CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 19, 1997

Richie Hearn

RICHIE HEARN: No problem. Glad to be here.

RICHIE HEARN: I know where he would be.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, yeah. I think it's pretty much a hundred percent certain that we won't be running the Lola next year. We haven't quite decided what we'll run, either a Reynard or a Swift. About 50/50 right now. But I don't know. The problem with the car, it's just a lack of balance, overall balance. It's never been a really evil car to drive except for maybe a few places, but it just doesn't quite get -- doesn't quite hold the lateral G loads that the Reynards and the Swifts can handle, so there's always a limit to our cornering speeds. Adrian has been having the same problem. What's strange is that Adrian most of the time runs a completely different setup and he has different tires, yet he complains about the same problems. We usually end up about the same spot on the grid. It's been very frustrating for us because we've worked very, very hard all year on the car, and the team has really busted their butts. I mean, the car is a completely different car than it was at the beginning of the year as it is now. We really haven't made -- we've made a little progress in the last little bit, but not even close to enough.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, right now John -- for Vancouver and Laguna Seca for sure I'll be in the Lola. The last race of the year, John has been working hard on a deal to run a different car on the last race to hopefully give our team and our sponsors a boost going into the off-season, which is always good. You know, he hasn't given up on any chance of running a different car. He's still working as hard as he can on it.

RICHIE HEARN: Yeah, it's been tough because, you know, we thought we were doing all the right things at the beginning of the year. John had a lot of test dates planned. We got three cars right off the bat; one test car, two race cars. Ford did a great job on the motors and everything this year. It just didn't work out the way it did. Unfortunately, we didn't have that crystal ball, maybe foresight, the Brahma team had to change. We stuck with it. We thought we could work with it. It didn't work out. We still learned a lot this year. There's always next year.

RICHIE HEARN: All right.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, it's been strange. Every weekend we show up at the track. We seem to have new parts on the car every race. We show up for the first session hopeful that it will move us up a few spots on the grid. Usually after the first session, it's quite apparent that it's not working out. For me, I still get the experience. You know, I'm still fairly new. Even though they don't classify me as a rookie, I only did three races last year with CART, so there's a lot of tracks I haven't seen. So I still get to learn a lot. You know, there's a lot of things still to learn even if you're running farther down the field. I still try my best every time and good things happen sometimes like this last weekend we tried hard all weekend and we got some points at the end, which was very satisfying.

RICHIE HEARN: Right now, I'd say yes. I don't know right now what details John has been working on. I mean, our main concern is with the car, what car to run next year. You know, it's so important to have the right combination and to be able to foresee the future, which we didn't do too well this year. But Ford has been right up there. No problem with the power with Ford. So we haven't had any problem with that. Goodyear has been working very hard on the tires. You know, right now I couldn't see any changes.

RICHIE HEARN: Yeah, it's disappointing. It's been a long time, probably since I ran the Formula Renault series in France since I actually showed up for a race and actually you already had the mind set of you know you're not going to win. It's tough to do. It's also tough for the guys on the team. We have a lot of good guys on our team that come from winning teams in CART. It's frustrating for them as well. But, you know, this is what we have. We have to do the best we can. You can't always be negative about it, otherwise it just makes the situation worse.

RICHIE HEARN: Of course. If you stop learning, you probably should be doing something else, I think. I mean, no matter how good you are, you're always going to learn something. You know, anything we learn this year will help for next year in the future. Like I said, there's a lot of tracks that I haven't gotten to see before this year, so I got some experience. So next year I can really run strong, I hope.

RICHIE HEARN: John, he's gone down to the factory. He's looked at the cars and he's talked to them. But I actually haven't even gone over there and looked but I probably should because I'm curious to see what they look like because they have done well this year, I think.

RICHIE HEARN: No, not at all really. I mean, this is where I've always wanted to be since I went to my first race at Long Beach Grand Prix when I was a kid. These are the people that I've wanted to race against for a long time. You know, we had some success in the IRL, it's always nice to run up at the front, but I think it's more satisfying for the challenge we have here in CART, how competitive it is. Even though it's disappointing to run farther in the back, I know it has to do with the car; not us as a team. You know, I'm just looking forward to next year when we'll have, I know for sure, more competitive equipment. We can really run up front. Then I'll be really satisfied.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, for the conditions that were out there, I wasn't too surprised to see a lot of people go off because, you know, it's just the nature of the track. The guys are running hard. It's getting near the end of the year. People are going to fight for more points, things are going to happen. But I was actually surprised how well we ran in the difficult conditions. The car, I really actually enjoyed the race, racing out there, for first time in a long time. I had some good races with some good drivers out there. The car never did anything really bad on me during the race. Even in the wet, it wasn't too bad. It was nice to see a checkered flag. Like other people, I was close to running out of gas. I had a good time out there this weekend.

RICHIE HEARN: Yes. Last five or six laps, I really had to conserve fuel. I think I only finished with about a gallon left. Unfortunately, with the track being so long and there's quite a few high G-force corners, it would be easy to pick up some air and be easy to run out of gas there.

RICHIE HEARN: You're welcome.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, you know, I think we ran good in spring training and then a test at Laguna Seca, preseason test. Everybody was saying that the Lola might not be too bad. I think that the car actually just peaked right away and it really kind of gave us some false optimism. When we finally showed up at the races, we really got kind of blown away a little bit. I don't think we've ever done anything wrong, no. We've got a great team. You know, we've proven we can run strong. It's just unfortunate the car wasn't really there for us. You know, Tasman had the same problem. They won some races last year, and right away they were running in the back with us. I'm sure it's just as disappointing for them. It's just the way things work out sometimes.

RICHIE HEARN: I think, you know, the Lola chassis was just designed wrong. I mean, Reynard didn't change much on their car from '96 to '97. They changed a few things, because they had a pretty good car. I think Lola had a good car, too, in '96, but I think they just changed too many things and they weren't for the right things. The car just was, I think, just a bad design, unfortunately. We've changed a lot of things on the car, like I said earlier. The car is completely different now than it was at the beginning of the year, and it really hasn't improved that much as far as up the grid in the qualifying order. May be a little bit better to drive, but as far as speed goes, it really hasn't improved that much.

RICHIE HEARN: Yeah, unfortunately.

RICHIE HEARN: You're welcome.

RICHIE HEARN: No. We haven't had any problem this year. I mean, they've made parts -- we had some stuff made right after Mid-Ohio and received them right before Road America. We haven't had any problem that way at all. They've been pretty accommodating. They are trying just as hard. They're just as disappointed as we are about their product and they're trying just as hard to fix it. So they've been pretty busy over there.

RICHIE HEARN: I personally didn't notice it. We had some parts made. A lot of stuff we have done ourselves. We're not completely relying on them.

RICHIE HEARN: I don't know. It's always been a difficult track, even when I ran Atlantics there. It just has a lot of high-speed corners and the chicanes are tough to get through without making a big chance. For me, as it has been the last couple races, it's just a matter of keeping your nose clean and passing a little bit at a time. It will be my first time running an Indy car there, so it will be hard for me to know where I'm going to be able to pass. But it always looks like a tough race.

RICHIE HEARN: Yeah. A few races ago, they had a layout of the track, they showed all the drivers, and Greg Moore was pointing out, because he's been involved with that, pointing out where the changes were. It looks like it's going to turn into a really good racetrack with some good passing zones. I think everybody's really excited about having a new circuit up there, and still being in the same area, too, because it's a great place to race.

RICHIE HEARN: Okay.

RICHIE HEARN: Well, yeah, they have, you know, questioned us whether we were going to be with them next year. I know that this is the future of their company, it really is in CART, to design cars. Unfortunately we can't as a team afford to take that chance again because it can put you out of business pretty quick. So we won't be there next year. But I think -- I'm pretty sure they'll be designing a car from everything they learned this year. Maybe they'll field their own team or something like that. I don't know what their plans are.

RICHIE HEARN: Not at this point. I've taken quite a beating this year, so, you know, I don't know if I'd really be up to doing that. I think I want to look forward and try something new. It's really beat our team up quite a bit. I don't see that happening really. But you never know. I never know what John's got planned.