TELECONFERENCE

April 8, 1997

Parnelli Jones

P.J. JONES: Thank you for having us.

PARNELLI JONES: Thank you.

P.J. JONES: No, not exactly. You know, the first -- I think I was two weeks old, and I was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And, you know, I think the first pair of underwear I had had race cars on it, the bed you were sleeping in was a race car bed, so I didn't have much of a chance. Even though my mom and dad deterred me from, you know, trying to be a race driver. But, it's something that we chose to do. They definitely didn't force us into doing it. And, like I said, I'm very happy with my decision.

P.J. JONES: Okay. Long Beach probably is one of my favorite street circuits around. I think it's very conducive to racing. I think a lot of the places we go to on the street circuit are very hard to pass, including like Surfers or Detroit. So Long Beach I think gives a good opportunity for passing. Of course, you have the long straightaway, you know, down the front main straightaway which doesn't really tend to do well for us in our Toyotas right now, but there's a lot of opportunity to pass going into Turn 1. It's very wide. It does narrow up at the entrance. It's a track that you can really drive hard in. It's a pretty simple racetrack, but Turn 1, 2, and 3 are pretty tight. Last right, not much room for passing. But then, turn -- let me see -- 4 is very important to get off of because it leads on to the long back straightaway. It's a turn that's a momentum turn. Probably one of the most difficult turns on the racetrack. All the way down the long straightaway in the back, you know, you've got to be careful when you're breaking going into 5. It's a little uneven, a little rough, a lot of manhole covers down there. A fast right-hander going into a little short straightaway. The left-hander, a sweeping left, which is kind of a uncharacteristic turn for street circuit. It's kind of a wide, sweeping left that sets you up for the hairpin leading onto the front straightaway. In other places, the hairpin is very important because it leads onto the front shoot.

P.J. JONES: Good morning.

P.J. JONES: Okay.

P.J. JONES: I guess I'll go first then. Repeat your question one more time for me.

P.J. JONES: Yeah.

P.J. JONES: No, until -- at the beginning of this teleconference, I didn't know he was still famous, all these hall of fames. No, I didn't feel any pressure. I think it was more of an honor. I think it helped my career. I think any son with a famous father, their father didn't help them in racing. I think we definitely got a head start over somebody else whose father was not in racing. I think it was up to us to keep our -- it opened the doors, but we had to keep ourself in the doorway ourself. We had to prove our own talent. But, I think it kind of put a little asterisk next to our name and helped people to kind of watch you or to open up doors, and like I -- I never felt any pressure. I never thought it was any kind of burden. I never took it that way.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, you know, first of all, I didn't want them to be race drivers, my wife and I, because automobile racers -- let's face it -- is, you know, dangerous and when you have your own flesh and blood out there. It's a little different story when you're doing it versus you're having your child do it. But, you know, just like P.J. said, the kids get programmed right from the start. Their first toy they get is a race car, and it doesn't get any better after that. We had tried to push our kids into little league, baseball and football and ice hockey, and they did other things when they were young and everything else, but they didn't hold their interest. And, as soon as they got out of school, they wanted to go to a race shop and they wanted mechanical things, and they wanted -- you know, you could see that they had a mechanical interest. But, even with that, we tried -- you know, as a matter of fact, P.J. said he went to Indianapolis when he didn't know where he was at, actually. But, we tried to keep them away from racing in the early stages, but, you know, it just didn't work. But, you know, one thing about P.J., too, and he had to break a lot of ice. I know it was easier for Page, my younger son, to follow P.J. than it was for P.J. to break in. Because when you are a race driver's son - and Al Unser, Sr., had told me that about Al Unser, Jr., that he had the same problems. And he said, "You wait and see. You're going to have the same problems that I did." And, that's -- what happens is race organizations really, I don't know, they seem to pick on you because they come from that, so P.J. had a rough way to go in a lot of cases. And, you know, some of the veteran drivers wanted to take him out and show him how the cow ate the cabbage so to speak, and he went through a lot of that. He had a lot of controversy. But, all in all, when they first started racing, I told them, you know, I said, "You know, if I think you're, you know, you're not really doing well, then I'm going to be the first one to tell you." And they've surpassed, you know, all of my thinking of the, you know, knowing that they had some ability. Because P.J., I took him to the first go-cart race, and I think the second time we went out, he won. And, you know, so what could I say?

P.J. JONES: Well, you know, I think last year, you know, during the mid-season, I thought our reliability was getting a lot better. I thought we were making some small gains. Right now, I think we've had a couple bad races. In the last two races, we haven't finished and I've blown up in the beginning part of the race. You know, really, the problem being the engine that Juan and Hiro and myself have right now, they've done really no development on. They've put all of their eggs in one basket for the Phase III engine which Max has at the moment. Then, they had that problem with their manufacturing facilities where they had a big fire. That set back when we got -- when the other three motors were due to come in. We were not supposed to go this long without having them. You know, it's a tough question right now. I mean, you know, I think we have a very good race team. I think that all our guys are doing a great job. I think we just need some, you know, we need more horsepower, we need more reliability, and I think we can show how competitive of a race team we really are. I think that's what we're lacking right now. I got some reports from Surfers, some split times, and a lot of people said, you know, we were really fast in the corners. We got smoked down the straightaways, and there's just nothing you can do. You can't make up any time on the straightaway. And so, we're just kind of hoping, you know, kind of waiting for the middle and the end of the year and hopefully get the Phase III to produce a lot more horsepower and get us closer to what we need to have that way.

P.J. JONES: Well, I'll tell you, hockeywise, I started hockey when I was four and a half, five years old, played until I was 16. We won the California State Championship. Really loved it. I mean, it was a great sport. I think, you know, I was kind of the aggressive kind of player that maybe had a few penalty minutes in my day of hockey, but we liked it. It was kind of our game. There were not very many people from California played ice hockey, and I think it was a good place. It was better than I think -- football. I played ice hockey more than I played any other sport.

P.J. JONES: No, but I drove for Brian. We threatened to play a few times, but we never got out on the ice.

P.J. JONES: As far as what happened to the reliability, I don't know. I think really what's happened is the -- we've probably been asking our ourselves this question. We finished the 500-mile race at Michigan with the engine. We finished a lot of races last year with the engine. All of a sudden, the last three races - the Laguna last year, and then the first two races of the season - I haven't finished. And, you know, we really don't know what's up. I don't know if they're giving some bad pieces, some bad parts, they haven't been able to spend the time on the engines due to trying to develop the other engines. You know, I don't really know what the question is. I think they're really going to look into it because they definitely want us to finish at Long Beach because it's the race that they sponsor. They're really trying hard. They're trying to develop this engine. They've got a lot of work to do, and they'll try to keep us on the racetrack racing. So, it's not an easy task to, you know, to catch up to everybody that's been out there for, you know, four or five, 10 years, and they've really, with Honda in, you know, raised the limit to where you need to be.

P.J. JONES: Well, really, what it was is the decision -- what happened is last year, you know, our egos were not 100 percent competitive, and we were on schedule to run Eagles at the beginning of the year, and not knowing how they were going to come out, we, you know -- they didn't want to gamble on the Eagle at the first couple races. We were only supposed to not have the engine for one or two races, and definitely by Long Beach time, we were supposed to be in a new engine. So, it wasn't going to be a big factor, and I think they wanted the engine to go into a Reynard, you know, first. And then what happened was is we ended up saying, "Okay, we're going to start the season with Reynards also," but we weren't able to get our '97 car until Australia, and the new engine will not fit in a '96 car, it would only fit in a '97 car. So, anyway, there was really no decision to make. It had to go to Cal.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, I think back in the days we run, I mean, you had to be a little bit on the -- probably a little rougher than the drivers today. The reason I say that is you had to be more diversified I think because we had to run not only Indy Cars, but you had to run the dirt and you also ran midget, sprint cars, stock cars and everything else. Today, because of the sponsorship and all the importance and all that, you know, most of the Indy Car drivers, that's about all they do. And they do a lot of testing, and it's more sophisticated. And, of course now, in today's racing, you have, you know, driving schools and things like that, and you have a lot of different forms of racing, which you get a lot of, you know, tigers coming out of different divisions. I mean, and you have a lot of young, aggressive, very good race drivers that really don't get an opportunity to say. And back then, if you showed the talents that a lot of these drivers have today, you know, you certainly were, you know, begging you to drive the cars. And today, you can have a young, talented race driver that may never get a shot at it. I think that's one of the problems we have, because we're losing a lot of our talented race drivers to stock car racing because of that.

P.J. JONES: Probably the father that he was. I mean, really, you know, he made us do a lot of things on our own. You know, nothing -- I think in the younger days of racing, a lot of people thought we went out there and we just showed up at the racetrack, didn't really know much about the cars, just kind of went to school during the week, and showed up at the racetrack and somebody prepared our car. But, in the early -- when we were racing go-carts and sprint cars and midgets and all that sort of stuff, we were at the shop every day. As soon as school was out, we were at the shop working on our cars, staying up all hours of the night, you know, missing our proms and school functions to be working on the car. And, I think that was a great experience for us because we learned the mechanical side of racing. And, you know, in today's day, when you're on the Indy Car Team and stuff like that, they won't let me near the race cars. So, at least I have the knowledge to know what's going on, you know, to kind of look back and be able to find a problem and help the guys out with that. I think, you know, he was just a very good father, very supportive. I think he was a very good teacher. You know, I think just mainly the father side of it. Obviously, you know, his accomplishments, everybody can see, and I think we're very proud of him for that.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, probably --

P.J. JONES: Having us.

PARNELLI JONES: -- having two fine sons. Well, you know, in racing, you know, I'm kind of the guy that likes to see what's on the other side of the hill, and obviously, winning Indianapolis is, you know, the major league for automobile racing as far as I'm concerned. Winning there, you know, gives you a stature that you just, you know, it really helps you every place you go and certainly opens a lot of doors for you. And, by far, winning Indy, you know, has been my biggest thrill. I've had a lot of thrills in racing and winning a lot of different races with different kinds of cars and the championships and things like that, but winning Indy is really it.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, you know, it goes back to -- you know, Mario, we used to have a super team when Mario and Al Unser, Sr., drove for us. And, of course, Al winning Indianapolis a couple times for us in '70 and '71 and, you know, as P.J. -- when I started my family, well, you know, his heroes were Michael and Al Unser, Jr., so it's just kind of a, you know, a thing. I can remember when little Michael and little Al, you know, were racing each other when they were little kids, and so -- and P.J. was -- just about that time, he was just about hanging onto their cars and watching them grow and through their racing career. And obviously, that's, you know, kind of been his hero. So, I don't know, you know, when you're in a racing family like we are - I'm not just talking about my family, but I'm talking about all of our camaraderies and the closeness that we have in racing with our families such as the Unsers and the Andrettis, and many more that, you know, we're all kind of like a family. I mean, we fight amongst ourselves, but don't let anybody on the outside jump in or we all jump on them, you know. So that sort of thing.

P.J. JONES: You know, I think that why I waited so long to get into Indy Car, I went to GTP, I thought it would be a lot sooner. It was the way I went. I wanted to be with Toyota and stick with them. Just from the aspect of being here in Indy Car, I waited a long time. Yeah, definitely. And to be able to race with, you know, the people that I respect and that I had admired when I was younger, Ray Hall and Michael and Al and, you know, those are the guys that, you know, to me right now, you know, are the guys, you know, the class acts, the veterans that are out there that have been here for a long time that are not in trouble every weekend, and yeah, definitely, I think it's an honor to be out there racing with them.

P.J. JONES: Well, I hope it's not over yet as far as, you know, getting more polls and wins. It's very difficult, you know, and I think in talking this morning, I mean, we were just -- I think the most frustrating thing is this is my fourth year into this project as far as Indy Car goes. You know, we ran two very successful years in GTP racing and other kinds of racing with Toyota. Firehawk, I won a lot of races for them, and then outside of Toyota, you know, sprint cars, midgets, Indy Lights and all sorts of stuff. It's just, you know, waiting. So, I think the most frustrating thing is showing up at a racetrack, you see the younger guys like the Greg Moores, Adrian Fernandez competitive day in and day out running up front on the edge of running a race, I feel like, Man, even though it's my second year, I've been in the Indy Car project for four years, and we're still not competitive yet, you know, it's hard. But, you've got to be able to have faith in Toyota. I have 100 percent faith in the team and Dan. You know, I really enjoy being there, and, I mean, like it's a big family. I mean, one thing is there's a lot of teams out there right now winning races, but they're not happy in their situations. They're not happy with their team. They don't get along with their car owner. We don't have that. I think it makes it easier to hang on. It's hard -- don't get me wrong -- but, you know, hopefully we're looking around the corner for, you know, where we can dominate the series.

P.J. JONES: Well, thank you.

PARNELLI JONES: Yeah, I'm glad you asked, because Page is really doing well. We've got him back. He still has some physical problems, but he's doing -- he goes to therapy about three days a week. He's sharper than a tack mentally. He's really enjoyable to be around. He's getting better every day. It's just been very slow. You know, he probably will never race again, but, you know, he hasn't given up thinking that he might. He went out just the other day and ran on the fast track. He's been driving my golf cart with me once in awhile, and he's coming along. We really enjoy him. And his friends have not left him. They've certainly participated with him. Everybody comes and takes him different places and do a lot of activities with him and take him to miniature golf and stuff like that. And, we're really proud of where he's come. And, the big thing is we got him back, because we almost lost him.

P.J. JONES: Well, I think I'm glad to see that we're getting all these new racetracks. It's been a long time since we've seen racetracks being built, and all of a sudden, man, we've got -- they're popping up everywhere, and, you know, to be able to race in your home town, you know -- which I call all of L.A. Basin -- but your home area again, you know, twice a year I think is great. You know, and especially on an oval track. Last time I saw Fontana was exactly one year ago. But I've seen some pictures, and I know it's coming right along. And obviously, they're going to have a race here, what, June, the Cup Race, so I'm looking forward to having another racetrack like this in Southern California. We get to do the Long Beach Grand Prix at the beginning of the year and Fontana at the end of the year.

P.J. JONES: Okay. Well, going down the straightaway, I think we're about 180-plus. You slow it down in Turn 1 to probably about 60 miles an hour, which is a right-hander. Turn 2, probably a little slower, probably around 50. You accelerate up the short shoot between 2 and 3, and that would be probably about 80 miles an hour, 100 miles an hour, maybe. The right-hander is probably 40 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour turn. Accelerate right up to 70 or 80 miles an hour. You have the fast -- what is it, 4 or 5 -- 5, I think it is. Yeah, 4, I think it is, to about -- I would imagine it's right around about an 80-mile-an-hour turn. Very tricky kind of an off-camber corner. Accelerate down the back straightaway, probably 150, 160 miles an hour for a sweeping right which is probably right around an 80-mile-an-hour turn. Accelerating up to probably 100 for the sweeping left, which is probably down around 60, 70 miles an hour. And then, a hard on the brakes for the hairpin which has got to be the slowest part -- which is the slowest part of the track which is about 20 miles an hour, and then hard on the gas and then accelerating down.

P.J. JONES: Well, you know, I think -- you know, I think a lot of it was knowing how these guys race. A lot of the races, if we can just survive, you know, usually get close to getting some points. I found out that we are -- our team is very good in the rain. We pray for rain every weekend. It seems, too, you know, having less horsepower, it really helps us out trying to hook that car up. I think we do that really well. You know, I think we've got a lot more experience on the ovals. You know, we hadn't been racing on ovals for the past couple years. Due to GTP, you know, we got a lot of oval experience and, you know, just general, you know, learning the CART circuit. And, I've been running Indy Lights in '89, '90 and '91, so I've been on all the racetracks, but it was kind of like a refresher.

PARNELLI JONES: Gee, I don't know anything about that.

P.J. JONES: Where's Kankakee?

PARNELLI JONES: I think it was Boyd.

PARNELLI JONES: Yeah, I think it's Boyd that's involved in that deal.

PARNELLI JONES: Incidentally, P.J. said he hasn't been out on the Fontana track. I've been out there in the last month, and I want to tell you the track is absolutely gorgeous. They've done an absolutely great job out there. It's really a nice facility.

P.J. JONES: Definitely, you know. I think the majority of that was, you know, it was in our beginning stages and that was mostly in the midgets and stuff like that, and, you know, our biggest thing was our father was with Sleepy Tripp who was, you know, the midget star. And we started coming in and winning races and showing a presence, and, you know, he was the bully on the block, so we got in some good battles. We're all pretty good friends now. As a matter of fact, they come over quite often to see Page, so it's funny how it ended up. But we had some tough battles. I mean, it was hard, don't get me wrong. It was fights and suspensions and fines and, you know, being taken out of races and all sorts of things. And, you know, when you're trying to do the best job you can and trying to look toward the future and trying to make a name for yourself, it was pretty aggravating.

P.J. JONES: Sleepy Tripp.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, I think obviously, you know, I've always looked at, you know -- in fact, in all sports, you know, I think that the drivers, you know, you can teach somebody how to drive. You can't teach them the desire and the will to win. And, I think that the most successful drivers are those who have that desire and will to win. However, you know, there's nothing wrong with experience. And there's different personalities in drivers and, you know, there's drivers and there's those that are -- just know how to make a car finish, and, you know, you can't win unless you finish. And there's talented drivers in that way, and there's other charger-type drivers, that, you know, wind up tearing the car up and so on and so forth with their desire. But, I think it's all in individuals. And, you know, the main thing is if you really have the desire and what it takes to be a winner and stuff like that, it's just a matter of getting as much experience and really knowing how to win. And, it's just like, I know, you know, a lot of -- for an example, go back to Al Unser, Sr., and even Page, I mean, it took him a long time to win the first race, and once they win the first race, they become unbeatable. And it's just that self-confidence that they have to build in themselves, and you have to do that by running a lot of races.

P.J. JONES: Yeah, I think so. You know, I think that, you know, I mean, we understood what racing was all about before we really got into -- really got into it. I mean, we were raised around it and knew the people and, you know, knew that, you know, anything we did wrong would get back to our dad, something like that, he would probably kick our butts. So, yeah, I think we had a lot of respect for racing and the people involved in it.

PARNELLI JONES: Well, I don't know. I mean, I look at it today and say, Gee, I'm kind of glad I raced when I did. You know, it's so sophisticated now. I mean, with all the electronics on the race cars and everything else, you know, and there's so much in the engineering and, you know, the engineering -- engineers are very, very much a part of the cars now. You know, they're into aerodynamics, and they're into all the electronics and things like that that we were not so much into, but, you know, they play such a great part. I don't think it would be as enjoyable to be a race driver today as it was in my day. Mainly because -- because the engineering plays such a great part and electronics. But, it all boils down to usually in most cases, the best drivers warrant the best rides and the best opportunities.

T.E. McHALE: I'm going to step out of character for just a minute, and I'm going to ask P.J. a question. Can you give us an update on the situation with the Eagle chassis? I know you guys are using a Reynard right now, and there were plans to get back to the Eagle. Can you tell us where that stands.

P.J. JONES: Yeah, we have built a '97 Eagle car and it rolled out of the car factory -- I don't know -- four weeks ago, a month ago, and its simulations and tests -- we haven't actually run on the racetrack, but aerodynamic tests, we still don't feel it's going to be quite competitive. We're in the process right now of building -- don't know what they're going to call it '97-1/2 Eagle which is a lot -- I think will be a lot closer to the '97 Reynard as far as speed and downforce and all that, and I think, you know, it's kind of in phases. We built one car was quite a ways off the mark. The car we just rolled out I think was a big gain, and I think this next car is -- might be the car that kind of puts us to where we can race it and be competitive with everybody else. I think the advantage really is we need to learn, we need to teach our people and let our people learn about this, you know, building Indy Cars. We're very successful in building other kinds of cars and kind of take a few times before we get it right. But, I have all the confidence in the world in our people doing it. We have a great group of engineers and people, and all the people at the factory do a great job for us. So, we're going to get it. It will be just a matter of time I think before we're winning races in the Eagle chassis.