CART MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 3, 2001

Jimmy Vasser

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah. Just a little fitness, relaxation, a little mix, a little personal.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, everybody is ready to go again. We've got another small break after Long Beach. I think there's three weeks off.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah.

JIMMY VASSER: I wouldn't say much. I don't think it would be much of a predictor. But I think the same kind of cars are going to run -- a lot of guys can run up front, but you'll see a lot of familiar faces running good at times. It's a whole different tire. They're different circuits, but they brought a road course tire, and we're going to run the street circuit tire at Long Beach. That's the biggest difference. And the car setups probably won't be similar because of the different tires, so we encountered some differences in our setup when we were testing in the Winners season between the road course and the circuit tire, and I'm happy to get back on that tire. We tested it with the street circuit tire, and I think with the car that Patrick Racing had at Long Beach, I think we're in a good position to run up front this weekend.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah. It's always been a party atmosphere in Long Beach, one of the better ones all year. And everybody was happy with the turnout in Monterrey and the festivities. I think it was a great success.

JIMMY VASSER: Well, it won't affect us this year. It won't really affect us next year. And it's my understanding CART really hasn't announced their engine package for the future, so I think the planets and the moons and the stars, they're all lining up for maybe some potential good things to happen there. I've got my fingers crossed.

JIMMY VASSER: I'll answer the first part of your question. I think it's tradition at Long Beach. The race has been there for so long, and there's great race fans in Southern California. That's really kind of the epicenter of the love of the automobile is California, and hot rodding and all that kind of car enthusiasts atmosphere. We have similar great crowds at Fontana. So I think it's been the history of the race. And as far as how that affects the drivers, it just creates a great energy. You can feel the energy when you get enthusiastic people and a big crowd and a party atmosphere. People are anticipating the race and another beer, I guess, but it just creates an energy, and the drivers feel it. And as we can feel the lack of it, energy and empty stands, i.e., Michigan. So you have good times with that energy, and sometimes bad.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, the obvious thing, it's not going to affect us this year, and/or next year, so I think with -- and also we're waiting for CART's announcement on their engine package for the future. So I think that from a driver's standpoint, I think that it's becoming more and more possible to try to align some rules, for instance, with the engine, which could potentially open up the doors for more CART teams to participate at the Indianapolis 500 in the future. And I think that would be great. As a driver I'd like to get back there as many times as I could before I retire, and I'm sure other drivers in the CART FedEx Championship series feel the same way.

JIMMY VASSER: No, I don't really have an opinion on that. I can speculate and make all kinds of crazy stories up, and potentialities, so I think that Toyota's support of CART up to this point and for the next few years has been fantastic, and so I wouldn't really be in a position to try to analyze that in a negative light.

JIMMY VASSER: Absolutely, Toyota has made some great strides over the last couple of years in my the progression over the last few years. They won the first race. They're on top, there's no doubt about it.

JIMMY VASSER: You know what, I can't really speak for Mr. Patrick or Jim McGee that runs the team. I think there's some sort of interest, sure, if things work out. But right now we're focused on -- and I'm not really in discussions that far out with the team -- we're focused on this season right now with Long Beach and trying to get as pumped up with our car for this season. I wish we could be making plans right now for 2003, but to be honest with you, we're not.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, we've been tossing around some ideas about qualifying, and actually I was more energized in those talks last year, when we were two sessions and it had to do with the previous weekend's qualifying, if you got in the slow session or the fast session. And it just didn't really spark much change. I think the owners changed. Instead of from the previous weekend's qualifying, you're doing it from the points, which I thought was cool because it promotes finishing races. To be honest with you, I think there's been talk about that for a long time, but the way that things like that get changed, they have to move through the board, and you have to have a meeting, I don't know when their next meeting is, and it needs a unanimous type vote. I think what you see is what you're going to get all season long.

JIMMY VASSER: Well, I mean it could. Usually rubber is always going down. Fast group, slow group, that's been the case for years. It's no different now. But you've seen guys run good out of the slow groups and the fast. But with regards to Long Beach, it's probably not a huge deal, but it definitely is an advantage to be in the fast group. And the slow group -- now you won't get such a slow group, fast group thing. You're going to get a guy that didn't finish in the points, it will be more of a mix now, so it should be more interesting.

JIMMY VASSER: Fantastic. We tested well on the street circuit tire. Patrick Racing ran well last year, so did I at Long Beach, and I think we're well positioned to run up front. Having said that, I'm not over confident or I'm not expecting anything. You always have to have your eyes open and expect the worst, so you can react quick.

JIMMY VASSER: On Roberto?

JIMMY VASSER: He is a big practical joker, so I'm afraid to start throwing the first bombs. I could tell retaliation with him might be far worse than I could ever muster up myself.

JIMMY VASSER: That was great to see. I think -- I'm not surprised at all. It's just a matter of time before he finds his feet over there and is winning races, and I think it won't be too long, too many seasons before we see a world championship from him. He's really a special talent.

JIMMY VASSER: I certainly hope so. That's why I'm here.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, absolutely. It was an easy transition; slid right in. They're a professional outfit, and they have a very calm demeanor, and just -- like I had been there for a few years already. So it's going good. Their philosophy is similar to mine. You have to finish races and get points. And we'll be in a position to win races, and we won't want to fumble the ball then. I don't think it's either Patrick Racing's or my style of racing to try to force anything. When you try to force things, you might get away with it once in a while, but more often than not you're going to end up in the tires. I think you're going to see good things out of us this year.

JIMMY VASSER: You mean in that three-week hole?

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, certainly, I love going to Brazil and racing there. If they're able to put things together and CART said, hey, there's going to be a race, absolutely. Everybody would be willing to go, and we'd go and make it happen. But to be honest with you, I think the decision has already been made. Because it's such a big undertaking, you can't just -- it's my opinion, as much as I'd love to see Emerson pull it off or them to do it. I don't think it's really logistically possible to throw it in there somewhere and say we're going. I find that hard to believe. I think they made announcement and decision not to go.

JIMMY VASSER: I bought that at an antique store. It's an old Firestone bicycle.

JIMMY VASSER: I think the track will be similar. Everybody is in the same boat. The way the schedule is now we have more practice on Friday than we've had in the past, and more track time. I think that the important thing is that everybody is on the same playing field. Everybody is similar time, and I think that really won't be an indicator, what's going to happen on the weekend.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, it gives them more time to organize, catch up. Some teams were thrown together late, and still scrambling together in Mexico to get things together. And one team is the Fernandez team. And the extra time would allow them to catch a deep breath and be more organized for the rest of the season.

JIMMY VASSER: Well, maybe in a very general sense to the whole driver group, not to me personally. I think he has some high ambitions and a lot of great ideas that are going to take a little time to implement. It's not going to happen overnight. I think he's got some good vision, and it's going to take a matter of a little time to see how that plays out.

JIMMY VASSER: I could, but to be honest with you, I don't really want to make my views in matters of marketing of which I really don't have any say or any input, I really can't guide it. For me, personally, I don't find it necessary for me to publicly announce my views on stuff like that.

JIMMY VASSER: The difference is the power. The IRL car has quite a bit less power and throttle response. The Champ car is really -- it's almost like a beast compared to the IRL car. The IRL car feels like a Indy's light would as far as acceleration and power, and that's the biggest difference. But from behind the wheel, once you get acclimated to the ergonomics in the cockpit and the lack of power, which really only takes a few laps to get used to, then you're just driving the car around the track, trying to squeeze out -- you have to remember, we pretty much only drove the car at Indianapolis. Then you're trying to extricate all the speed out of it. From that point there's a lot more similarities than differences between the Champ car and the IRL car. So I think once you get over those few power deficiencies, you're rely really dealing with the same parameters, similar handling and setup changes along those lines.

JIMMY VASSER: Yeah, that's about it. It's certainly not a week thing. You can get used to the car in a couple of days, or a couple of test days, if everything is going right, and half of a day, and then you're focused on dealing with that car and dealing with the idiosyncrasies of that chassis. And like I said, there's a lot more similarities between the two than there are differences in the setup and so forth, but the engine formula is the biggest difference in the two series.

JIMMY VASSER: Again, Rick, I think that certainly the atmosphere at the street races is working for CART. I think CART seems to fit there. However, we've had some great energy at oval races like Chicago. And I think that they need to be promoted. Street races kind of promote themselves. You throw up barriers downtown, and people know when it's coming to town, you see things going on in the cities. And the setup of the race promotes itself, and it's a party atmosphere. Then it has some history, like Toronto and Long Beach and so forth. But I think that -- here I go, I'm going to give you an opinion -- the oval races we have aren't promoted. And when they did promote them; they were successful. I don't know where you put the blame, on the promoter or CART or both, or together they need to promote -- if you promote a tricycle race good enough, people are going to come and watch. That's just my view.

JIMMY VASSER: Well, the reason I think I really believe that we were able to adapt quickly and meld together quickly is the people at Patrick Racing; they're a great, easygoing group of people. And I've said this before, I think that comes from Pat and Jim McGee, and that's just the way they are. They've been in the business a long time. They're professionals and the group is very relaxed. They don't make people feel uneasy in their position. They let them do their job, and they're professionals, and they're a good race team, second and third in the championship last year. You have to say the best team in CART as a whole, with the two cars up front. So they're very relaxed, they're very calm, and you've got to give credit where credit is due. And that comes from management. If a team is in disarray and confusion, I don't think you blame the guys either. You have to go to management. In this case I think you give the credit to the management and to the ownership.

JIMMY VASSER: I never knew him very well. I always had a view of him as a very serious, very stoic, very stern. And that was just my opinion from first opinions from years ago. And I hadn't really known him that well. And come to find out he's got one of the most wonderful dry senses of humor you've ever seen. He's very warm. I had the completely opposite opinion of him, and he's a very funny and very good guy to be around and interesting to hang out and chat with him.

JIMMY VASSER: 750, I think that's probably -- I mean that's about what they're going to get out of them, I think. Right now we're probably upwards of 890, 900. If they could get somewhere around 750, 775 out of them, it would bring it down a bit with funky aerodynamic changes, and two, I think it would -- it would make things a little closer. I think that the IRL engine, at least the one I drove, for us in road course configuration, and throughout the season it's just not enough horsepower, so I think that 750 is probably the right area.