Race No. 3

Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
Long Beach — Long Beach, California
April 16-18, 1999

Second-year driver Tony Kanaan threw down a challenge to his crew just minutes before the morning practice session: If I get pole position, you give me your watches. The twenty-four year old driver was only eleventh-quickest in practice, but backed up his big talk with a blistering qualifying lap of 61.109 seconds, good enough for pole position and a fistful of used watches from his crew.

The Long Beach Grand Prix is the first road course event of the young Cart season, and the tricky changeover from oval-configured cars was compounded by the short time available once the cars arrived at LAX from Japan on Tuesday.

Adapting to new conditions was the theme of the weekend, as teams were breaking in factory-fresh suspensions, brakes, wings, and engine electronics on a temporary street circuit that allows no preseason testing and features a new-for-ninety-nine complex of turns in the first third of the track. The consequences of offseason equipment choices began to show on Saturday as cracks appeared in the equipment parity seen at Homestead and Motegi.

Honda and Ford-powered Reynards dominated the qualifying today, capturing eight of the top ten positions on the starting grid. Second place qualifier Dario Franchitti raved about his motor: "Driveability is excellent. Honda did a great job." Third place qualifier Bryan Herta explained the engine challenge posed by the final turn: " Itıs a tough thing: the hairpin's less than 30 miles an hour and to try to get 800 horsepower down to the ground from 30 miles an hour is a pretty tough job. The Ford's drivability has been good and the top speed's been excellent."

Often superior in qualifying, the Mercedes-Reynards of the Players team were having trouble with the smooth application of power, with Moore qualifying seventh at 61.796 and his teammate Patrick Carpentier in seventeenth a half-second slower. "We're happy with our chassis right now, but we have catching up to do in the engine department" Moore reported. "Mercedes has done a lot of work but the others (Honda and Ford) have kept one step ahead."

Meanwhile the improvisation al Patrick Team continued to excel, as last-week's winner Adrian Fernandez abandoned his two-year-old Reynard to debut the '99 Swift in sixth place, embarrassing the Newman Haas team who couldn't crack the top ten despite having more experience with Swift than any other team. Team Gordon is the only team still substituting an old Reynard for their new Swift, and the gambit did not pay dividends with Robby qualifying in 21st position.

The Grid