. In the afternoon, we could have had a better session. Because of a small problem with gear oil, we lost a lot of track time and that was costly. We're still sorting out the car so we can manage the handling across the bumps. I'm glad to be in the '98 car, the Mercedes engine feels good and we just came off a good test at St. Louis. Basically, I think as we get more track time in the car we'll be where we need to be. I'm encouraged. We'll be reay for a better day tomorrow.

	Visteon Reynard Ford
SCOTT PRUETT
We had a loose car. We couldn't find the problem, and then fortunately we did. It was an issue with a couple of components on the car and we didn't know what happened to them. Fortunately, we found the problems right at the end of the session. So tomorrow we are confident that we can come out and make some more improvements to the car.

	LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group Reynard Honda
TONY KANAAN
Racing Champ Cars on a one-mile oval will be another new experience for me. We have raced on a superspeedway, a mile-and-a-half oval and a road course, but this will be the most difficult race for me. Traffic will be a factor and it is very easy to lose a lap.

	Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes
PATRICK CARPENTIER
This is the first time we drove the car with larger rear wings and we were a little lost this morning. I'm getting better and better at reading the car and communications with Lee (Dykstra) my engineer are thereby much improved. The car this afternoon was much much better. Even though this morning's session was so so, we decided to drive with a full load of gas as this is our first run on a short oval and we wanted to put in as much time as possible. The car was not as fast as we wanted at first, but things got better.

	Castrol/Degree AAR Racing Reynard Toyota
ALEX BARRON
We learned a lot about the set-up today. We have a few new things to try tomorrow before we qualify. I think we have a good car for the race, but we need to concentrate on getting a decent qualifying position because it's really hard to pass on this track.

	Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford
ADRIAN FERNANDEZ
We made some big improvements from this morning when the car was very unpredictable and didn't feel balanced at all. But we didn't panic, just went back to basics. We were too aggressive with the initial setup, so we changed our strategy to more of what we've run before, and the car is better for it.

	Baan Software Davis Racing Lola Ford
ARND MEIER
It's too bad we lost most of our practice time. I really don't know what happened. There was no indication of a problem (gear box) during the morning run. At least we got a chance to go out for a few laps.

	Castrol/Degree AAR Racing Reynard Toyota
P.J. JONES
We've been loose since we got here. We finally got a pretty good handle on the car with about ten minutes left in the session. We were only able to test a half day here this year, so I think that hurt us a little. Hopefully we'll have a better car by tomorrow.

	Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes
GREG MOORE
I'm really pleased with the way it's gone so far. We didn't test at all in the short oval configuration. The only real oval testing we did was in Homestead Speedway. I'm pleased because we came here with a pretty good idea of where we wanted to be in the car and we've just changed a few things, not really too much so we're pretty confident. Our Player's team is not working on a one lap car but on a solid race car. The traffic is really where you win on these short ovals. There was less traffic this afternoon because of the two sessions, but even at that on this short track, no matter where you are, you're always in somebody's air!