Race No. 4
Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix Presented by Toyota
Nazareth Speedway — Nazareth, PA
April 24-27, 1998
Raceday Quotes from Nazareth: | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda Finished: 2nd |
| ALEX ZANARDI | |
| Historically, wehavealways struggled a little bit on short ovals, but Ithink that withJimmy's and my performance today, we proved that wepickedthe right direction. The team has been under an enormousamount of pressure during the past few weeks and hasresponded very well. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford Finished: 18th |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| I just stood on it abit too early Iguess. I suppose given the cold tires I shouldhave been morecareful. But I spun it and that was it. It's abummer because thiswas another race we could have won. You don'tget that manyopportunities, and you hate to waste them. Youdon't want todig yourself a hole so early in the season, butperhaps Rio willbe our ladder back into the points race. | |
 | Miller Lite Team Rahal Reynard Ford Finished: 6th |
| BOBBY RAHAL | |
| The Ford engine ran great, it was just aquestion offinding the balance. We weren't quite therewith the car on theshort ovals yet, but I felt we learned somethings today andwe're looking forward to Milwaukee. The engineran beautifully,nice and strong. The track changes made it realdicey getting on(the power.) You really had to be careful. Ihad a great pit stopwhere we picked up a couple of spots. But thenon a restart Ialmost lost it. I got wheel spin and Zanardi,Vasser and Bryan(Herta) all got by me. Three guys got by me ona restart, andthat just never happens to me. I just couldn'tget the powerdown. That probably took us out of being ableto get into the topfour. | |
 | Shell Team Rahal Reynard Ford Finished: 8th |
| BRYAN HERTA | |
| The car improved and was real good during themiddle of therace. It was O.K. early. Then we just veryloose at the end.Our last stint wasn't a problem cause byexcessive tire wear.We were running fast toward the end of theprevious stint andwe had run even more laps during that one. Wejust lost a littlein the car, and it cost us some spots. | |
 | Budweiser/Ralph's Della Penna Racing Swift Ford Finished: 10th |
| RICHIE HEARN | |
| You've got to start somewhere.It's nice toget points, no matter how many, but I had afaster car thanwhere we finished. I just couldn't pass. I wasreally fast bymyself, but I was just O.K. in traffic. Iwasn't loosing any time,but I couldn't pass anybody. I was on the edgein traffic justhanging out. But it doesn't appear as thoughmany people wereable to do a lot on the track either. I reallyworked hard onkeeping my tires up to temp, because I've hadthat problembefore. I'm in that mode now that I need tofinish and get somepoints because of how poorly we've done tostart the season. Ican't take any big risks right out of the boxto gain a position ortwo early because I've had too many DNF'salready. You canonly have so many. So we start here, and we'llgo on. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford Finished: 11th |
| CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI | |
| I spun at the start of the raceon the cold tiresand ended up in the grass. Fortunately, Ididn't anyone oranything. It hard to pass people on this track,so I was lockedinto a fate of just holding position throughthe race and try to getsomething at the end. We had a lot of littleproblems with out pitstop times and radio communications and such,but we did thebest we could with where we were. | |
 | Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda Finished: 1st |
| JIMMY VASSER | |
| I actually feellucky that[making only two pit stops] worked out for us. At thetime I wasreally questioning the move. I don't think it was theright thing forus to do. We were forced into a strategy which wasthe oppositefrom what the leaders were doing. From the time Imade my laststop on Lap 160 or so [actually Lap 165] until therace leadersstopped, there was no yellow, so we were lucky. It[the strategy]helped us a bit with track position, but the risk wasmuch greaterthan the reward. If there would have been a yellowafter my laststop, I would have been a lap down with no way tocatch up.Traditionally, we have struggled on one-mile ovalsjust becausethe car wasn't consistent from beginning to end. Wedid somethings to find a bit more consistency and this givesus a greatplatform to build on. | |
 | Visteon Reynard Ford Finished: 22nd |
| SCOTT PRUETT | |
| [Retired from the race after an O-ringfailure from thefueling hose resulting in excess fuel beingdumped on thecar, starting a fire]: The car was handlingquite well. It's justunfortunate. I was hoping we could turn thingsaround here.The Visteon guys are working hard, it justseems as if this teamis stung with some bad luck. Here we just hadsome moreproblems with just some strange occurrence withthe O-ring.I'm fine, but it got hot behind me. I thoughtthe best thing to dowas get back to the pit because I could see theflame frombehind. I got back here, and all the guys gotright on top of it. They were very, very fast. It got put out, butit was a scarysituation. | |
 | LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group Reynard Honda Finished: 9th |
| TONY KANAAN | |
| I think it was a pretty good day for us. Our goal has been to try to finish in the top 10 in every race and we did the last three races. I am very happy. The guys did a great job in the pits and we gained a lot of important positions. On days like this you can make a lot of mistakes and I didn't. We finished in the top ten and I am very happy. The car was good. Sometimes it was loose and sometimes we had push, but that's the race. You need to justwork with the car and make changes. Everybody had a problem getting tire temperature because it was so cold. We did as well but we were able to control it pretty good. The car was not perfect, but I think I need a little bit more experience as well. It wasn't just the car, it was me also. I need to learn and that's 225 laps more I have in my career. | |
 | Arciero/Wells Panasonic/Duskin Reynard Toyota Finished: 7th |
| ROBBY GORDON | |
| We were a little too conservative with the setup at the start of the race. But we had a great race. At the end of the race, I messed myself up for the last restart. I got myself underneath Paul [Tracy], ready for the restart. I was not paying attention on the yellow and drove through the marbles and I didn't get them cleaned off of my tires. When we got back on the restart, the car jumped sideways and it let [Bobby] Rahal get up underneath both of us. But we had a great run and the Panasonic Duskin crew did a dynamite job. They did incredible pit stops and had a great race strategy, positioning me well in the race. We are not totally there yet on power but we have the reliability. When I go back to power in traffic I get jumped a few car lengths. However, Toyota is making big gains and doing a great job. We can now work on our chassis and Toyota can work on making more power. Getting the reliability on track is really the biggest improvement. Hopefully, we will make more and more gains before the next race; I believe we will. Look how close we were today, staying on the lead lap all day. We had a good run, raced a lot of people and passed some good cars. I am impressed. It's great to be on this team and to be back with my engineer, Kenny Anderson. We have a lot of depth and we understand each other. We knew we could not win the pole so we worked on race strategy the whole weekend. We knew going into the race that we had a good race car. It is great to race for a professional team like Arciero-Wells. You have to praise the team; the guys did a great job and gave me a perfect car. Cal Wells, Frank Arciero and I have been friends for a long time. The key is that if I get the tools to do my job, we can race. Cal is doing everything he can to get me the right tools to race and win. I appreciate that and all of the support Toyota is giving the team. I believe this is a top notch team and it is right on top of the ladder. It is great that Hiro is supporting me and my being in the car. He has played a major role for my being in the car. Cal [Wells] mentioned my name to him and he felt I was a good choice. He was excited when I got out of the car today. | |
 | MCI Arciero Wells Reynard Toyota Finished: 14th |
| MAX PAPIS | |
| I am extremely happy about the team results, today. If there were not a wrong call early in the race, I felt I would have raced at the front as well. We could have had very strong results, one-two at the front. The season is very long and we proved now we are going in the right direction. Unfortunately I did not get what I wanted but I am a patient person and I am looking forward to our future success. I want to congratulate Toyota for its progress. We still have to work very hard but we proved we are going in the right direction. If it weren't for a mistake, I would have been there too. I could have given more satisfaction to Toyota and MCI. We will just have to wait. We have to look forward to St. Louis. Rio is not a race where we are going to look as brilliant as we looked here. The best results will be in Milwaukee for us this year. We can have good races in Rio and St. Louis but we will do better at Milwaukee. At Milwaukee we do not up and down shift. | |
 | Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes Finished: 13th |
| PATRICK CARPENTIER | |
| [Carpentier hadbeen fighting off a cold, was also plagued with dizziness and dehydration duringthe race]The car was good. We ran with the leaders for most of the race. Had we nothad such bad luck in the pits, we probably would have ended up on the podium.It's unfortunate that they gave me the second black flag,because I didn't run over a hose. | |
 | Smith-Kline Payton/Coyne Reynard Ford Finished: 25th |
| DENNIS VITOLO | |
| Well, the backend snappedaway fromme once, and I thought that maybe it was me oncold tires. Butthen it did it again and I hit the wall thattime. So I don't knowwhat the problem was whether it was a tirepressure issue orwhat, but this is disappointing. My hand feelsgood, and I waslooking forward to getting back into the gamethis week. Theteam has worked so hard, it's just a shamewe're out early. | |
 | Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford Finished: 26th |
| ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | |
| For some reason wehad thecar too loose, and as soon as I started puttingthe power to thecar, it went loose. I felt it coming in Turn 1,but I didn't haveenough time to change my bars inside the car.It was just waytoo quick. It came loose coming out of Turn 2.It wasn'tanything to do with cold tires, because thetires had good temps.It caught me out, and then I spun out. Therewas nothing I coulddo. This hurts us a great deal. We didn't thinkwe were going tobe that strong, but we hoped to get a goodfinish which earnedsome points. Unfortunately it didn't turn outthat way. | |
 | Baan Software Davis Racing Lola Ford Finished: 24th |
| ARND MEIER | |
| The car was atfirstslipping out of sixth gear, so that I had onlyfifth gear to workwith. Then it won't stay in fifth and I wasleft only with fourthgear. So I had to come in. This place requiresyou to be able tokeep up because you get around so quickly. Withthe problems Ijust couldn't keep up. | |
 | Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes Finished: 3rd |
| GREG MOORE | |
| Thebiggestproblem we had came this morning when we changed fromourprimary car to Patrick's [Carpentier] backup car.It's a real tributeto the guys on the team, and a testament to them forgetting it alltogether. Basically, they had an hour to transfereverything frommy car to Patrick's. It's a good job for theFirestone sweep, butmore importantly, we leave here with the championshiplead. | |
 | Castrol/Degree AAR Racing Reynard Toyota |
| P.J. JONES | |
| I was just picking my way through the traffic and something went wrong with the rear brakes. It just kept getting worse and I almost hit a few cars out there. When we came in the pits the brakes completely went on the rear of the car forcing us to park it for the day. Nazareth is a handling track and my car was working great. TRD is doing a great job with the motors, we still have a little ways to go but we're getting there. | |