JOHN FORCE No. 2 at DOLLAR GENERAL FOUR-WIDE NATIONALS
CHARLOTTE (April 20, 2013) – John Force and the Castrol GTX Ford Mustang team came out of the pits swinging today at the 4th annual Dollar General NHRA Four-Wide Nationals qualifying No. 2 with a 4.039 second run at the Funny Car event top speed of 316.08 mph. All four John Force Racing race cars qualified for the once a season four-wide extravaganza at Bruton Smith’s Bellagio of Drag Strips, zMax Dragway. Rookie Funny Car driver Chad Head was the No. 1 qualifier, the first of his Funny Car career, with a 4.014 second pass in the opening session under optimal conditions.
John Force made the highlight run in Funny Car to start the day for JFR but Brittany Force in her four-wide debut also turned some heads with a constantly improving Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster. The rookie driver opened the day with a 3.839 second run and followed it up with a 3.836 second pass in the second and final session. At the end of the only day of qualifying the rookie driver was pleased to be the No. 9 qualifier, her highest starting spot in her young career.
“We only got two runs and coming into the race we were hoping for the four qualifying runs to get used to four-wide. We were consistent both runs and we improved on our last run which is always good. We are moving in the right direction. In my canopy I don’t have much side vision but it is definitely a lot louder,” said Brittany Force, a quarter-finalist at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals two weeks ago.
“For me staging is just so different. My first run today I was in lane one which is the furthest lane on the left and it was pretty easy since the Christmas tree looked like it normally does. You are just waiting on three other cars to pull in. The last run I was in lane three which is the lane second from the right and I got a little confused for a second. The two runs were enough to get me comfortable though. I am looking forward to going some rounds tomorrow hopefully.”
In the first round of Top Fuel Force will face off with No. 1 qualifier Shawn Langdon, No. 8 qualifier Tony Schumacher and No. 16 qualifier rookie Sidnei Frigo.
“I am just going to go up there and do my same routine. It doesn’t matter who is in the lane next to me or the three lanes next to me here. I am excited to be racing a fellow rookie, Schumacher and Shawn Langdon. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
Going into the second session today the three John Force Racing Funny Cars were in decent positions considering there were seventeen Funny Cars trying to get one of sixteen spots but with only two shots to qualify they all knew anything could happen.
Robert Hight was the first JFR Funny Car driver to try and improve his position. At the time of his run he had slipped to the No. 15 spot and was running with Johnny Gray, Dale Creasy Jr. and fellow Ford driver Tim Wilkerson. His spot in the show was far from secure and as Hight’s Auto Club Mustang powered down lane number four is began to drop cylinders before it shockingly exploded and blew the carbon fiber body high into the air.
“It ran 6.13 in the first session and more than likely that will not keep you in the show. There are too many good Funny Cars here. This is a little different ballgame because we are four-wide so you don’t know who is behind you that could still bump you out. You are trying to figure all that out in the water box. I just went up there and did my burn out and knew I needed to make a good run. I hit the throttle and it instantly goes to the right and I knew it had a cylinder out,” said Hight.
“The last few runs it has done that it has gone right down the race track. It doesn’t even put a mark on a piston. I am fighting it back to the left then all of a sudden it puts a cylinder out on the left side and it goes towards the center line but I get her straightened out. Everything is good but the motor didn’t sound right without a doubt. I didn’t know if I was qualified and I had to stay with it. It just blew up. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. It was obviously a malfunction.”
“If it would have just had one cylinder out at the hit that thing would have motored down there like it has done the last ten runs. There was some sort of malfunction and we will fix it tonight. We will be back up there tomorrow in the ball game trying to defend this four-wide title.
The NHRA released a statement after the incident stating that the Mustang carbon fiber body landed in a walkway in front of the eastside grandstand. As a precaution two fans were evaluated and released by paramedics on-site.
Veteran driver Johnny Gray missed the show and Hight settled into the No. 16 spot with a final run of 4.879 seconds.
After the debris was cleared from the race track Courtney Force and John Force were next up in their quartet of Funny Cars. Courtney Force’s Traxxas Ford Mustang was looking to improve on their qualifying position.
“The races rained out on Friday so we were short two qualifying passes, which means we didn’t get to try out two of the four lanes. It’s unfortunate, because we didn’t make two great passes today. The car tried spinning the tires down track and it struggled early on in the second qualifying pass today. I feel like we’re going into race day blindfolded because we didn’t get to qualifying in all four lanes, but everyone else is in the same boat as our team. We’re going to have to go out tomorrow and do the best we can with what we do know. On the bright side of things, we got qualified, and that’s a plus because that’s not always guaranteed,” said Force the Mello Yello Funny Car points leader.
“We’re looking forward to tomorrow to see what our Traxxas Ford Mustang can do. I have to keep this car as straight as possible as a driver, really just focus and not be distracted by the lights. It hasn’t been bad so far. I’m glad I have my routine down early on. Ron Douglas has been doing a great job tuning my race car all season long. We went to the final round at the last event in Las Vegas so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again tomorrow.”
John Force was a few lanes away from his youngest daughter and his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang Funny Car did not improve and he will go into race day as the No. 2 qualifier and a first round match-up with Tony Pedregon, Bob Tasca III and Blake Alexander.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (April 20, 2013) –Gil de Ferran, a two-time IndyCar Series champion and winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500, will join Honda Performance Development, the racing arm of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. as a technical consultant and advisor, de Ferran and HPD officials announced Saturday at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Associated with HPD and the Honda Racing program since 1996, de Ferran won his first Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) Indycar race for Honda at the 1996 Cleveland Grand Prix. He went on to score another six wins and 16 poles with Honda power, and claimed the 2000 and 2001 CART Indycar World Series championships.
In qualifying for the 2000 CART season finale at California Speedway, de Ferran set a world closed-course speed record of 241.426 mph, a record that still stands as the fastest ever recorded at an official race meeting.
De Ferran won the 2003 Indianapolis 500, then retired from open-wheel competition at the end of that season. But he returned to racing, with HPD, in 2008 as owner/driver of an Acura ARX-01b sports car in American Le Mans Series competition, More race victories followed, along with the ALMS championship in 2009 driving the new LMP1 category Acura ARX-02a.
In addition to his success as a driver and team owner, de Ferran also served as Sporting Director for the Honda Formula One team from 2005-07.
“We’re thrilled to have Gil rejoin the HPD family as a technical consultant and advisor,” said Art St. Cyr, HPD president. “It feels like a homecoming for us, as Gil has played such an important role for the Honda Racing effort in both open-wheel and sports-car racing for such a long time. His skills and expertise are almost impossible to duplicate, and we look forward to his continuing contributions to HPD’s racing programs.”
“I have always had the utmost respect and admiration for Honda and its role in motorsports,” said de Ferran. “Honda has been a common thread in my racing career since we first worked todevelop their Indycar engines in 1996, which led to winning races and championships, followed by my time in Formula One and the amazing Acura ARX-02a. Throughout our long and storied history, whatever role I played, we have developed a great, successful, enjoyable and effective working relationship. I look forward to contributing to Honda’s efforts once again.”
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH INDY
STREETS OF LONG BEACH
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 20, 2013
MICHAEL ANDRETTI, OWNER OF ANDRETT AUTOSPORT THAT FIELDS FOUR CARS IN IZOD INDYCAR SERIES FOR DRIVERS RYAN HUNTER-REAY, MARCO ANDRETTI, JAMES HINCHCLIFFE AND E.J. VISO, met with members of the media at Grand Prix of Long Beach Indy. Full transcript:
TALK ABOUT THE MOMENTUM BEHIND THE TEAM RIGHT NOW: “It’s really doing great. We really focused on building on the momentum that we were able to get last year with the championship. At the end of the year, when we sat down and looked at it, we were pretty excited because we felt that there was still a lot of room for improvement within the team. I think we’ve made a lot of great changes over the winter affecting the results we are getting now. We’re pretty excited about it. I think one of the goals was to get all four cars competitive, more competitive. Ryan (Hunter-Reay) was the guy that seemed to stand out the most last year. So, we wanted to get more consistency with the other guys. I think we’ve improved there, and hopefully we can continue to improve that.”
TALK ABOUT THE PROGRESS YOU HAVE SEEN WITH YOUR INDY LIGHTS DRIVERS: “I’m really excited about them. They are doing a great job, both of them. Carlos (Munoz) if you watched him throughout the year last year he just got better and better and better. You just knew it at the end of the year that he is going to be a major title contender for this year. He is not letting us down, he has been quickest everywhere. Really should have won the first race. He had a problem with getting that penalty, but dominated the last race. We are excited about it. I think he has got a good shot at it. We had our first test with him in an Indy car at Texas and did an awesome job. I think he is going to turn a lot of heads when we get to Indianapolis this year. Zach (Veach) I’m really proud of. That kid just keeps getting better and better as well. He doesn’t have a ton of experience, but he just keeps working at it and getting better and better. I think our goal is to try to get him in the top three this year and hopefully win the championship with him next year and get him in an Indy car as well. Sort of do the same program that we are doing with Carlos. That is our goal if we can get it done.”
BACK AT BARBER IT ULTIMATELY DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE THERE WERE NO MORE YELLOWS, BUT I’M WONDERING HOW YOU FELT ABOUT JAMES HINCHCLIFFE JUST GETTING LEFT OUT THERE ON THE TRACK?
“Unfortunately, it’s just part of it. There is no way that they should throw a yellow just because a car is stuck on the track. That is just bad luck. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately you know what they say that is racing right?”
INAUDIBLE:
“I don’t know it may have taken more than one more lap. Just to help one guy, you have to worry about the big picture of the show. I don’t blame them for what they did.”
YOU HAVE A FOUR CAR TEAM PLUS YOUR INDY LIGHTS TEAMS. IN THIS ECONOMY A LOT OF TEAMS ARE HURTING TO GET SPONSORSHIP WHAT IS YOUR SECRET TO GETTING ALL THE SPONSORS AND GROWING YOU TEAM IN THIS ENVIRONMENT?
“Honestly, it’s just hard work. It’s not easy. It’s really difficult out there right now. One thing we haven’t let up on whatever we do if we are cutting budgets or whatever we are not cutting it on the R&D side. You have to be winning races. If you win race that helps a lot. That is one thing. Also, I think you have to look at the people we have within the team that are out there doing a job of selling and stuff. I think we have the best people in the business. We are very creative in everything we do. Not one sponsor is the same the way we do their program. You have to really listen to them and see if you can detail a program for them. It’s a tough complicated thing to do, but I think we do a pretty good job with it.”
SO MUCH OF THIS RACE ALWAYS SEEMS TO HINGE ON TURN ONE ON THE START AND THE RESTARTS. DO YOU GUYS TALK ABOUT THAT IN TERMS OF HOW YOU APPROACH IT OR IS EVERY DRIVER JUST DEAL WITH IT DEPENDING ON WHERE HE IS AT ON HIS OWN?
“Yeah, pretty much. Every track has got some things like that. You have to be careful. You know that it’s important to get a good start and get that pass in turn one because it is difficult to pass here. But then again, you don’t want to throw your race away taking too much of a risk. It’s a bit of a balance and it’s something that you just do as a driver spur of the moment. You just take it the way you feel it is. Some guys are more aggressive than others and they get away with it or they don’t. It’s just part of it. We try to tell our guys big picture. It’s all about points, but also I don’t want to say don’t go for it either because you have to go for it if you are going to win this championship. There is no sitting back and letting it come to you either.”
YOU TALKED ABOUT GETTING ALL FOUR CARS COMPETITIVE AGAIN MARCO (ANDRETTI) I THINK IS HAVING THE BEST START OF HIS CAREER. I KNOW IT’S ONLY BEEN TWO RACES BUT HE IS COMING PRETTY FAR IN THE FIELD EACH WEEK. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET HIM ALL THE WAY THERE TO VICTORY LANE?
“I think he has just got to continue to do what he is doing. He is really focused. He is really working hard. He is in the truck just studying all the data between all the cars and all the drivers. Just trying to see where he is weak and trying to improve that area and that is how you are going to do it. That is how all these guys do it. It’s no secret. It’s just a lot of hard work especially now because you are talking about hundredths of a second not even tenths of a second anymore. He is doing a good job. I think you can just see the progression. He knows he is not there yet, but I think he has definitely improved a lot. He has gotten himself halfway there. I think as the year goes on if he continues to work on it the way he is working on it I think he is going to be winning some races.”
I THINK YOU WERE LOOKING AT THE FT. LAUDERDALE RACE AS A PROMOTER IF YOU WERE CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE ON THAT?
“We are looking at a lot of different things. We did do some searching down there. It’s still a long way off if it were to happen. We are not giving up on it, but there is still a lot of work to be done there. We are also looking at some other deals that I can’t talk about, but hopefully if they were to come about it would be really pretty exciting things. We are always out there looking for new venues.”
MARK MILES MADE A COMMENT THIS WEEK IT WAS BASED ON THE BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP RECOMMENDATION OF STARTING THE SEASON EARLY AND POSSIBLY ENDING IT AT INDY ON THE ROAD COURSE. WHAT IS YOUR FEELINGS ON THAT?
“It’s a tough one. I think they have done some research and they think it could be fairly successful. They know better than me. If they feel that you know I’m there to support whatever we think we can do to make the series better. I’m okay with it. I think if you talk about tradition I think there has been a lot of tradition broken there anyway. I think we cannot forget that our core fans are in that area. If we can draw say 100,000 for that race that would be huge. That could end up being our second biggest race of the year. If those sort of things are possible then why not do it. As for starting the season earlier I think that is smart because there are so many nice areas that you can start. I think you can start the season in February. I think in terms of
competition on TV I think it is a lot better. You are not up against football. I think also though, we always talk about football. I think that is a bit of a cop out in some ways because I can’t say that some of our ratings are any better this time of year than they are later in the year. I don’t know if I agree with that 100 percent. I do think having a six month off season is not good, but I mean say if they were able to do a mini-series in that six months, say an international series I would be all for that. I think that would be awesome, which I know they have been talking about things like that. That to me would be something that I think all the teams would get behind.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE LONG BEACH MEMORY?
“That is a tough one because I have had great memories here. It probably has to be my first win. The first win is always special. The way we won it was great. Al (Unser) Jr. made us work for that really hard there. We just went at it good old fashion racing. I would say probably the first one.”
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT WE WILL EVER SEE ROAD AMERICA ON THE SCHEDULE AGAIN?
“I don’t know. I’m not the one to ask. I love Road America. I’m all for it if it can make sense financially for everybody including Road America. I think it would be great. It’s just one of the nicest race tracks not only in the United States, but in the world. I know there is not a driver out there that wouldn’t love to be racing there. There is not a team owner that wouldn’t want to be up there. We are all for it if it could make sense financially.”
CAN YOU GIVE US A SNEAK PEAK AT SOME PLANS THAT ARE IN THE WORKS FOR THE MILWAUKEE INDYFEST?
“It’s going really well. We are going to be adding another race. We are going to have the Mazda’s there, the Pro Mazda Series, which I think is going to be great. They always do a nice job on the ovals. We are going to really focus again like we did last year on the festival atmosphere so the infield is going to hopefully be jumping like it was last year. We are going to be adding hopefully some more new things and exciting things for people to do. We are working on the band situation which I think we will be announcing in a couple of weeks and some other exciting things. We are excited about it. It’s nice to have a little time to prepare and hopefully we will be a little bit better prepared than we were last year.”
LONG BEACH, CA April 19, 2013 – The palm trees go by very quickly at 170 mph whether it is in Florida or California. The American Le Mans Series moved from east to west and from the longest to the shortest race of the year this weekend. Guy Smith qualified on the front row for tomorrow’s ALMS race here on the streets of Long Beach. Smith qualified a solid second on the eleven turn, 1.968 mile course alongside one of southern California’s more famous beaches.
“After this morning’s practice, I knew the car was solid,” said Smith. “To beat the Muscle Milk Guys is good. It is always comforting to be quick in qualifying but especially here because of the nature of the weekend. We ran at 7:30 this morning and then did not go back out until after 6:00 PM to qualify. IndyCars have been on track all day and the weather is different so we are happy with the performance.”
Guy raced here in 1998 and 1999 in Indy Lights. “In ’98, it was my second street race and my second race in America and I ended up on pole. It was a very American experience: here you are in Los Angeles with all its history and Hollywood glamor. This is just a great event and this is what makes American sports car racing so good: you race on pretty much every type of circuits from wide open tracks like Sebring to street races here in Long Beach and Baltimore.”
On the way to Long Beach, Dyson Racing tested their #16 Mazda-powered Thetford/RACER entry at Willow Springs Raceway north of Los Angles. They ended up breaking the twenty-four year old sports car track record set by the Toyota GTP car. “We went there with our Long Beach set-up and were not optimized for the track, so we were pleasantly surprised,” said Chris Dyson, “I have been fortunate to have done it twice now – once at Lime Rock in 2007 and now at Willow Springs. It is satisfying because the GTP cars had a thousand horsepower and seven thousand pounds of downforce.”
Last weekend, Dyson raced at Silverstone with Michael Marsal in the combined World Endurance Championship and the European Le Mans Series weekend. “It was a baptism by fire with the Greaves Motorsport crew,” said Dyson. “Michael and I had not tested the Zytek and it rained the first two days we were there. We struggled in Saturday’s ELMS race but we learned a lot and carried that over into the six-hour WEC race the next day and we stood on the podium at the end of the day. That was a great accomplishment for the team in a race with such a deep field and very well prepared cars. This was the first time for Michael racing overseas and we came away with a successful result. We are looking forward to going back over to Europe and racing at Spa next month.
“Even though with my travel schedule I feel like I am in a time machine, our focus is on Long Beach and winning on one of racing’s more famous and iconic street courses.”
