Race No. 7
Miller 200
The Milwaukee Mile
West Allis, Wisconsin
May 29-31, 1998
Friday Quotes from Milwaukee:| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | PARTICK CARPENTIER | CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | GREG MOORE | PAUL TRACY |
| AL UNSER JR | BARRY GREEN |
 | Marlboro Penske Mercedes |
| AL UNSER, Jr. | |
| The chances are pretty slim that any driver would hit that wall in the same place, but it was decided to take the time and do it [the repairs] right so that we can have a great, safe race this weekend. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| We're very happy [with the top practice speed]. We had a really good test here a couple of months ago and we had high hopes that we had a good car, so we're very pleased. It would be nice to have a shot at the Marlboro money [the potential Marlboro Pole Award jackpot this weekend is a record $230,000]. It's getting nice and big and I haven't had a pole in awhile. The time I did today will probably be about 14th quick tomorrow, so we are going to have to make some improvements. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford |
| CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI | |
| I went into the corner and the back of the car got a little away from me. I just kept it wide-open thinking it would correct itself. Then, I ran out of talent. This was a bigger hit than Australia [where Fittipaldi sustained a broken leg last year]. I didn't pass out like I did today in Australia. I don't remember the accident. I kept thinking I was having a bad dream and I would wake up and everything would be perfect. The leg is O.K. I was worried when it hurt, but it was just because the brace [which Fittipaldi wears while in the car] scratched me. I'm happy to be here. I guess it could have been 10 times worse. We're here to practice a very safe sport, and hopefully they'll come up with some good sensible solutions so that we can race safely here this weekend. I'm obviously very disappointed, but I'm somewhat happy because otherwise, maybe I wouldn't be able to talk to you today. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| The problems we've had are just small problems -- nothing massive. I'm confident that Don (Halliday, chief engineer) and the rest of the engineering staff will sort it out. It's a shame we're not running this afternoon, but safety is the first issue and the track wasn't safe. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| PAUL TRACY | |
| I was very happy with my car. We had the opportunity to test here in quite different weather conditions and quite frankly we struggled. We had a lot of push so we made a lot of changes and they seemed to work out well. Towards the middle of the session, we started to bed in some tires for the race. Shortly after that, we did our quick lap, then Christian hit the wall. I think I was the last car on the track after it happened and I came in and parked it and said, 'I'm done for this session. I would have liked to have had some more practice time. But it's a safety issue and we need to fix the problem with the track and make it safe for the race. The car was really good this morning. We made some improvements since we tested here. The car is pretty well sorted out now, but we've got some more improvements to make. | |
 | Forsythe Player's/Indeck Reynard Mercedes |
| PATRICK CARPENTIER | |
| The Player's Team crew discovered something in the practice session that they believe may have been causing our problems the last few races. I'm anxious to see how it goes tomorrow. | |
 | Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes |
| GREG MOORE | |
| It's a shame because once again we ran out of time to develop a good set-up. Tomorrow, we're going to start with the back-up car in practice because the set-up was much better with the back-up today. | |
 | Team Kool Green Team manager |
| BARRY GREEN | |
| Not running this afternoon obviously affects our plans. We're quite happy with Paul's car; he's really pleased with the balance, but we'd like to see Dario a little quicker. He was unlucky in that he'd just put on a new set of tires to go out and set a new baseline, then we went yellow. So he never got to run a new set of tires. So we've got one driver who needs the practice and one driver who doesn't. What worries me the most though is the weather forecast; it doesn't look good. | |